Eighteen

Chapter 1

I hope that I make it to eighteen. It might seem dramatic, but when you're a teenage girl living on the southside of the Caelum, these are the kind of thoughts you have. Violence is everywhere - on the TV, on the radio, on the streets...it looms over me, an ominous presence that I can't shake.

I see people being taken by the government, and all I can think is "that could be me." That could be me, being grabbed by two men in dark blue suits and pushed forcefully into the back of a blue and red car, the colours of our president, Margot Williams. That could be me, never to see the light of day again. Of course, that last bit is all speculation. No one knows what really happens when you get taken away - of course, there are the tales that parents tell round the fireside at night, in an attempt to scare their youngsters into not speaking ill of President Williams, but I don't indulge in those lies.

For the most-part, I try to match the attitudes of everybody else - passive and uninterested in what lies beyond the fence or what happens when people are taken. Sometimes, like right now, when I'm left on my own, my mind wanders and I start to ask questions. When I realise what I'm doing, however, I stop. Questions lead to danger, which leads to being taken away. So I tuck the questions away in the back of my mind, to be taken out the next time my mind inevitably wanders.

Forks clatter against plates as my family and I eat dinner around a hunk of rotting wood dad calls a table. We have a clay jug on the table, filled with water from a nearby well. We don't have milk here on the southside, or apple juice. Those are delicacies preserved for the elite and rich on the northside. I had a sip of apple juice once when I was younger. I was hanging around the northside, waiting for my dad to finish work when I saw an elite carelessly throw a bottle of half-full applejuice on the side of the road. The second she was gone I rushed forward, eager to try this fascinating drink. It was amazing - so different from the plain, flavourless water. It was bursting with flavour and sweetness with just a hint of sourness and it filled me with joy. I had to quickly drop it when I heard footsteps approaching however - who knows what might've happened if they caught me.

'How was your day, Ash?' asks Mum as she bites into her dinner of bread and peas.

She's a perfect citizen, well practised in the art that I like to call shutting up and getting on with life. My brother and me, though? Not so much.

My brother Ash stabs a pea with needless aggression.

'Ash?'

'A boy in my class was taken today,' says Ash without looking up. His dark hair hangs in front of his face, covering his dark blue eyes as he focuses intently on his dinner. A silence falls across the room as Mum and I stop eating to stare at him.

'Who?' asks Mum quietly.

'Morgan. Morgan Beasley.'

I vaguely recognize the name - Ash is a year and a bit younger than me, and the names of his many friends get muddled in my head. I try to conjure up an idea of Morgan and an image of a laughing boy with dark skin and buzzed dark hair comes to mind.

'Why was he taken?' I blurt out before I can stop myself.

Mum shoots me a warning look and I look down into my plate, face burning. Seventeen years, and I still haven't learned. Seventeen years of watching people being taken and yet I still can't keep my curiosity at bay.

'I don't understand,' says Ash frustratedly, 'what happens when you're taken? Morgan didn't do anything wrong - he was just stating the truth: life is unbearable here because just because we're not born into the elite, and Williams is a little bitch for letting it happen!'

The silence is deafening.

Ash looks up slowly at Mum. I expect to see regret in his eyes, but all I see is cold, unforgiving anger.