Sector-33 | ✓

this is an epilogue.

I think I'm going to call this bit here the epilogue, because why not? My life is constructed of chapters, and to move forwards and recall these past events, I'm going to have to come to an end of the previous novella that was my previous life.

***

Dear _____ ,

Although this is a letter that I'll never send, and one that you'll never read, I just wanted to introduce myself to you, so that you'll know where to start when you send me your reply.

My name is Felicius, and I'm just some nobody kid whose life was flipped over.

My parents divorced last week. I don't know why, all I know is that they'd been fighting a lot over things I wasn't supposed to understand, throwing the plates and everything all over the place.

By the end of their rows, our floors were a sharp mosaic of broken china.

I suppose I saw it coming, but it still hurts. Why is it that things hurt even when you've been expecting them for months? And a divorce isn't anything that involves nerve endings being disturbed to cause the actual feeling of pain. My therapist tells me it's all psychological, but I don't want to listen to any of it.

I live with my mum now. She's nice and all, but nothing's the same. I think she has a boyfriend now.

She cries a lot.

Maybe she misses dad, but then again, they got divorced - they've got no reason to miss each other. I'm the one whose supposed to miss him. I don't, and I don't know why, either. I think I'm just glad that the fighting's stopped.

Now I can get my work done without having to keep my mind on the fact that someone might fall on all the shattered glass and dishes laying like a prickly rug on the kitchen floor. My sister Sara says I worry too much. About everything. She's going to Uni next year, in some college that's far away from here, going to go study medicine or something like that. Sara likes people. She likes caring for them.

Now that I come back to think about it, I've never met mum's boyfriend. I don't think Sara has, either, and I wonder why mum's never talked about him before.

There are a lot of things I don't know.

The city in Sector-33 is everything most people would want a city to be like. It's full of architectural wonder, every angle right, every line straight, every avenue accurately lined up. We still live on the 39th floor. Mum gave me the room with the window that doesn't open. I think she's afraid I might lose it again and jump out. It's a bit silly, but I don't mind it.

I don't like the bustle of noise outside - all the traffic sounds like a million voices that are trying to get into my head, whispering things I don't want to hear. The buzz of life is too quick, these days. Everything's scheduled, everything is planned right down to the very last ticking second.

I feel like everyone should just stop and take a deep breath.

Tomorrow, there's a possibility I won't come back home.

School today was more than eventful. I'm not like Sara. I don't go to a normal school, I don't get to go to university, I don't get to go study biochemistry or medicine and become a doctor and get a job that'll make my mum proud, a job that'll help society move forward.

When the United Governments established the worldwide Sectors, the system was inlaid in stone, like the ten commandments of God. Every rule, etched out. The commandments lie in the central plaza, now, the square, that great cesspool into which all loyal citizens are drained.

It's quite clear as to who goes where.

Three hundred years ago, psychologists and biomedical scientists found a gene for intelligence. And from it, they built a functional society in order to benefit the human race. It's a bit awful.

I shouldn't have written that.

Anyways, that's why I go to a special school where I get special training. And tomorrow, I'm going to meet my partner, and we're going to be sent outside Sector-33 on some sort of Mission at a point during the week. They haven't told me much about it, so I'm still lost in this haze, groping my way through his thick cloud of unnerving doubt that leads me into the unknown.

Apparently it isn't going to be a paintballing drill. Apparently it's the real thing, this time.

They want to keep the peace. It's always about the peace, though, isn't it? Always, always. I'm going to be a Guardian, a thorn on Sector-33's rose, and that isn't going to make my mum proud.

I feel bad.

I don't want to disappoint her- not her. I don't care about her boyfriend, but I'd hate it if all she saw in me was a kid that couldn't grow up or take proper care of himself. Point is, I don't want her to worry. That's not to say I'm not still mad at her about dad. He won't know that I'll be going out onto the field tomorrow, but if he knew, I know what he'd do.

He'd clap me on the back and say, "good for you, son. Good for you."

My family is a bunch of philanthropists. My father had always admired brave people. That's the thing, though. I'm not brave. Hand me a phone and I can use it to hack into any foreign agency's security, but put me on front line, and my knees'll go weak.

My goldfish Clyde likes to ogle me like I'm some sort of alien. He's next to me, right now, in his little tank. He's a bright orange colour, that same saturated hue of the sun when you look at it in a glossy textbook. All bright and orange like fire. Fire in water, that's Clyde, with his two big black eyes on either side of his head.

I think I'll go to bed, now.

Your ever-loving and trusting friend,

Felix