the selection

Chapter 8-The Forest

Me and Adrian were still sitting in the tree from last night. We had talked about a lot of things. Adrian and me shared deeper about our insecurities and I also shared my stories of being betrayed. I didn't tell him that I was raped since well I wasn't ready and the only ones of who knew of my sexual assault was my parents. They didn't know how bad it was, nor did I explain into detail what he did to me. I could hear Adrian's stomach growling as we were both hungry, though my stomach wasn't because I had gotten used to not eating quite a bit

"I can hear your stomach growling"

"sorry, I'm starving"

"don't say you're starving cause your not, your just hungry"

"what do you mean"

I scoffed, "do you know what it's like to live in the lower castes?"

"no?"

"ok, I'm gonna explain this to you in the nitty gritty details"

"I know America came from caste five so she experienced some of the hunger, but not as bad as the sixes, sevens, and eights. Imagine, one of the selected girls, whoever you imagine, will be your future wife, she depends on you, imagine she is pregnant with your child and you have four other children you need to feed. You work in the coal mines seven days a week for 15 hours. Your wife works as a seamstress, your two oldest children work as maids. Your youngest are at home bugging you all the time. You can't ask your husband to come home early because he's the main breadwinner. You worry about financials all the damn time. You often have to shut off the electricity to get by, your parents scrap off their plates to feed to their children. You barely just get by, or sometimes, you go through weeks without having food. Sometimes even women stop bleeding because their energy is needed elsewhere. Sometimes you have to steal food to survive, and if you get caught, you are whipped, multiple times, and you don't have the money to go to a hospital to fix it up, so you bear through it. Your skin peeling, red and it hurts like hell to move, but you have to keep going, cause if you don't you're family won't be fed, they'll die. Children are forced into the young age of working to make ends meet, many don't have the needs or the privilege to go to a school or make themselves into something better than what their caste provided them with. Your whipped into obedience, if you speak out, your canned, whipped, destroyed. You're made fun of for your caste, for your dreams, many just realize that they'll never get into another caste without marriage. Many people, die before they reach the age of 40 due to exhaustion and the strain they put on their body to make ends meet, leaving their children to fend for themselves"

I could see his eyes get glossy and he was shocked, "th-they go through th-that"

"yea, most people do"

"hav-have you ever been whipped, or canned"

I sighed heavily and dunked my face into my hands, basically a dead give away that I have been

"how many times?"

"four"

"four?"

"yea, I got my first time when I was nine, second when I was twelve, third when I was sixteen, and my fourth was was two months before I got into the selection"

"can I see them?"

"you wan-want to see them? Ok just so you know, they're ugly and red, and bruised"

Adrian nodded as I pulled up my tank and unhooked my arms around the arm holes to give him a clear view of my scars. Adrian's heart sank as he saw my scars. My first one was old, the skin was marred over my shoulder and it was brownish red color. The others looked more redish, but my most current one well, it was ugly and the skin was still slightly peeling off where I had been whipped. It was bright red, and it was ugly. The marred skin over it, it hurt and I had slightly winced when Adrian lightly touched it. I had pulled down my tank since I was starting to get slightly uncomfortable