He that cuts off twenty years of life
Cuts off so many years of fearing death.
~Julius Ceaser (Act III, Scene I)
Chapter 1
The Mind is A Foolish Thing
Zelda Evans was hardly compatible of following the rules
like the rest of the world was. When the Republic Nations sent her the letter
that she hardly dreamed of, she found herself in the forest reading Julius Ceaser instead of catching
tomorrow’s dinner. The banned book was highlighted and written in from years of
schooling and her older brother’s notes fluttered across the pages. Brutus = Chancellor Blake. Always seemed
to make her laugh whenever she came across the scene of Julius’ murder. Behind
her a twig snapped and she turned with her hunting knife at the ready. A bird
flew past her and up into the chilly sky as snow started to fall past the
trees.
Zelda
sat down again on the cold, dead tree trunk and tucked the book inside the
secret compartment that her brother created years ago to keep the banned books
they kept safe from the military. She clicked on her earpiece that the
government forced everyone to wear.
“You have no new messages. Have you sent in
your draft card for the military? Children over the age of thirteen are
required to have a draft card on file. Has your child received the yearly
testing letter? All students that received the testing letter confirmation are
to report to Saint Francis De La Salle at ten sharp to be signed in-“ Zelda
clicked it off and tossed the earpiece into her bag. It was just another way
for the government to bother her by receiving a never ending amount of
advertisements and propaganda from the military to help aid the war between the
Freedom Fighters and the Republic.
She
blocked her mind from thinking about the government and noticed a fox trotting
near a small pond. Slowly she edged near a tree and studied its features. His
fur was bright orange with one stripe of white running down his back, his paws black
but his eyes as he turned to stare at the trees were green. She knelt to the
ground, her knee growing cold from the snow and her breathing slowed as she
kept low. He was unobservant, a fool for not seeing her as he was more aware of
the water he was searching for. She took out her brother’s hunting bow and a
thin arrow from her bag and set her target in place.
The
best place to hit was the head, it was the kill shot and they never ate the
head. Heads are sacred places, a place filled with dreams, nightmares and hopes
for the future. A place the government couldn't touch because it was against
their religion or so they say. To father and Zelda however, the head shot was
painless, it would quickly turn off the lights so you couldn't dream anymore,
couldn't fear anything. His head tilted up and Zelda adjusted her bow, his nose
twitching as he sniffed the air and went back to drinking. The trees moved
across the pond and Zelda shot an arrow into the dark area behind the trees. A
knife flew out from the shadows, the point slicing through the fox's scalp and
ending his innocent life. His lifeless body collapsed to the cold earth and
twitched, the bloody pool surrounding it and dripped into the pond. The mind
truly was a foolish thing.
"Quick
to kill aren't we, Zelda?"
Zelda
smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. Her best friend Sophia and her newest
boyfriend in tow walked out from the shadows across the pond. "Michael
always said to be aware of your surroundings. Not everyone hunts animals in
here," Zelda replied.
"You almost killed me! Screw what your brother says, my life flashed
before my eyes," Sophia laughed as she poked her friend in the back.
"What are you doing here?" Zelda asked her as she pulled the knife
from the fox's head and tossed it into the pond, no use for a broken knife
anyway.
“We wanted to hide from the drug testers. Nicky here just stopped taking them
last week,” Sophia replied and looked over at her boyfriend who was throwing up
behind a tree from the smell of the fox’s blood.
“I completely forgot about this week…”
Zelda muttered and wrapped the fox in paper before stuffing him into her bag.
“My dad told me that they would most likely perform drug tests before the test
today.”
“Can’t say no to that. Here,” Sophia opened Zelda’s hand and placed two white
pills on her palm. “This will keep your red blood cells from telling the truth.
They’ll act like they normally would under your morning pill.” Zelda opened her
mouth and shoved the pills down her throat.
The
punishment was severe lashing if you were caught not taking your morning pills.
When a boy from down the block was caught, the lashing was close to fifty.
Since Michael’s death, her entire family and Sophia’s stopped taking the
morning pill to keep them sane against the government. The morning pill was one
of the many pills that the government handed out for free but this pill was
mandatory to take. From Zelda’s observations, the pill took away any free will
from someone and replaced it with a high level of serotonin and lust. It was
one of the many resources that the government used to keep people under
control.
“So… I heard that Thomas boy is crushing on you,” Sophia smiled and Zelda
shoved her.
“Last time I checked, I’m more of a family caretaker instead of boyfriend
pleaser,” Zelda replied and Sophia snorted.
"Alright fine, you think like that.
I already have my potential man right here," Sophia said tossing her blond
hair towards Nicky who was looking at himself in the water before he slipped
and fell causing a large gap in the frozen pool.
