Strange World
Chapter One
Right when the sunlight shines into your bedroom, you have to wake up. The first thing that you do when you're awake is toss back your blankets, spin around until you're sitting on your bed, slip your feet into your slippers, and then you make your bed. The next thing that you do is go into the bathroom, brush or comb your hair, brush your teeth three times, really well, and then go back into your room to grab a pair of your many uniforms, that all look the same. Right when you put it on, you go into the kitchen. If you're a child under the age of seventeen, you sit at the table while the females above seventeen cook breakfast.
This is our normal, every day, absolutely "perfect" day starts. Every day is perfect and must be perfect. If you say that it's not, you get in deep trouble with the High Elders. Secretly, I believe everyone calls them the "Crack" Elders. They have video cameras set in every room of every house, in the streets, in every building, and in every park. Every house looked the same, had the same rules, wore just about the same outfits, walked the same, talked the same, and even responded just about the same.
Every family had a grown male and female. Every family had a male and female child. The grown adults wear their assigned work uniforms. If not in uniform, the males wear the same blue colored pajama top and bottom to bed. The same thing for females, but they had to wear pink pajamas of the same design. The same rules applied to children, except every age group had a different type of outfit.
Age works exactly like this: January first, of every year, you add a year to your age. You do not grow a year older on the day of your birth, because your birth year will not even be recorded in records. Your own parents will not even know your birthday, nor will they be your birth parents. You will never be able to meet your birth parents, either. Every time that we have a trouble maker child, mostly females being watched, they become a Birth Mother. The will give birth but their babies will be taken away from them immediately, and the Birth Mother will never see their born children.
There are thirteen different colored uniforms that both genders will wear, but males will have pants, where as females will have skirts. The pants and skirt rule also applies to the grown adults. You do not get to choose your job. Which ever classes you have ever done well in, along with your inner personality, will be used to choose your job, which the High Elders give to when you turn Sixteen Years Old.
You can NEVER talk back to a grown adult, child, or a High Elder. You will immediately be assigned to a cell in the High Elder's Loony Castle. It is as big as a castle and contains every being in our society that has broken any law. You get "treated" there, for your own good. No one knows exactly what they do to you there, but in places the cameras do not reach, children tell their own horrifying stories that terrify the younger ones.
"I heard that they nail you to a wall," A boy hissed. His name was Jim. Not that we are even allowed to point out the differences in other beings, but he had black hair and ice-blue eyes. He wasn't exactly a trouble maker, but he did little things to annoy people.
"I heard that they rip your heart out," A girl only one year older than me whispered, "and then they eat it and grow stronger than they already are!"
A boy that was the same year as me, sat in the darkness near the little group of children muttered, "I bet they chain you up, leave you to die, and then feed their remains to us."
Everyone had their own opinions. No one told on the others that spoke, though, so we were never found out. We would immediately stop talking if a grown adult came anywhere near us, and if we told, if the others lied, you would be put into the Loony Castle yourself. No one risked telling, so we were free to talk amongst ourselves. This is our Perfect Society, you know? How can there possibly be anything that is not perfect?
The children of many colors gathered around outside, waiting for the Lift Cart to take us to the school grounds. Unlike every other area in our society, we have barbed wire fences around the school grounds; just so we perfect children don't leave school grounds to be imperfect and destroy the society. How nice of them, right? They're always thinking about us, after all.
The school looked like an olden day Gothic Castle. It could be used as the greatest haunted house made. Honestly, we are allowed one day out of every year, to make it a haunted house. Every grown adult would pitch in to scare us to death. They would even chase you throughout the school. Living in a society like this one, with children with high hopes of leaving it and finding a better society, you fear for your life. It would be like a perfect world that turns evil; which is how we look at it.
"Good morning, Ora. Would you like some breakfast?" My older female family unit member asked with half of a smile.
"Sorry, no. I think I will just head over to school about this time." I said, without thinking. Everyone in my family stared at me with a horrified look. I was being different. "I mean, yes, I would like some breakfast before heading over to the school."
On the way to school, it was the same way it has always been. Girls walked in groups, boys walked within their own group, they chatted, and they kept pace with eachother, walking within a type of rhythm. Every girl had the same hair style, clothing style, shoe brand; everything they had was the same, except for their face, eyes, hair type, and hair color. By type of hair, I mean naturally curly, straight, fuzzy, and etc.
