My breathing stopped. The gun was pressed to my head tightly, burrowing into my scalp. I tried to breathe. One, two…The gun was pressed in harder. Three, four…I should've stayed outside the fence. Five, six…what was I thinking? Seven, eight...I'm going to die, I'm going to die. Nine, ten…I waited for the bullet. The one item to end my life forever. I always thought I'd die from heart disease or something, but nope. A bullet.
"Would you get it over with, please?" I croaked after a moment, still counting lightly in my head. But the cold eyes continued to stare.
"I don't think she's kidding guys," one of the people behind me said, "I think she's telling the truth." I was telling the truth. I was, I was.
"What, you want us to think that she voluntarily came into this place? We can't get out, forget coming in!"
"Fine. Prove it," the boy said, his lips curling, "Prove it."
(insert three dashes)
BEFORE
The sun was beaming onto me, causing the red strands of mine to reflect different colors; gold, auburn, blonde, brown. My feet crosslegged against the grass, and I let my hands weave across the green prickles as I watched in front of me. It was just a fence – nothing spectacular – but there was something about it.
"Still out here?" A voice called. I turned my head sharply, and smiled. Only a third of a mile away from me, a lanky boy with wavy brown hair bolted toward me.
"Don't make fun of me," I chortled, when he slapped down next to me, "I just like watching it, is all." He smirked, biting into an apple that he had hidden in his palms.
"You like watching a fence? You do know that it never changes right?" He asked. I made a face at him.
"Actually, the guards left," I countered, "Not sure why, but they left." He rolled his eyes.
"Alright, so they abandoned the extra toxic facility so that they don't all get chronic cancer, so what?" He said. "I mean, it's nothing fancy." I tilted my head at the fence, shaking my head.
"People are protecting it. Why? What's back there that they want to hide so bad? I was looking at a map today and realized that most of Illinois is cut off. Why is that, Cory? I think it's because of this. And I don't think it's some stupid toxic place either. They wouldn't take up that much space." That's what they always said. Hush, quit talking about the fence Lily, it's just a fence that was created to separate the toxic factories. But that wasn't true. We would be able to smell it, to see the smoke.
"You know, I'm not trying to be mean Lily," Cory said, sighing, "But maybe you should, you know…get a new hobby."
"Get a new hobby?"
"Yeah, like a life or something," he said, taking a bite out of his apple, "I mean, it's not that bad to get a life." I rolled my eyes.
"Yeah, cause you got such a big life," I said sarcastically.
"Maybe my life isn't that productive, but at least I don't stare at a stupid fence," he said back. I jumped to my feet.
"Fine, I won't stare at it anymore," I said. He let out a breath of relief, smiling.
"Alright, let's-"
"Let's jump it." He froze, his apple halfway to his mouth.
"What?"
"You heard me, let's jump it," I repeated, "I mean, the guards are gone, and you said it was nothing, so why not jump it?" His lips pressed together firmly.
"You don't know what's behind there," he warned, "It can be something bad."
"What are you?" I said, my fingers touching the fence, "A wuss?" Redness rose on his face.
"No," he said, and I started to climb it.
"Then come on!" I felt myself hop over, and that was the moment my entire life changed. Just hopping over a fence like nothing mattered. If I knew that I'd just landed in a dystopia – a world worse than my own – I would have stopped myself. But I didn't.