Per Square Mile

A/n: Welcome! There won't be a lot of authors' notes but I feel this chapter deserves a little preface. Think of it as a guide for any confusion you may have later on. All details of the world I've created will be later in the book as well. Feel free to skip if you want to jump into the plot. If anyone reads this, thank you!

There's danger. I can feel it. Maybe it's just the dark sky, but I know it's more because the sense of danger is crawling on my skin like a spider. With one step my life will change. Either get in the car or go back home.

There's a sound that comes from inside the building behind me that sets everyone on edge. Someone is awake and I know I only have a few more seconds. I was right. The danger was real. An army of five burly men starts to pace toward the front door, stopping halfway, waiting to shoot any innocent person who opens the door. Home is not an option, but I could still get in the sleek black limo. The men look back, waiting for me to get in so that they can probably go home to their kids before they wake up for school. How nice that must be to have kids, and a wife, and a house to yourself. It's time to go. It's time to see what they want. A single tear forms in my eye, knowing I am leaving everything behind. Maybe it has nothing to do about the future and is only there because I am scared. Either way, it fades on its own.

'Ten-thousand' is a large number. At times it seems like an endless number. However, it has a stop somewhere. The line needs to be drawn and eventually you have to resist adding one more to it. We call them the uncharted numbers, the humans that we had to cut off. Only the best ten thousand are here with us in Chantist. The rest will go somewhere else. Every week, one baby is born in the hospital by test tubes and machines. They are then given to a successful adult and raised until the age of ten. Ten is the age you become ranked, while twelve is the age you are old enough to be thrown over the wall. The number of people keeps the competition healthy. 

There used to be more people on Earth than this. Records show the numbers reached twenty billion. Obviously, they didn't survive very well. With that many people, you can't look out for each other. With that many people, your food proportions would be hard to distribute and everything would be unorganized.

I am the ancestor of one of Earth's top million. I am Dani, the daughter of somebody who's name has been long forgotten. I'm fifteen. My nails are always unpainted. I like to dance. I have a good personality, though statistically, I am 55 % too emotional an 65% too judgemental. There are other statistical flaws of course, but personality tends to not matter too much here. Efficiency is what matters. I am efficient and I have the potential to become even more so. 

Utopian: an ideal existence. I'm not dumb. I know this is something unachievable, especially with the frightening walls of Chantist surrounding us. They were meant to keep out the great flood, and they did. But they also did more than that, they saved us from other disasters too. We are never scared of anything, the fatal occurrences that always happened outside the walls didn't bother us, because we were inside. Being safe is utopian enough for us.

The top 1,000 are the richest. They have the nicest food, soaps, jobs. Joesph West is number 1. He has been for a long time. His ancestors were the one who founded Chantist which left him as the head. Him and the other top 1,000 live in Square Mile 1. Everything is there. Those top 1,000 have everything they could ever want. The grass is green and it seems to be the perfect town. I know it from the chattering judges, who reassign our numbers on the seventh day. Then, as the Square Mile increases, the beauty of the cities slowly decreases, but ever so slowly.

Square mile 998, a populated wasteland, also where I currently live. Okay, so it might not be too bad. There are five houses which the number 997 Thousands sleep in. Each house is identical and has four floors which have two bedrooms. Exactly twenty five people live in each dorm, and although are stomachs are empty and our mattresses are hard and tough we are all grateful to live anywhere, because it is better than being outside the walls. In short, were cramped in here but it's better to be in here than on our own.