The Season Trials

C H A P T E R O N E

First chapter is up! It's unedited but there shouldn't be too many mistakes. If there is I'm sorry.

I hope you like it!

[Note: picture is where it hits 2500 words]

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T H E  S E A S O N  T R I A L S

 C H A P T E R       O N E

Gifts. That's what they call us. Presents given to highest bidder, sold like we're animals on a lone "special" day of the year.

Today is that day—the 5th of May, 2025. Assortment Day, they call it. A seasonal event. The day that we're told our worth by becoming just another person owned by the commander. One man with all the power because his army had taken over our society, leaving them with all the power and us with nothing. A few rags if anything. Now, we're left to fend for ourselves.

It also happens to be to be my birthday. A day that should be about celebrating the good things in life. But when there is nothing to celebrate but another year of rationing on rice and barely surviving the next week, let alone another year, birthdays aren't happy. There is nothing but sadness and what ifs? It isn't news that my birthday is on Assortment Day, I'm used to it. Every year, on this day, despair clings onto everything. The streets are empty, families hiding away in lieu of going outside. Staying close together, never leaving each other's sight, because at the end of the day that person you hugged all day could disappear forever.

And it's the reality I face today; the risk of being chosen. Just like the hundreds of others at risk. The odds of being chosen aren't high but I know that it's still a possibility. It's a chilling thought, one that I don't even want to consider.

So I don't. Instead, I stare out the window of our tiny bungalow, almost identical to our neighbours. It's the same with every house around. The commander and his goons roll around in their money and we're surrounded by poverty where food is scarce and death is all too common.

Just last week, my cousin died from strofever. No medication had been able to save him—not that there'd been any to give. His body is buried in the flower field where all the bodies of those lost are.

I hadn't known him well, but no one could say they knew anyone that well. You can't trust anyone but family, no matter how they act. I've learnt it the hard way. As a child, all you want is a friend, someone to confide in when you're upset. Growing up with nothing, all you want is an outlet. And I'd had that . . . until he'd given me to a gang in exchange for some bread. When your poor and everyone else is in the same situation, no one looks at you sideways for having a bruise on your body.

I'm guilty of it to. But there's nothing you can do. Helping them isn't an option. Saving them is as farfetched as thinking one day you'll stop suffering. It won't happen. Bravery gets you nowhere; self-preservation does. Someone getting bashed up for food is considered normal. You see it every day. I see it every day. Yet, you don't question it, don't ask why. All you're supposed to do is look away, pretending that your eyes are deceiving you.

Violence and poverty. Two words that fit together. Perfect chain reactions of each other.

So, when I'd walk the streets, limping and bleeding, no one had stopped me to ask why I'd been hurt. What I'd done to deserve it. Now I look back on it, knowing it would've happened to me eventually. Ten years old is old to experience it, compared to others. Food is the driving source of everything. The reason you wake up and suffer through a day of dirt, labour and hardship knowing that the next day will be the same. The reason you attempt to smile, even when it's the last thing you want to do.