Westcad is the name of this world I've grown up in for the entire 18 years I've been alive. Westcad has four mainlands; three of them known as The Great North, Coastal County, and The Mountain Ranges. The mainland my town resides in is called The Prairies, the most agriculturally diverse out of all four of the mainlands. According to Westcad's annually published encyclopedia, 75% of Westcad's food supply is grown and cultivated in The Prairies.
The Prairies isn't just flat land. It consists of forests, ravines, and other diverse vegetation that we Prairie-raised "Westcadets" are responsible for. We call it The Prairies because despite all of this edible foliage, the land itself is fairly flat.
This prairie town is known Geoffrey-Campbell, but everyone calls it GeoCam (pronounced "J-Cam") for short.
The tiny room of the town hall was packed to the top of its shingles. People crushing into one another like sardines in a tin can. It was almost claustrophobic. I had some room that I could stand with my arms by my side without someone touching me, but I knew that elbowroom was sacred when even one person budged from their space.
The only thing in my line of vision was the podium with our dignified mayor named Reginald "Reggie" Strom standing behind ruffling his papers. Reggie had called this town meetings multiple times in advance and judging by the number of times he has posted numerous flyers advertising the event, we townsfolk figured it was something of importance.
After everyone had settled down, our mayor finally spoke:
"Good evening everyone. As you all know, the town's festival is coming up in two weeks time. Representatives from the businesses of the big cities are going to be showing up here to assess our local businesses here. Prairie City, Wheaton, and Farmer's Central, as all of you know, the three biggest cities in all of The Prairies."
Every summer, the towns of The Prairies play host to the capitals of The Prairies to negotiate deals with the local businesses in each town. That's how many of these small towns are still around because the capitals buy their products and sell them to the residents in the cities.
However, with many people moving to the capitals due to work and school, it puts the towns at risk of desertion, a scary thought especially for the old timers. That's the last thing most of them want to see is their hometown die before they do. So far, GeoCam is a survivor.
My name is Skye. Like I've said before, I've been alive for 18 years now, all of which have been spent growing up within the town limits of GeoCam. Sure, every odd summer my family would spend a week or two in the capitals, but the other 50 weeks were spend here. I'm in my final year of senior prep school at the GeoCam Prairie Academy. My graduating class isn't very big. There are only 20 of us in total.
I am only going to be talking about two of them; two boys named Alex Volant and Connor Bellamy.