Emaria

chapter one.

Wc: 1752

No one talks about how blinded the human race is. Why is everyone so hellbent on finding a meaning? A purpose? Is it just so they can have reassurance that they aren't doing all of this for no reason? I don't understand. I will never understand. Because to me, life will always be the same. Fucking unfair.

The world ended, to simply put it. Earth was dying, blah blah blah. We all saw it coming. And at the rate things were going back then, it was inevitable. They told us all the same exact story. Only those who are 'pure' got to live in luxury, while the rest had to fight over scraps. But before I was even born, even the richest had to deal with the lack of material Earth was producing. Chaos broke out all over the world. Everything was in the government's hands to fix. And fix they did. Well, that's what they had convinced themselves.

Fifty years. Fifty years it took for Earth to build its replica. A paradise built in the sky with abilities Earth could not and did not possess. With the last materials that Earth contained (and some even found on other planets), they built a floating "city" that curved along with the Earth. It definitely didn't cover the entirety of Earth, but covered enough of it to block the sunlight from reaching all places except for Greenland and Antarctica, acting as if it were just a simple ring around the planet. A very thick ring. It was split into two divisions. The west and East divisions, and right smack in the middle of that was their Government city. Which I bet made government official assassinations a lot easier.

My hometown was none of many. We live in what used to be the 'United States of America', which was now split into four quadrants and is now referred to as 'The Quadrants'. My town was located in quadrant II. Back before, when the world was 'normal', the town only consisted of a population of 2,000 people. It used to be a small town and didn't have much to offer to tourists so it was usually quite empty. But in the fifty years that the city of Emaria was being built, more and more people migrated to the town of Weston. And it was all because it was one of the few places in The Quadrants where there were enough acres to grow crops and enough rain to stay out of drought. It was enough to feed people easily but only for 4 years or so. As Emaria grew bigger and sucked more materials out of the Earth, the more my town grew, and the more we had to ration to keep each other alive. But we had to deal with it. Afterall, we were the fortunate ones.

The light rain tapped on my window of my small shack of a house as my alarm clock went off. I opened my bleary eyes to peer at the black skies of Earth outside my house, only street lamps illuminating the area around me. June brought morning chatter of the neighbors pouring through the poorly built windows as I sat up on my makeshift mattress. It's the first day of school and I have no time to lose. I threw my light gray prison jumper on, so kindly gifted to me by the Dean of school, some colorful bracelets, and then turned to get my backpack, which I quickly stuffed my panda plushie into (we don't talk about it) and made my way outside.

I stepped over the sleeping bodies of my three family members, (Grandma, Ma, and Dad) and made it through the front door just to beeline to the neighbors. On the side of their porch they had a hose, with running water, and a broken mirror.

"Hi Mr and Mrs. Kim! I'm just here to use the hose." I called and waved at the elderly couple who sat in lawn chairs in their front yard. They waved back as I turned on the hose. Careful not to get my jumper wet, I washed my dark brown corkscrew curls that had stood up in various directions previously. I brushed through them with my fingers before I looked into the broken shards of the mirror attached to the side of the house, one of the few random items meant to help hold the house up. As I looked at myself, I noticed that my dark skin seemed a little ashy but lacked any acne and my almost black eyes stared back at me and desperately screamed for more sleep. The rain still tapped down lightly on my head. Finally, I deemed myself ready for school.