The Selected

Chapter One

For the moment, my mind is my own. I have my own thoughts, my own sense of control, and I can feel my emotions and my emotions alone. Right now, I am feeling an odd sense of calm pulsing through my veins, cool and gentle as it rides the waves of my steaming bloodstream. It’s a strange comparison.

Tomorrow will be the day that I may die, or live to share the elements of my body. Tomorrow is the day where many lives will shatter, only to be rebuilt with stronger intentions. Tomorrow is the day of the Selections.

Strangely, I do not fear what tomorrow may bring. Years ago, people my age would have been crying into their pillows by now, or holding their parents or siblings for as long as they can before it is time to face their future. They mostly feared death. The Line Up is what terrifies the strongest of mankind, the soldiers holding handguns away from their bodies and towards the Selected, shooting down one at a time as they see fit. I am yet to witness this event, but I have heard on more than one occasion that there are more dead than alive.

I do not fear this.

I have to think about what is beyond the first stage, the Selections. I have to think about the next step, the Breakage. They say that the Breakage is what will either destroy you or make you unbeatable. Outside of the crumbling walls surrounding our intertwining towns and villages, known as the Segment, new lives are born, and for many it is as if life finally has a meaning. That is what I want.

I sit on the ground in the living room of our brittle home. My parents are in the kitchen, which is through the archway across the room. They murmur quietly to one another, and I know my mother is crying. I stare at the wallpaper that is peeling away from the wall before me, the old TV playing quietly in the corner of my eye. It was once a creamy coloured paper, making the room feel light and safe, but now it seems to be in disarray, its edges yellowing from time. We can’t afford new wallpaper, no one can.

We received notice of my Selection just two weeks ago, when a man with dark hair and a scarred face knocked on our door with a stiff hand. I had answered, and he’d introduced himself as Adrian Stalling, a soldier training in Sector Five. Section Five is for the most powerful beings, where most of the trainees go on to be our country’s leaders. No one knows where it is, as there are six Sectors all together, all in different locations, some speculated to even be across stretches of sea.

“Miss Connie Harper?” he’d asked. He had no expression, no emotion in his eyes. I knew he’d been trained to hide any kind of emotion.

“Yes?” I’d said, feeling my mother come up behind me.

“I am pleased to inform you that you are one of the Selected. Congratulations.” He’d handed me a letter, leaving as quickly as he had come. While I opened it to read the location and time, mum broke down to a heap on the ground.

She’d been crying ever since.

Becoming one of the Selected is a somewhat privilege in this day and age; if you are to live, you will become a lethal weapon, but if you are to die, then you are doing society a favour.

Boys and girls between the ages of fourteen and twenty one are watched for the entire year, whether it be in school or out in public. Men and women, the Watchers, take stations in buildings that are popular with the younger population, with electronic information pads that has our data on them, from our date of birth to our favourite pass times. They make the Selections, first in a vast amount before narrowing them down in the final weeks leading up to the Line Up. Anyone who appears to be useless to our society will be the ones that shall die, and the ones that appear to be strong both physically and mentally will be the ones to move on to Sector One, the Breakage Sector. Those in between will be left to live in this dying society many call home.