Somewhere

1

Somewhere, the word is supposed to send us into a state of terror. Fear of the unknown is the main way our government controls my district, Hebes. But in me, the word kindles a spark, a spark that will quickly spread over my mind and turn into an inferno that will consume my body. The government of Hebes, insists upon control, if they do not have fear, they do not have control, and that pains them. We have been told many times that without our government controlling the peace, our small Perimeter island will be conquered by a larger one, who do not have the same 'kindness' of ours. In other Perimeters if you fail the test, you are neutralised, a 'painless' procedure that renders you a controlled force part of the mindless staff that the government controls. Wow theres that word again control, my life is made up of it.

Of course they tell us about Pre-Peace, before the armies, rebels and most of the general population was neutralised. I don't think they like it though, us learning about the past. I think they're worried that we'll learn about how to instigate war, fall in love and dream, dream to go beyond our district walls, to dream a life beyond the tests and most of all that we'll learn about freedom. Of course, they do want us to learn about them, but in a way that makes us resent them, and love our government's systems of peace. But apparently we should be grateful for our controlling but 'kind' government, without them, we would be lost. At least, thats what we're supposed to say in our GOVERNMENT issued journals, but I don't buy it. You see, everybody has to write daily in their electronic journals but I actually write in an actual book. A rare sight for the year 2750, but this way I can write what I want to, and not what they tell us to write. 

Pre-Peace is a general term we use when we describe the time before Major Normann invented the neutraliser syrup. Pre-Peace ended in 2030 when Peace-Time started. Peace-Time consists of several large colonies, or Perimeters. My home Perimeter is the smallest of all, Hebes. It's name in an extremely old language, Latin, literally means boring and plain. Lets just say the name reflects the place, and the people. My life consists of school, my journal and my best-friend Jakob. We are not allowed to love here, they are afraid relationships would lead to conflict, and conflict to the end of Peace-Time. 

It is two weeks until my test. The Test determines my job, my job determines my partner, and my partner determines my happiness. One game my friends and I play is, Futures. Where we each say our perfect futures. Theirs all change from time to time, usually the boys, but sometimes the job. Mine stays the same. I want to go to Somewhere with Jakob. When I say this to my friends they all laugh and I blush and go quiet for the rest of our lunch. I figure that the only way out of this awful place is to fail my test and get sent to Somewhere. Hopefully with Jakob. We've been told about Somewhere, we've been told it's a place where no technology exists and chaos rules. The only thing I believe is that, once you go to Somewhere, there is no coming home.