Sector 21

Chapter Two

The same obnoxious beeping woke Octavia up as yesterday, the sun peeped through her curtains as she got out of bed. Just like everyday prior to this day, her apartment was in the same silence. For most the silence would be eerie and some what discomforting. But for Octavia it was peaceful and now a part of her, noise only destroyed the beauty of silence.

Often she thought of getting a pet, possibly getting a cat or even some fish. After thinking long and hard she realized that ever animal she would get would only disturb the peace. Octavia liked doing things alone, like working but of all things, she hated being lonely. She wasn't afraid of being lonely. Most definitely not, but she didn't like the idea of being lonely.

Before leaving for work she went down to the lobby to get her mail. As usual she had 4 brown envelopes, 3 white envelopes, a hand written post card- from her Grandmother- and countless amounts of brightly colored papers advertising their stores or food chains. The difference today was that Mr Jenkins- Octavia's neighbor- wasn't sat in the lobby with his old collie dog. He was sat alone today.

As she walked back up to her apartment, she wondered what become of the old dog. Mr Jenkins had had him for as long as she could remember. He probably died of old age, but then again he had been incredibly well looked after.

Octavia left for work as the sun began to set, a magnificent display of colours danced around the sky as the source of light dipped below the horizon. The minutes passed and she was still mesmerized by the display in the sky above.

Ever since meteorite scorched the surface of the Earth 2 years and 8 months ago more and more people moved from the smaller cities to London and it received the MC title- standing for Mega City. It was unusual for the sun to be seen through the amount of tall ugly buildings. People feared the sun as they believed that the solar flares moved the meteorite into the path of the Earth. Really it was one of those pointless 'irrational' fears because the sun had nothing to do with the meteorite.

She watched as the sky went from blue, to pink, and to orange. The clouds illuminated the pink sky as the orange began to set in, there wasn't a bird in the sky or noise from nature. Octavia hadn't seen a wild bird since she was a little girl, when she did see the bird it flew away in fright. That was nearly 15 years ago.

"You're late" Franklin and Charlie said from behind her, making her jump.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" She asked the boys "Its amazing how something so beautiful can be created by light"

"It is but you are now 10 minutes late" Franklin said checking his watch.

She clocked what he had said and made a dash inside without saying goodbye to the twins, the 108 second elevator journey felt like it lasted longer than ever. She grabbed her torch, taizer and food and ran across the room to get to the corridor.

After 7 hours of patrolling the corridor, Octavia turned the CCTV cameras, heat sensors and the laser beams on in each of the sectors and corridor and went in to the canteen to eat her food. As she entered the canteen, the lights went off (as usual) and the monitors in the canteen switched on. She ate her lunch that was a sandwich and a fruit salad as she stared at the monitors.

Roughly 20 minutes later she headed out of the canteen.

As she opened the wire door she noticed a considerable amount of dust in the air. It wasn't like this before she went in to the canteen, none of the alarms had gone off and she had watched the monitors for the whole time she was in there, she was confused to say the least.She walked to the end of the corridor, heading to where the dust had come from. For the first time she noticed a large panel that made up part of the wall.

Curiosity over took her as she pushed against the panel, nothing happened when she pushed against the center of the panel. Without fully thinking she began to press round on the panel until one part creaked.

She pushed and pushed against the section that had previously creaked, it moved.

Again, she pushed the wall, it moved marginally.

She threw all of her weight against the panel and it moved backwards very quickly. The sudden movement caused Octavia to fall to her knees. She stood up slowly, brushed her knees off and looked directly in front of her.

The dust from the floor had risen in the air and completely fogged Octavia's vision. As she took a much needed breath the dust clogged her air ways, as she coughed and spluttered the air around her became clear and she was finally able to breath clean air.

Octavia looked up and took in what was round her, starting at the floor. The floor was covered in undisturbed dust and what looked like sand. At the far end of the small corridor was a hatch, there was a simple sliding plate mechanism. It must have been built a lot longer than the Sectors that she watched.

As she looked up she saw that the walls were painted black and on the far wall above the hatch 'SECTOR 21' was painted in white.