I always knew I was different. Everyone in my town looks the same to me; hair the colour of bark, lean, toned bodies, and even though their specific facial features may differ they all hold a faint smile that never fades. I don't believe that smile. It feels like a trick of light, but when I blink the smile remains. They all greet each other with bland joy and, like an army of ants, seem only motivated by some instinct that I somehow lack. They give speeches about how we should all be motivated by love, kindness and altruism, but when I ask them why I am immediately reprimanded. Any questions are punishable by gross means. I got two hours in the Carrion Tower for asking questions about why I should behave in the way they preach, hands and feet chained to the wall while vultures stared at me as though they were waiting to feast off of my dying flesh. I have only asked a question twice and I must have set the example, because nobody else has been stuck in there. Now I just copy the face smile and pacifism that everyone else seems to thrive off, but every time I look in the mirror, I whisper to the broken boy I see, "This is not the place for you. Run".
My town is called Lockwood. I know it is one of the smaller towns in Braken from class, as it only houses approximately two thousand people. Like most towns and cities in Braken, we are made up mostly of children under seventeen, our teachers, and the handful of blond enforcers. Braken is the largest of the five continents and its main trades are education and fishing. Since humans left the old world and settled on the fruitful planet of Valdar, the technology boom has allowed the enforcers to kept specific control over the eugenics of the entire population. Every baby born on Valdar is sent to Braken to be educated, so the other continent's all have populations above the age of seventeen.
I hate the Enforcers that make all of us with brown hair shut up and listen. They waltz around with their startlingly blond hair like they own the place, and in a sense, they do. Enforcers all wear the same, sky blue uniform, but strangely those of us from Braken do not. Maybe the dull expressions are Lockwood's uniform. I don't understand why nobody else hates them as much as me. I don't think my classmates even notice how they invade our lives and shout out rules. Enforcers seem to be exempt from the ignorance the rest of the town is subjected to. They seem to laugh with each other and make friends, so they must have some semblance of sanity. It sickens me, but I am more like them than I care to admit. I can't pinpoint the reason why, because I feel almost as distant from them as I do from the town folk, but they laugh, jeer or even yell, I understand why.
The Enforcers answer to one person, our great and merciful Seer. When I was a little child they taught us a song about him, that we would often sing before bed as a musical prayer:
When it's warm he covers up the earth
When it's cold he makes the sun appear
When it's dark he builds a light for all
Our great and merciful Seer
We are taught of his magnificence, his benevolence, his radiance. History lessons are filled with stories of how he defended Valdar during a war called the Sky Invasion, when inhabitants of another solar system tried to claim Valdar as their own. He alone has the goodness, kindness and intelligence to preside over the world. These are the only classes I pay attention to, because I have some sick fascination with the man who pulls the strings. I know a lot about the Seer, even though I have never even seen a picture of him. I wouldn't say I revere him, but I have been told of his pursuits in science and of his long list of achievements so I have a strange affinity towards him. Maybe the thing that fascinates me is that he has a name for himself. He is his own individual person and nobody else can be compared to him. He doesn't blend in with the world I know, he doesn't have to be around the people I do. I envy his mysterious isolation.
Every Friday we have a Sorting. The children who turned seventeen that week are subdued to genetic tests by the enforcers from the sky-bound continent of Cyorrn. I don't understand the tests, but they look at something in our genomes to see what genes we possess and sort us onto different continents to increase genetic variation. At the same time, we will be assigned a profession on that continent, due to a combination of school examinations and genetic abilities. But how can we be separated based on difference when we are all seem the same? I sometimes wonder how those kids have different genomes when they all have that blank stare and faint smile. It is so hard to see the differently shared noses and multicolored eyes and the shades of skin when the all have the exact same expression. When we are sorted we are injected with a virus that changes the colour of our hair to represent the genetic pool you are able to reproduce with in order to maintain genetic variation, but it also shows which continent we belong to. Bark brown hair for Braken, Black for the scorching heat of Fyremir, Light chestnut for the vast forests of Melahien, pale blond for the biting cold of Halentale and golden yellow for the highest of high in the clouds of Cyorrn. Cyorrn iss the power of the world, where our merciful Seer reaches out his hand across the fields of his realm, keeping all in balance. Cyorrn is where out Enforcers come from.
To keep order, our Great and Merciful Seer categorizes us into countries and gene pools, but occasionally somebody won't fit into the carefully assigned genepools. These people are Marked. Their DNA is manipulated so their hair is a bright crimson. I don't understand why a certain genome would affect the established Eugenics so much, but we are told they are genetically inferior and will bring down the established order of the world. Apparently they have genes that cause them to be prone to violence, sickness and weakness, so they are detrimental to society. We are taught to spit at them, to cage them, watch them like animals. We would have to walk past those Marked in cages in the human zoo at the start of every week, just to be reminded of our own privilege and taught of all their flaws. They are useless to the world, abominations from the other side of darkness. We cannot tolerate what was not meant to be in this world. Parasites have no place here.. In all honesty, I do not know why they aren't killed at sorting, but the Seer must have some reason for it.
Today I am to be sorted.
One by one, those of us who have finally reached adulthood ascend the daunting steps to the stage that is spread out in front of the crowd like gallows. There are three of us today. I am last. The first boy walks slowly to the stage, an aggravatingly plastic smile on his face, hardly aware of the significance of this day. He just stands there, watching, waiting, as an Enforcer from Cyorrn with her sunshine bright hair and red lips draws his blood for testing. He stares over the small crowd, waiting, waiting as she analyses the blood in a contraption like a clock in a brief case. She then chooses the right enhancer virus and injects it into his arms. It happens within seconds. His hair turns a brilliant raven, and without a blink he walks off to the right to be told instructions of his removal to Fyramir.
The second girl goes through the same process, only to skip the enhancement and retain her brown hair. She is to stay in Braken, to educate the uneducated. How does one educate when they know nothing, I wonder? Only the Seer knows.
It is my turn. Slowly I drag my feet up the stairs as they scream out a cry against my weight, begging me to stop. A vulture circles above, giving me a silent warning that I cannot turn and flee, or he will meet me later in the tower to discuss my misbehaviour with a peak at my exposed flesh. I have learned the face of the masses, the steel smile, the hazey eyes, and I adopt this face as the yellow-haired woman siphons my blood. I do not look away from the circling vulture, daring it to attack m, as she pushes some buttons to find out where I shall be placed. Another vulture joins the first, laughing at me. Time stretches out like the horizon. What should be a minute seemed like five, and then ten. Still I stood with my carefully constructed face, waiting, waiting...
The woman is back. She holds the syringe in her hand, flicks the end, and injects. I close my eyes to wait for the transformation, but open them again as I hear a bitter gasp from the crowd below. One spits, another hurls a stone, and an enforcer leaps onto the stage to drag me off.
"You have one more day in your own room," He says, "And then it is the Zoo for you".
Today was the day I was sorted. Today was the day I was Marked.