I scream out in terror. I’ve been anticipating and preparing for this moment my whole life, but all the nightmares I’ve ever suffered couldn’t prepare me for this. This moment is the reason that I’m living in this dystopian nightmare, also called class one.
My family was one of the few lucky ones, my dad is a cook, and the government needed his skills. When scientists predicted a deadly meteor shower would hit the earth in 2061 the government started to make plans of an underground city were there would be four classes, class one would be the worst and class four the best. Only some people were chosen and they were allocated classes on the importance of their skills, and the size of their bribes. I’m a class one, it’s like hell here but it’s safe, from the meteors at least. If you live in class one you usually die at 45. But it is much better than the surface, where right now people are burning.
The meteors sound like violent knocking every time they hit the surface of the earth, which is also the roof of the class one cavern. I’m the only one in the street; everyone else is cowering with their families in their rickety houses. I’m staring with frightened eyes at the cavern roof; I can’t tear my gaze from it. Safety from those horrendous meteors is the reason I face the Sisyphean task of living in class one every day. But now, what if they penetrate the roof of safety? Everything I’ve endured to stay alive will have been in vain.
Suddenly the banging on the cavern stops, I wait, not daring to hope that the lethal shower of meteors has ended. I wait and as I do people emerge from their homes, they’re all looking up at the celling, hoping against hope that the shower has ended and they can leave class one for their old happy lives. This movement goes on, people are pouring into the street like water from a tap, but this water is golden with hope. Without warning people start joining hands, such an action is unwanted by the leaders living in class four, and when the surveillance cameras pick it up the officers of peace burst into the cavern wielding batons. But even as people are battered down, they don’t lose their grip on each other. Strangers link with strangers, in one act of hope against the oppressive government, which has darkened our lives.
Then, as one, we move towards the officers and fight back. All the anger against the state is coming out. But I’m too small to fight so I run, not for my house, but for the tunnel that will take me out of this place, which is a suburb of hell. I run and run, only to find people already banging against the doors that will lead to freedom. The once strong doors fall and rush outside to a horrific sight of death.
