The Fourteenth

Chapter 1: Nobody else cares...

I paced around the attic. I had nothing better to do. Mom had taken away my book for the Twelfth hour. I just had to wait until the Thirteenth hour. Thirty more minutes, Megan. Thirty more minutes. I tried to convince myself I could wait, but I really couldn't. It was all I had to do up here in this plain, empty room. Living in the Forty-Seventh sector was shit. My family only lives in a mansion because my father was assigned keeper of the population. He basically watches over them. The Union funds the first ten sectors the most, and the rest a lot less. Most people in the Forty-Seventh sector live on the streets. My family and I used to live in the First sector, and there is a tremendous difference between the First sector and the Forty-Seventh sector. 

I walked up to my calendar. My next job was to wash the dishes, then care to Gabrielle, my younger sister. In our society, the three youngest children were supposed to care for the elders in their family. Not in my family.

The three youngest in my family are Jeremiah who is Seven months, Gabrielle who is five, and Analia who is nine. I am the middle child. I have three younger siblings and three older siblings. My older siblings are Brea, Coen, and Legend. Brea is Sixteen, Coen is Eighteen, and Legend is Twenty-Two. I had to care to every single one of them. I'm not legally allowed to know my parents names until I turned Nineteen. For now, I have to address them as Mother and Father. They "hired" me to be their "maid" when I was ten. I'm not a maid, I'm a slave. And they didn't hire me, they forced me to be their maid. Now I live in the attic of their mansion. 

"Megan!" It was Legend, "Dishes! You're one minute late, you asshole!" I could hear people laughing, most likely at me. I'm used to being called names. My only sibling that is not mean to me is Jeremiah, but I've been taking care of him since he was born. Nobody else cares about him. Not even Mother.

I put my apron on then headed down the stairs. We had three kitchens, but I only had to take care of two of them. The third one was in Legends apartment which was connected to the second floor's main hall. I walked through the third dining room, past Gabrielle's play room, and into the first kitchen. Once I was halfway done with the load, Coen walked in. 

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"Hey, dork. Get me a chocolate bar from the pantry, right now!" I had to obey him, or else I would be punished. The pantry was all the way down the hall, so I secretly stored a bunch of chocolate bars under the sink, which was next to the dishwasher. Once Coen wasn't looking, I quickly grabbed one and gave it to him.

I went back to work. I finished both the kitchens dishwashers faster than I thought. I had ten minutes before I had to help Gabrielle get into her night outfit. I heard Jeremiah crying, so I went to go see what happened.

I entered the nurturing room and went to his cot. He was hungry because his diaper had already been changed. Once he saw me filling up his bottle with the formula, he immediately stopped crying. I fed him, which took about six minutes, then I put him asleep. I rushed to Gabrielle's room. She was playing with her Molly dolls. 

"C'mon Gabrielle. Let's get you into your nightgown"

"I WANNA WEAR MY PINK ONE TODAY!" She always insists on what color nightgown she should wear, and for some reason, it always ends up being the pink one. She has twelve pink nightgowns. They are all the exact same one. 

"Okay. I'll fetch it for you from your wardrobe" Her wardrobe was all the way down the hall in the walk-in closet at the end of the hall. Every family who lives in houses have these closets. It's for the three youngest children of the family. It's supposed to teach them fair dividing in life and sharing or some shit like that. I walked around the corner into the Hall of Memories. Most family's have their Hall of Memories, but it's not required with the Union. Ours consists of each child's birth photo, alongside their birth certificate, starting with Legend, then goes on to photos of fun memories of birthday parties and activities that we did in the past. My birth photo wasn't on there. It was taken off when I was Eleven when Father almost disowned me because I had become a "maid". Every other child has, at least, fifteen photos including them. Every child except me... and Jeremiah? As I walked down the hall I noticed there were only two or three photos including him, and of course, you would think that he is still an infant, but by Three-month-year-old children usually have about ten photos on their Hall of Memories, but he had three. It was quite strange. I only had one photo. I was with Coen. It was when we still lived in the First sector. I was nine. It was almost my tenth birthday. Almost the day I became a slave. I'm not surprised to why they haven't taken the photo down yet. I'm not in the main part of the photo. Coen is. I was just in the background.

I opened the door to the closet. While I was looking for Gabrielle's nightgown, the Hour Bell rang. It rang every hour. I looked at the clock in the closet. It was the Thirteenth hour. I could get my book back!  I grabbed Gabrielle's pink nightgown and scattered down the hall. I got Gabby changed and sang her sleep song. Once I finished with her I went to the attic. I was ecstatic to read my book, only to find it wasn't there. Just my plain old room, empty. Filled with nothingness. I checked the clock on the wall on top of my bed.

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Hey Guys! 

Thanks for stopping by, chapter 2 will be up soon.

Thanks,

Yasmeen