The underground

Chapter 1

My name is Journey. I live in The Underground. By that, i do not mean hell. I mean, a secret society that lives underground. When everybody thought that World War 3 was about to start, a small group of men and women built this society to keep safe. There are very strict rules and you are not allowed to leave. I hate it here. I want to be up there with the Closers (that's what we call the people not in a the Underground). I want to live a normal 17 year old girl life. Not be stuck underground with no body else your age. It was an accident. I was not supposed to be conceived.

You see, my parents did not follow breeding rules. It is supposed to be, that, every twenty years is breeding time, or The Reservation. The Liberal is the person who once a month, goes up with the Closers to get our supply of food. Well anyways, he is good friend of my parents. And he snuck them in some hard liquor. Well, I bet you get the picture of how i came to be.

The Underground is special. We have our Living Spaces thst everyone has to be in by 8 o'clock. Our society is separated into four quadrants; quadrant 25, 50, 75, and 100. I live in quadrant 50. There is a big building called The Cafeteria. For every meal, esch quadrant goes in at different times to get their meal. When they are done, the next quadrant can go.

We only have about 100 people in The Underground. 25 per quadrant. I have been her my whole life. I don't know anything about the Closers. Except for they have more fun than me. We dont have electronics. Except.for the morning bell, that wakes everyone up in the korning. And the scans for The Cafeteria. But thats it.

I have no idea how I am going to escape, but I will find my way. Tomorrow is the day when The Liberal goes to.get our food. I think, thst if i follow him, he wwill show me the way out. One can only hope.

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I wake up seconds before the morning bell rings. I am alert and ready. My parents never worried about me or pretended that I was there. So, i didn't have to worry abiut them wondering where I was. There was no one in this town that cared about me. No one. So this mission would be thankful for everyone.

I have studied The Liberal for the past few months. He always leaves his house at 10 oclock sharp. The morning bell rings at eight so I had about an hour and a half to prepare.

I get out of bed and walk to my dresser. I turn it on  and it says, "Good morning Journey, what would you like to wear tofay?"

Oh I guess we also have this technology but it's no big deal. I choose something casual yet nice and comfortable. Who knows what kind of closer I could meet up there.

I am wearing jeans, sneakers, a tank top, and a sweater as I walk over towards my hair thing. I tap the wall and a bright screen springs to life. I choos a hairstyle and stick my head in a cylinder in the wall. In no time, i have my red hair in a mix between waves in curls. Technically I didn't do anything to myself, it just made it not frizzy.

I quietly walk out of our Living Space and into the courtyard. The courtyard is dark and has rough ground. They must hsve a tough time turning the lights on this morning. Sometimes it takes a while to get the lights up and running for our city. So it is dark in the morning sometimes.

As i walk down the street, I check my time capsule. Our time capsule is a miniature clock embedded in our wrist. It tells the time, other places time, where you are, and it can make calls and things like that. I think they stick us with them when we are just a baby. I don't remember if it hurt ot not.

My feeding time is in twenty minutes. Sometimes the keepers let us eat early, but others , we have to wait. I am hoping today is one of the days that I can eat early.

I arrive at the Cafeteria and head inside. I ask the head keeper if quadrant 50 can go ahead and start eating.

"Yes miss, 25 has finished early. You may go get scanned and start eating  meal 1."

I am relieved and head inside. As I get in, another keeper pricks my finger and my name and quadrant show up on a screen behind him. They do this so that they know no one is getting more food than the others.

I get to the next door and a paper bag shoots out of a tube and into my hand. I peer inside to see my meal 1. Cereal. I.actually like cereal so i can't complain.

Instead of eating eith the others, I go outside and sit on the street. I look at my time capsule and it reads 9:35. Crap. I have to go. I scarf down my vereal and head towards quadrant 75. This is where The Liberal lives.

It takes fifteen minutes to walk there and I hide behind a post till he walks out. I go over the plan in my head. Follow him to the exit. After he leaves type in the code. 2012. I do not know if this is significant. But, it is the code for the exit. I do not know what lies ahead of me after thst. But i am as prepared as ill ever be.

At 10 o'clock sharp, The Liberal walks out of his Living Space. Right on time. He starts walking down the street towards the exit. When he gets the r he types in the code and disappears. I wait a minute or two before typing in the code my self. I hold my breath hoping, just hoping this works.

The door slides open and i exhale a sigh of relief. I step in and the door closed behind me. Ahead of me is a long long ladder. I take my chances and decide to climb it. This thing goes up forever. I reach the top and knock my hand against it. It is a metal substance. I.decide to push against it to see it it will budge at all. It does to my surprise.

I push it out of my way and light hits my fsce. Not the light from The Underground but something different. I slowly cling out of the hole and stood on my feet. I am standing on something hsrd and grey. It is nothing like ive felt before. I look up and there is a big light shining on me. Much bigger than any lights we have. And surrounding it is blue. A crisp blue. I look ahead of me and see a big metal contraption racing straight at me. We dont have these down there. I don't know what it does so I jhst stare at it.

The next thing I know i am ontop of something. A boy. A very handsome boy may I add. He has beautiful blue eyes and rich brown hair. I can feel his muscles through his shirt as I lay on top of him. His arms are wrapped around me. He is out of breath. I have never been this close to a Closer before. It was nice.

I then realize he saved me from that thing. He pushed me out of the way so it wouldn't hurt me. The boy gave me a grin then chuckled.

He said, "Why the heck would you stand out in traffic like that? Do you have a death wish?"