Together - (Book 1)-(exclusive first draft version)

Chapter 1

I awaken to the sound of my mother's sobbing down the hall. She is in my little sister's room, as she constantly is. It's like she's glued to the chair in there, her eyes spewing out tears with no sign of an end. From our longstanding timber lodge we live in, she has fell ill with something that she is far too weak to deal with. We can afford very few goods and the administration for my zone sent us apparatuses to try and prolong what's left of her life; we've asked for more materials but we never received them. My mother's crying grew louder as the machinery started to beep slower. She had lost her husband in a car accident a few years ago when we were one of the wealthier few in our zone. We could afford everything we needed, but now we hardly have enough to survive on, and all the money that we have is being paid towards my sister's medication. Since the accident, my mother has grown increasingly despondent every day. And I knew that she didn't want it to happen again, so all her time was spent by my sister's side, staring at her pale face and listening to the slow rhythm of her heart beating. All she wanted was her darling to stay with her longer.

She was only 8.

I run my fingers against the coarse liner of my mattress, reaching for my deep-rooted and beaten slippers. I raise from the floor and slip my icy-cold feet into them. My feet become warmer but the hole in their soul makes the idea of warmth disintegrate. My feet drag me to the kitchen and my eyelids struggle to open. My breath becomes more wheezy with each movement I make and the energy drains out of me, even though the kitchen was only a few steps away from my pallet on the floor. Every step I take makes our rotten, ligneous floorboards creak as we no longer had our handyman to repair all of our difficulties. I crack an egg into our eroded pan and let it cook. Meanwhile, I make a blend of mashed strawberries and banana, water and medicine for my sister. I serve the egg on an old plastic plate I find in the back of the cupboard and put the blend into a special cup the administration sent us, having special tubes to plunge into my sister's exhausted body. As approach my sister's room, the door is flung open by my mother, I assume she heard me coming. My mother takes the plate from my hand, expressing gratitude and starts consuming the egg extremely slowly, her eyes locked on the body lying on the bed. It wasn't long until the egg was drenched by her tears. She hadn't left her chair or stopped crying since last week, and now dark circles were slowly consuming her baby blue eyes. I plug the tube from the cup into the machinery. I stand beside my mother as we both watch the pink fluid enter her body. After about 5 minutes, I leave the room with the empty cup, closing my previous bedroom door. I had to give it up for her, but I didn't care because I loved her. It's distressing to see her immobile in a bed, with tubing coming out of every part of her. My mother and I missed her.

The knock at the door makes me realise that I have somewhere to be. School. I stuff my history and science books in my leather bag and answer the door. There, on my front step, stood Aaden, his golden-brown hair blinding me as the sun reflects from it. People from the houses started to gather behind him and watch us. He knew everyone was watching, so he plays along by putting his lips up to mine. Two seconds later, we're both walking to school, hand in hand. At the end of the school day, Aaden sees me off with a kiss after walking home with me. He goes off to what's left of his lodge. In our zone, it's mandatory to have kids, so here different genders must be able to meet. At the age of 10, everyone from any zone can tour others, but never all of them. I chose zones 2, 4,7 and 9, but didn't know they would be the stricter zones, the towering, barbed wire fences separating the genders, children from mothers in our zone confused. Aaden's family got lucky and had 15 kids. 10 of those were stripped from them and were left with 5 hungry children they couldn't afford to feed, so he lives in a poorer condition than our decomposing pile of wood.

In school, we have all the basic subjects like maths, English and science, but we also have Ecozone class. It's short for the Economy of the zones, there we spend an hour of the day learning about the 10 main zones. I know there are more zones out there, but they are restricted to us.