Torn To Bits

Chapter 1

"Evelyn Benton, get your butt out here we have to go shopping! The fireworks are tomorrow and we can't look like crap!!!!"

"I'm Coming, I'm coming."

It was the day before The 4th of July celebration. Of course, my friend Audrey was already planning on doing shopping for the event, which pretty much meant we were doing shopping for the rest of the summer.

"Come on, Evelyn," Audrey said walking into my room,"You know every store has the best sales during this time, and you need to buy a present that's 'from' me for your Sweet 16! Mine was a month ago, so you get all the attention now!"

"Okay, okay, just let me put my-"

"Shoes can wait to get on in the car!"

As I hobble on the stone pathway, I make out tons of guys staring at me. It was pretty regular to have guys stare at you on The West Side. Most girls, even without their family's, moved to The East Side. No one knows why. Even before it happened I had boys staring at me. I had long auburn hair, that was wavy and normally pulled into a side fishtail braid. I had high cheekbones, green eyes, and a body like a model (As Audrey says). I don't have a boyfriend; I don't think I will until I'm older; but lots of boys have asked me to be their girlfriend. Audrey is almost exactly like me, except she has long blonde hair; blue eyes; and is a few inches taller then me, which explains why she can drag me out to the car so well.

As me and Audrey lunge into the car, I take a look back inside the house to wave bye to Ellie. Ellie, my little sitter is eight and means the world to me. She's pretty much and exact replica of me, and we have a relationship that's as important as me having air. Ellie hates shopping, so her answer was obvious and I didn't even ask her. As she waves back, Audrey starts rambling on about how this random kid just came up to her and asked her out. I tune out, and think of when it happened.

It was a Friday morning in my house, the same one I live in now, actually. Around that time was when people started getting nervous about the government. All the kids knew about it too, because normally when adults say 'You shouldn't worry about it', it normally means you should. I was only seven, about a year before Ellie came. My mom had ordered me to stay home, and with the tone of voice she had been using, I didn't argue. She had been a little harsh ever since my dad had died, which was a few weeks before that. He was in war and when he was coming home, got shot. A freak accident, they had said. The guy who did it hadn't been caught.

Of course it was just me and my mom. We were home, and took on the kitchen, coming up with tons of unique recipes. We were laughing; everything was good again. It was like old times, except without dad. All of a sudden, the news immediately came on, and the news reporter ordered, "Everybody get to the lowest floor of your homes now! The school has been bombed! Hundreds are dead, and we have reasons to believe it was the rebels!"

Now let me tell you something before I go on about how I almost died, I was awaken by a kiss and my true love was there...none of that happened. All me and my mom did was scramble into the basement of out house and wait there patiently with the news on at the lowest volume level. We had heard the rumors, like I said a little while ago. There were rebels who were turning against the government, saying they were hiding something. Of course no one every worried. Most of these rebels were known to be escaped patients of mental hospitals. But every once in a while, there would be someone, someone not mental who would turn against the government. For reasons no one knows.

As me and my mom sat in the basement together, we heard even more reports about bombings. They were going off everywhere. Hospitals, random homes, government buildings, or just a random place, like in the middle of a road. Soon army trucks were coming in, turning off these bombs. The chaos stopped, and the next day, well, we became what we are today, two separate countries run by two separate governments. Now don't be hating on me, we're still called the U.S.A, but we're separated. We have different lives. The East Side is run by the rebels, and me in The West Side, well, we're the good guys. Or at least I thought we were.