Grounds-men came from the school's front courtyard, came over to their high-tech fence, unlocked the gate, swung it open with three men, and allowed students to enter. As each being came within reach of the gate, one of eight women in long black cloaks would run a high-tech machine up and down your front side, get the results saying you were a student, and allowed you to enter the grounds. If you were scanned as Unknown, the security men would come over, get a hold of you, and wait for some other men to come and identify you.
Inside the school, teachers wore old nun dresses and caps, walking around with a taser rod, which looked like a normal olden time stick which was once used to point at chalk boards. In order to teach us and make us smart beings whether we stay here or leave the safety of our city, we would be able to live a perfect life, they would stun us with the taser rod every time we answered a question wrong. When we had any exams, tests, quizzes, one class would be in a huge enclosed room, every desk spread out so no one could look at anyone else's computer. If you so much as looked towards another student, other than the back of the person's head in front of you, to fix your eyes, you would be stunned. If you answered a question wrong, you were stunned; they would press a button on the screen, and make you restart.
I was one of very, very rare kids. I could look at something once and memorize it. Every question I answered came out correct, just as long as I read what we needed to in order to pass. If you were to toy with the computers, such like hacking, a red light came out of the computer, flashed as a siren goes off, and the security would come from their corners and handcuff you. You would then be brought to the High Elder's Loony Castle to be "treated". They would then have to re-take that very test over and over until it was perfect. They would never again get to take a test with another student in the room. They do not like the thought that these types of humans would influence us into disobeying them. We know all too well that we would receive the most painful punishment if we even attempted.
"Ora come here please. Your father and I have something to say to you," My Elder Female Family Unit Member called down the stairs to me as I walked through the front door.
"Female Elder that is an unidentified word you have used. Please find a more suitable and understanding word to replace the words of which you have used, so I may comprehend," I said automatically, remembering the cameras within every family unit's house.
"You know exactly what I mean." The Elder Female sighed, coming down the stairs, "For the time being we are not being watched. We will wait until your younger brother comes home, and then we will all have a family meeting. There's no need to behave as you were taught, except for how WE raised you."
Automatically: "By this we, you are meaning the High Elders, whom have provided us with a family, food, shelter, education, and work. If you mean yourself and my Elder Male Family Unit Member, when you call him my father, you are referring to something I cannot possibly comprehend, for the very fact that the High Elders had appointed you to act as parents, for you must have been thoroughly trained within the Family-to-Be Educational Building. Those that have not graduated with a 100 and higher within that building, are not allowed to even be allowed to have one member as a part of their very family unit. Explain what you have already stated, so that I may comprehend. Please do not use words that are easily misunderstood to be known that you are disobeying this community and its very well stated laws." I hated myself so very much for even saying all this. It just comes naturally after you have lived here for so long.
Chapter Two
"Ora and Aroma, we are going to move. We will leave this community tomorrow morning, alright? I already packed your clothes for you. Your pajamas are folded and are on the edge of your beds for tonight. You may still use your uniforms though. In the city that we will be living in, though, they will be used for outdoor clothes around the house. I know you do not want to move, but your father and I have decided. Your schools have been chosen. We applied you already to them. Our house already has all the furniture we need in it, and we took the liberty of getting you clothes that are worn within cities out of this community, since you both would not know how to dress. I know this is all so sudden, but are you ok with this? Can you forgive us? What do you think about it?"
Aroma, my younger brother, looked like he was serious but deep down he was jumping with joy. He has wild brown, short hair, and light green eyes, nearly clear. He was thin like every young boy in our community. He is 4 feet tall, whereas I am 5"3. He is ten years old, whereas I am sixteen. At home he is rather hyper than he is outside of our housing unit. He always told us about his dreams, too. If he told them outside of our house, he'd have been in the High Elder's Loony Castle long ago. He always had a dream of leaving our community and walking into a world where people had mutated and gained wings or something.
"How does the house look?" Aroma asked with excitement in his voice while he had such a serious expression on his face. Perhaps he thinks we are still being watched by the High Elders?
"You know how our housing units are? They are very similar," The Elder Female Family Unit Member smiled, looking at her spouse, "except for the fact they are bigger and prettier. Every house is different. You will see for yourself tomorrow, so just get some rest now. We will see you in the morning." She ran her fingers through my Elder Male Family Unit Member's short hair, which was already all over, just like Aroma's hair. The Elder Female Family Unit Member, though, had golden hair of curls. Her hair goes to her waist; her eyes are ice-blue where as her spouse had dark green eyes. Truthfully, they made a great pair.