Preface
I am running, I can't tell whether I am running from or toward something.
I just know that I am running.
It is so dark here, so lonely. Like I am the only one left in the world. The only one alive.
Night turns to day as I run towards the sunrise. Its rays protruding barely inches above the high walls that encase, that encage the city.
Those rays are the only colour in the grey world that suffocates me. Buildings, roads, vehicles, clothing, people: people with out faces.
All grey, all dead, all emotionless.
Blank faces and dead eyes stare at me. Their owners raise their hands and point. I look behind me to see what they are pointing at, only to see more dead faces and pointing fingers.
And I realize, as I spin around in circles, that they are pointing at me and that I am trapped,
My heart beats in my ears, so loud that I am afraid they hear.
Afraid they know that I am afraid
Afraid they know that I am not like them.
My face is not blank, my eyes are not dead and I feel; I feel afraid.
I bolt into an upright position as I wake with a start.
Sweat covers me as if I had really been running.
But I hadn't. It was just a dream. A nightmare.
The year is 2042 and my name is Bella Swan. I live in the Realm of Libria in an apartment, in a building full of apartments that look exactly the same. The only difference between me and the rest of the world is that I am awake and I am immune.
After a Third World War devastated the Earth, the Tetragrammaton Council emerged whose ideology determined human emotion to be the root cause of conflict. All emotionally stimulating material is banned and "sense offenders" are ruthlessly persecuted. Illegal materials are rated "EC-10" for "emotional content" and destroyed by immediate incineration. All citizens of Libria are required to take regular injections of the emotion-suppressing drug Prozium.
I am immune.