Trapped

Trapped - Chapter 1

It was 9pm in Melbourne Australia, curfew for every teenager in this part of country, unless you want to find yourself in the correction centre or worse jail. The new government had completely rewritten everything; laws, policies, education, taxes... you name it.

From now on they watched everything everyone did, there was no, "hey I'm going to call someone" you needed permission, no parties or hanging with friends you needed permission, no changing your job and leaving the city, you needed permission.

School lasted from 5am to 5pm, teachers and police guarded everywhere, junk food banned, you ate what they gave you. You did as they told you. Not to mention no mixed sex contact till after the age of 17, even that was watched.

My father worked for the government, he was head scientist at the correction centre. There children and teenagers who misbehaved were punished and 're-educated' (or as I like to call it brainwashed.)

No one ever came out the same after they'd been there, if they came out at all that was. Most people lived on fear, going to school, going to work, having a family then eventually they'd die, the average life expectancy 65- government not wanting to 'waste' money on hospital bills.

The same cycle over and over. You were tested, at 16, then sent to wherever it was you were going to work to do apprenticeship.

As head scientist my father saw everything, I guess that's why the government left me as an exception. I was homeschooled, used to portray the 'perfect' teenager to teach other children. No matter how much I hated seeing a fake me on posters around the streets and schools I couldn't stop them.

If I did that my father would lose a job, we'd have to leave Melbourne, and by leave I mean be euthanised, but I shouldn't know that.

Throughout the years I'd mastered every lock in the house, tampered with every CCTV camera and edited every piece of software to prevent me being caught. If the government found out I knew too much it would be over.

The clock had finished chiming around my house. It wasn't like dad not to be home, he was always home on time. You rarely were late anywhere, due to consequences. I strummed my fingers on the dinner table, spaghetti bolognese government special steaming on my plate.

I sipped my water, glanced out the windows and sipped again. A feeling inside me told me something was wrong. I got up, racing upstairs to my room. Pulling up my floorboard I took out my netbook, disabling the CCTV cameras in my house and changing them to recordings from last week.

Pulling on a coat, boots and a scarf, to hide my face, I left the house.

I got to the centre, a guard stopped me, "Ma'am your business here?"

I held up my mother's old pass, she left Melbourne when I was eight when the government began to change, 8 years later and they still thought she was suffering from illness kept at home. No one questioned anything, liars would be prosecuted and the government thought everyone would be too scared to disobey them.

The guard nodded and let me pass, I found the side entrance to my father's lab and typed in the code.

That was when I saw him, Luke Brooks.