Guilty

Chapter 1-Blue

Chapter 1

I found myself on the floor when the alarm went off. My covers were still on the bed, and I now knew why I'd had a dream I'd been freezing in Canada. It was the middle of summer in Washington DC, and my dad kept the house at fifty-five degrees. I still couldn't believe we'd lived in Texas for so long, since he hated the heat. Of course, the heat of Texas was better than the overly constrictive government of the alternative.

I looked out the window to find that our car had been tagged with a picture of a gun and a cross. We hadn't even lived in DC for six months yet, and people already hated us because we were from the Southern Republic.

It made sense. The war had killed millions on both sides, and no one had forgotten it, even though anyone under thirty hadn't been born yet. Of course, Southern Republic-United States rivalry had been alive ever since, regardless as to whether one had lived it or not. The "real" history all depended on where one learned it. I'd tried to gather an objective story based on what I'd learned from both.

In 2018, the United States decided to ban all firearms because of increasing gun violence and mass shootings. Most of the nation agreed with the idea, but the many southern states hated the idea and called for their constitutional rights. The US refused to change their policies, and tension began to grow in the South. Four months later, Congress voted to ban all public displays of religion and declared religion could only be practiced on private property that was not funded by the government. After that, a civil war broke out. After six months, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, New Mexico, and Texas had seceded and formed the Southern Republic. The government reacted by sending the military, and mass warfare broke out throughout the nation. It wasn't hard for the SR to win, because of the fact that weapons were unavailable to most of the US, but the war caused mass casualties nevertheless. After five-and-a-half years, the US negotiated with the SR and allowed any of the rebel states to secede if they had any land west of the Mississippi or had coast on the Gulf of Mexico. South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia were required to return to the US, and the others formed the Southern Republic. For a year, immigration between the two countries didn't require visas or any form of documentation. Those who wanted to live in the US moved north or east, and those who wanted to keep their guns and their religious rights moved south. After that, the US and SR had very few relations. The SR typically stayed away from foreign affairs and kept to itself while the US continued to be an international superpower. In the twenty-seven years since total secession, the culture in the two countries took completely different directions. My dad says that the SR hasn't changed much since it rebuilt after the war. Technology and innovation hasn't really advanced, but people kept their freedom. The US used technology to numb the minds of the citizens, and the government has complete control in return for providing the people with entertainment. Morals were retained in the SR, and at a club in the US, anything is legal except for guns, religion, and murder.

The guns are what really got me in trouble. I'd been out in the backyard trying to kill the annoying bird that had been keeping me up for two weeks. I'd foolishly brought my rifle with me to the SR, wanting to keep at least a little part of my old life with me. We had been forced to move to the US to get leading medical attention for my younger sister, who'd been diagnosed with stage four cancer. She was making great progress, and we hoped we'd be able to move back home once she was cured. Unfortunately, I was too focused on shooting the bird to think about the consequences.

The bird had been sitting on the fence, and as I aimed, I heard the sound of a door slamming shut on the other side of the chain-link fence. It was loud enough to startle me from my silence, and as I hurried to hide my gun, I accidentally pulled the trigger. It fired, and the bullet ended up in my neighbor's head. Even if she had survived, my sentence would have still been the same. Guns mean life in prison, and execution if you're from the SR.