"Halt! In the name of the Overlord!" Alicia looked back at the heavily armed soldier who chased and called out to her, and ran faster down the dark alley. As she rounded the corner, she ducked into an abandoned building that she had used many times before. The footsteps passed her and gradually faded away into the darkness, and she let out a breath she had been holding. This wasn't the first time she had been hunted by the Special Police. Far from it. Unlike the other children in the city of Gasandle, she and hundreds of others with physical and mental problems were outcasts, and, in the eyes of the Overlords, worth absolutely nothing.
The Overlords came to the city about 2 years ago. At first, they seemed like normal tourists, taking pictures of the city, inquiring about the city's foundation, military status, population, and other seemingly harmless things. After they left, everything continued as normal. Then, two weeks later, they came back, only this time with an army and strange technology. After systematically shooting the people of the Government, they called an assembly, which everyone was forced to attend. Then they brought out a list of the names of everyone in the town, and started to call four people to the stage: a man, a woman, a boy and a girl whose only thing in common was their looks. Everybody looked on as they were herded to a chamber behind the stage. Then, about ten minutes later they emerged, looking exactly the same…except that they didn't looked panicky, or even afraid. They looked…strangly happy, and content. Then the largest Overlord announced, "This is a perfect Family Unit. Two perfectly normal Parents, and two perfectly normal Offspring." We all stared as the four people, all perfect strangers before, acted like they'd known each other their whole lives; or like they were a family.
That day, all of the original families were spilt up and grouped with others that shared the same features, or the same characteristics. They were all taken into the back room and brainwashed into thinking that they were family. As Alicia watched with horrified eyes, her parents were chosen and towed towards the stage. As one overlord reached for her next, she frantically tried to use sign language to ward him or her off. "Well," the Overlord chuckled, "You're a mute, aren't you?" Alicia warily nodded. "Ok then… Take her to the room with the other Defects!" the Overlord shouted. As they pushed and shoved her to another room, she watched as her parents and two children stepped down from the stage, a vacant expression on their faces.
As she was shoved into a crowded room she looked around and saw lots of children, older and younger than herself, with one thing in common: They were all disabled in some way. Some were paralyzed, or had missing limbs, or some were retarded and cried silently in a corner. Just then a voice echoed through the loud speaker: "Defects! You are not fit to live in a family unit, so you will provide us with sport. You will have five hours to hide, and then you will be hunted! Those who survive the first round will be given four hours to hide, and so on. Do not try to hide with a family unit, as they are programmed to turn you in directly to Us! Your five hours begins…NOW!!!" A door opened and they all rushed out into the blinking sunlight.
Now, as Alicia thought back on that time two months ago, she wondered how she survived. The Overlords had brought an entire army with them, and many of the Defects were killed within the first of second hour. The only way she got away was by using an old hideaway she and her best friend made when they were kids. As she peeked out, she had watched as that same friend was slaughtered before he could reach the hideout.
After she regained her breath, Alicia walked along the alley and stopped in front of a lighted window. As she peered in, she gazed hungrily at the food on the dinner table. While it looked like something out of a magazine, it probably tasted horrible, given that new family units had had their taste buds removed, and didn't care what it tasted like. But even more than she wanted food, she wanted to see the people about to eat it. As they sat down to dinner, she looked into faces that she had known her whole life: the faces of her parents, now part of a perfect family unit that was no better than a group of zombies. "And this is what the Overlords call a 'Perfect World'," Alicia thought. From the outside, the city did look perfect; a world where there were no problems, and where charming families living wonderful lives. But from the inside, it was a completely different story. Every night there were fresh hunts for the remaining "Defects", and every morning the cleaning crew came in to burn the dead bodies that littered the sidewalks.
As the morning of the next day approached, she woke to a loudspeaker blaring out the usually message: "Defects, you have 3 hours to hide…" Alicia tuned out the rest of the message as she heard another sound: the screech of tanks against pavement. As she sat up, she heard threats muttered into the air, and the sound of a gun going off. Again a voice blared from the loudspeaker: "This is the U.S. Army Reserve, unit 8824. We have arrested the Overlords. You may come out of hiding. We will take shelter you until we can pair you with your biological parents, or find you new parents." Alicia and all the other surviving Defects slowly emerged from their hiding spots to stare at the military officers that lined the streets with sympathetic looks on their faces. A flicker of motion caught her eye: the perfect Family Units were being herded away, probably for extensive treatment. As the broken and battered children stumbled into large vans, Alicia looked back at the city that had been her entire life, and saw a past that she never wished to see again