A Ring of Roses

Chapter One

The end of the world didn't happen because of an epidemic that wiped everybody off the face of the earth, no solar flares hit the surface of our planet, and robots didn't rise up, take over, and enslave humanity either.

No, the end of the world happened by the stupid decisions of ignorant people who only cared about themselves.

All of our lives, from the time we are old enough to walk and have our own things, our parents and peers and teachers drill the idea of sharing and cohabiting with other people into our heads. But as we get older that idea slowly fades into the background and we start to hate others.

Hating others isn't bad enough to cause the end of the world alone, but when you have the leader of the world power country and a terrorist group that's hell bent on bringing everybody to their knees, hatred becomes a big problem.

After the world was torn apart by wars, the select few of us that were close enough, retreated behind four walls built to protect us. Inside the first wall are four military outposts and the slums, or trash dumps. The next wall is called Gated Community One and contains two rows, A and B, of one hundred houses each.

I had planned to move to the interior to teach college level english for the higher ups in Gated Communities Two and Three. Those dreams never came true, I found new ones to pursue.

This is the story of the girl that I was. This is the story of  how I destroyed her.

I remember the beginning like it was my birthday, well actually it was, kind of. It was the eve of my twentieth birthday and it was my turn to be tested once again.

All children are tested at birth and whenever we are about to enter a new school. I was tested the day before graduation last year and now that I am about to go to college I have to be tested again.

The reason the government is so stringent about this specific test is because it's a disease. Those who do have it are taken by the government and never seen again. They took my best friend when we were fifteen and entering high school.

It was times like those that really made people think about whether what we were was right. Sending people God knows where just because they have a super secret special illness. But what do we know? We're famers, families just getting by, wall repairers. Kids out here are fed and clothed and barely educated, Community One members couldn't possibly have a brain and ideas of their own.

We see it once a month. Adults, the elderly, children barely out of diapers, scared teens all huddled together with armed soldiers caging them in. Then they're all herded onto a train and shipped outside, never to be seen again.

As awful as it sounds, those scenes were the most freeing to watch. Living in a world where everything is monitored and programmed, where people are separated into casts because of where they live not by talent or will, I reveled in the chances to see humanity's true nature. Because when the wealth and power and privilege are taken and suddenly everybody is on level ground barriers fall away.

No travel, no bettering yourself, no body modifications especially not if it could help you advance. Your birth place shall also be your resting place, dooming all of us to one plot of land out of the millions in this world. And when you die, don't worry, there's always a dozen others to take your place.

Sometimes I wondered if I was the only one against this messed up society, if I was the only one looking for a way to better myself and make a place where I could finally be comfortable and never have to worry about anything again.