"Oh yeah he's perfect for you, Soap," Zelda joked. Sophia glared at
her boyfriend as Zelda picked up her bag and walked back towards Water Banks,
their hometown. Officers surrounded the outskirts of the suburb watching
everyone walk to and from work. The workers were covered in dust, grime, and
sweat from the nightshift at the factories but chatted away with smiles on
their faces. Glittering high rise apartments surrounded the streets where
advertisements bellowed out half price items at the markets on electric
billboards and large flying jumbo TVs. They walked past one apartment where a
woman was walking around in only a corset and skimpy skirt, the attention of six
hungry men watched her from the alley below. The ground was covered in a fresh
new layer of snow, something they hardly saw anymore since the government made
global warming worse; they wouldn’t be able to live a day without their fancy
gas eating cars or even now flying cars if you were part of Blake’s Circle of
Council, the Chancellor’s right hand men.
Sophia
left Zelda and turned down a street covered in large colorful mansions. Zelda
walked three blocks north and made her way inside a ninety-eight floor
apartment high rise where the elevator bell boy recognized her at once and
handed her a glass of orange juice.
“They were just picked this morning! How was your morning walk, Miss Evans?”
The bell boy asked her as he pushed the sixty-seven button.
“Cold and relaxing,” Zelda replied. She felt something drip onto her pant leg
and turned to see the fox’s blood was seeping through her bag. She cursed and
pulled off her bag to hold it sideways. The bell boy looked at the large red
stain on her bag and coughed. “My father has a habit of only eating deer on
Test Day,” Zelda lied to him and the elevator door opened. She quickly ran out
and stopped in front of her door. The door scanned her eyes and handprint
before letting her in.
"Hello?" Zelda asked. She placed the bag on a table and tossed her
coat and Michael’s old bow, now was hers, on the red velvet couch in the large
sparkling living room before turning on the light in the newly polished kitchen
and took the fox from her hunting bag. His fur was covered in dried blood and
melted snow with a sign of pinecone scent left from the trees. Zelda washed the
fox and wrapped it in clean paper to keep her little siblings from seeing yet
another dead animal in the sink. Her father would be home any minute to skin and
salt the meat so they could save it.
She
grabbed a pan and a carton of eggs and began to make herself some breakfast.
Outside the snow started to fall faster and a large TV with an ad reading: “Have you had your daughter’s womb cut yet?”
slowly flew past the large living room window. Her parents refused to have
their children cut and made into the government’s dolls. The government finally
announced about project Stem Cell where lab babies would be created instead of
waiting nine months for only a few hundred babies every year. The number of
naturally born babies turned to zero after the morning pill was also changed
into a birth control for both men and women. Zelda’s youngest brother, Lenny,
was the last generation of natural birth.
Zelda
heard the floor creak and her tiny five year old brother walked in wearing
yellow footie pajamas and yawning as he rubbed his eyes.
"Sis, I'm hungry." Lenny whispered, his stomach growling. She smiled
and picked him up. She placed him on the counter and he giggled. She scraped at
the eggs in the pan and hummed his lullaby that her mother would sing to him
every night before he went to sleep. When she felt like they seemed burned
enough, she placed them on a plate and took out already cooked bacon from the
microwave and handed them the plate with a fork. She jumped down and sat
himself down at the large table in the dining area.
A
large bell sound echoed throughout the apartment and her father walked in half dead
and smiled at Zelda.
"Shouldn't you be preparing for the tests today?" Their father said
as he sat down at the table watching Lenny.
"I wasn't going to leave until someone came home to watch Lenny,"
Zelda replied as she showed him his carving knife and pointed at the counter.
She grabbed herself some cereal and milk and walked over to the
"Great! What is it this time?" He asked looking a bit happier.
"Fox. Sophia let me have it this time."
"Well I have good news too." He opened his brief case and threw down
a small bag of coins. "It adds up to a hundred sens. I got a little bonus
for finding a flaw in the stocks." Zelda high fived him and quickly went
into her room to dress into her other hunting outfit: A light blue sweater from
Mary her older sister, dark ripped up jeans from Sophia and black lace up boots
that her father gave to her as a gift for her birthday. She looked in the
mirror and pulled her auburn hair into a bun making her brown eyes shimmer
against her pale skin. Her hands looked almost a tad shade of blue from the
cold but underneath her nails, the fox's blood dried up inside making her nails
look bloody and broken like. She threw on her gloves and black knit hat before
grabbing her beat up leather coat and scarf and headed out into the living room
where her frail mother and Mary stood holding yellow slips of paper.
"We're going to be interviewed." Mary said breaking the silence.
"They think someone in the mills is planning a rebellion so everyone is
being questioned." Mother responded with. "Off to take the
test?" Zelda nodded and hugged both of them. “Good luck!”
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