2069

It's been sixteen years since they announced the end of the world as we know it. And yet my mother still can't make a decent fucking meatloaf.

I put my fork down on the table and glanced at my mother who was intently reading the Sunday newspaper.

"Resistance Leader Found and Hanged" the headline read. On the cover was a picture of a blond woman. She wore a white dress, and her hands were cuffed in front of her while the muzzle around her mouth looked like it was leaving bruises. A watchman held her arm tightly, as they got out of the police van.

I scoffed, looking away, not being able to bear the sight of it anymore, and instead, I looked down at my plate that held the godforsaken trash pie my mom called, "meatloaf".

"This meatloaf tastes like shit," I said, pushing the plate of food away from me.

"Then don't eat it," she responded, taking a sip of her coffee. I sighed, thinking about our argument earlier. They'd become a regular thing now. And it was always about the same thing.

"It's nighttime, mom," I said to her, hoping she'd get the hint.

"Mhm," she responded, not paying any attention to me.

I sighed again, picking up the fork and twirling it around my plate, cutting the meatloaf into small shapes.

"The watchmen go home in five minutes," I said

"Don't start," she said. She put the newspaper down and got up from her seat to put her cup in the kitchen.

"Why can't you just let me go outside, mom? You'll be with me, we can stay out of sight and-"

"Just stop, Violet! I can't keep fucking doing this with you! You turn seventeen and you think you know everything, huh? Well, what happens when you go outside, and they catch you? Not only will they kill you, they'll come for me and everyone else we know! I mean, what don't you understand?" she yelled at me as she shoved the dishes into the sink. Why was she being so difficult? All I needed was the code to the lockbox.

"If dad was here, he'd let me go outside," I muttered to myself, tears burning my eyes as the mention of my father made my heart twist.

"No Violet, he wouldn't, because your father died to save you," she responded.

My heart dropped to my stomach. Why would she say it like that?

"So you're saying it's my fault, huh?" I responded

"No, I just-" she stopped talking and wiped the tear that had escaped her eye. She took a deep breath.

"I want you to stop bringing your father into every argument we have. You didn't know him, Violet, and I wish you had because you'd know how hard he fought to keep us safe, and you wouldn't be acting this way now," she said.

You could tell she was trying her hardest not to break out in tears. With my mom it was always either; she was crying over him uncontrollably, or not acknowledging his death at all. The fact that I didn't, made her upset.

I shook my head as I looked at the floor, my brown curls falling around my tear-stained cheeks.

"The answer is no, Violet," she said. She turned around and started to wash her dish. I stormed upstairs to my room and slammed the door.

As I laid on my bed I thought about the newspaper headline and remembered the name of the man who wrote it. Gavin Andrews. His articles always seemed to make the front cover. My mom used to tell me that before I was born, her friend, Erin's articles used to make the front cover. Before they murdered her.

My mom would also tell me stories about how everything happened. How the world completely changed and how that change killed my father.

16 years ago in April of 2053, a bunch of assholes sat around a large table, probably in some obnoxiously large building, and decided that men were superior to women in every way possible, and should be the only ones on earth. My mom told me it happened in waves. First, they stripped them of all of their rights. None of the 27 amendments applied to women anymore. Women were beaten, murdered, and raped by angry men who craved control. But, when they started to fight back, they realized it wasn't enough.

"They started with the old women,"

My mom told me. They sent people from the government to inject them with a serum that shutdown their organs, killing them in under five minutes. Next, they moved on to all the newborn baby girls. They didn't kill them, though. They were sent to heavily guarded women's camps along with the middle-aged women, the barren women, and the teenage girls. A few days after all of this started, my mom found out she was pregnant with me. She was 23, and she and my father had just moved here from Ohio for college, and then everything turned to shit. Any men or women who opposed the new constitution or tried to resist in any way were immediately hanged.

They raided every home, dragging women and children out, tearing them away from each other and sending them to camps they called Edens. Despite the name, an Eden was not a place you wanted to be. They were heavily guarded concentration camps where women were forced to farm and do all the heavy lifting while the men sat back and did nothing. In other words, modern slavery.

Women who were pregnant were sent to private nursing facilities run by men where they made sure all girls that were born were sent to the closest Edens. Now, women between the ages of 20-36 were allowed to stay alive, but were forced to get a tracking implant placed in their neck, a few centimeters from they're spine, that way, if they tried to take it out, they'd paralyze themselves. The implant pings your location every 5 seconds. If the implant detects you trying to leave town, it releases that same serum into your bloodstream, killing you instantly. My mom still has the scar.

Anyways, the women that were kept alive were broken up into groups and forced to do the jobs that men couldn't. Or didn't want to do. If you were lucky, like my mom, you got to become a nurse, or a teacher. If you weren't, you became a breeder. I don't think I have to go into much detail about that.

Despite everything, there were still people determined to change things. These people were called Judes. And the Resistance was led by them. They were women and men who helped women safely remove implants and escape. If you needed help, you had to know how to find them. Once they were caught, they were publicly flogged and hanged as a warning to any and all women who thought about getting help from them.

Ever since everything started, my mother has been determined to keep me hidden. If I'm found, they'll kill my mother and send me to an Eden or make me become a breeder. Or worse.

So, here I am, locked in this fucking house with boarded-up windows like Rapunzel. Except if I leave, I won't meet a hot guy who'll take me to see floating lights. I'll die. So, when my mom leaves every morning for work, I read books and watch old rom-com DVDs my mom's had since before I was born to pass the time. I look out of my bedroom window through the crack of the boards and at the tops of neighbors' houses. On a good day, I'll see a bird passing by, or hear a dog barking in the distance. But, as far as seeing what's outside, I have to leave it up to my imagination and try to visualize the stuff that's in the movies I watch.

And when I sleep I have dreams about leaving, and somehow everything is okay and back to the way things were.