The Central Alliance: A Dystopia

On the Train

I sat on the comfortable wooden bench attached to the brick wall as i waited for the train. I was in the orange line, listening to what sounded like a mechanical man breathing through the crevices of the steel plated train tracks. I always took the train back. Well technically it's called a shuttle, but when I was doing research online last night, I found a term. Another term used to describe transportation on rails. My friends find it strange that I use what they called 'faded terms' or 'abandoned words' to describe things. But I didn't mind. As long as I didn't complain I'd be fine.
I was given an assignment by the academy to write about the topic of our ever changing space crafts that were already being remodeled long after light speed jets were made possible to use with an aircraft. It'd all been tested. I just walked to the train from the academy that wasn't a long way away. And since the train was underground, I didn't have to bother pushing past anyone or having to talk. I just entered one of the underground elevator pods after scanning my train pass and in less than a few seconds, I was underground, on a train, and sitting in the farthest corner to avoid the awkward happenstances that usually occur when sitting next to someone you don't know. A stranger as it was called, but now they call strangers acquaintances which, if I have this right, we're actually defined as people you met but don't really know well. Most of the information I try to find about the past is limited due to what the Central Alliance allows us to look at online. But it's not too bad, whenever I go online I get flashing pop ups about unit gatherings in the center of the city to listen to the Central Alliances' speeches. The gatherings aren't very interesting to me, but at least their advertisement for it is colorful and fun to look at.

The train's usually not that busy on Fridays, since a student's day ends at 2:20pm, and go home afterwards for studying or free time. People with occupations usually stay at work for the majority of the day from 7am to 7pm, with the exceptions of breaks. Every other day is long and uneventful, even with the gatherings in the city's center. Nothing too exciting happens around here. And even sitting here listening to the bland music playing out of the speakers in the train, it still proves my point that my life is as boring as the next person's.

I look around the train's cart to see the usual people who take the train on Fridays. Ben Morrison, a junior at the academy who's studying to be a Doctor sitting beside his girlfriend Jessica Martin, also studying to be a doctor. Come to think of it, there's mostly juniors on this train studying to become doctors once they graduate. Except me, I'm still in the academy and have no idea what I want to do with my life. I still have yet to decide. Everyone goes for the same careers, everyone's alike. But after looking around again I noticed something different. A guy sitting two seats away from me, wearing a sweatshirt over his school uniform, listening to a song I don't recognize. It didn't sound like the music the Central Alliance approves for us to listen to. It sounds....different. I snap out of it when he coughs, then smirks and looks up from his lap to look at me. I instantly dart my eyes away to look at something else. Anything else. People staring at me really has an unsettling effect on my demeanor. It's almost terrifying.

"Hey."