365 Days

Flying

We fly high above my little country.

The little country that's crammed full of houses and buildings, adults and children alike; all trying to make a living, all trying to survive

I see skyscrapers reaching up toward us, and fields of golden crops.

Then, I spot the immense barricade separating us with the next country. It stretches like a snake as far as I can see.

We duck into a group of clouds, and one of the flight attendants walks up and down the aircraft, handing out backpacks.

I murmur a thank-you as she passes me mine, and then I carefully empty out the contents onto my lap. There's a water bottle (which is empty, unfortunately), two knives (one with a serrated blade, and one without), a coil of rope, a flashlight (accompanied by five batteries), a tarp, two fishhooks and some fishing line, a fire-starter and a packet of water-purification tablets.

"You got lucky," Tiana whispers.

"What do you mean?" I reply, unsure.

"All kids get the basic knife, tarp, rope, and a fire-starter. They load on more stuff based on whether you've been good or not."

"Good? What does that mean?" I ask, glancing down at her lap. She's got a knife, a tarp, a coil of rope, two fire-starters and a smaller packet of water- purification tablets.

"Some of these kids have been bad. Some of them even have a criminal record because they were forced to steal to support their families. And they also take your grades into account; they want the smartest, strongest and most not-bad people to survive."

I smile at the words "most not-bad". In any ordinary day, I'd correct her grammar, but today I couldn't care less.

One kid yells out, down the aisle. "How come he gets more stuff than me?"

Other children quickly hush him, but it's too late. One of the guards slowly walks over, staring the boy in the eye harshly.

"What did you just say?"

"N-nothing," The boy stutters, but the guard has already leaned down. He whispers something in his ear, and the poor boy's eyes widen.

"No, you wouldn't!" he says quietly, scared. "How did you know?"

The guard doesn't offer any answer. Instead, he walks back to his post at the front of the aircraft and waits.

I try to sneak a peek at the other kids' items. One boy has a large axe, a tall girl at the front has a bow and some arrows, and a girl with blonde hair has fifteen candles. The items seem to be distributed almost randomly.

"Fifteen minutes till landing, children. You should pack up your items and prepare for landing. Make sure you don't leave anything on the hovercraft!" A flight attendant makes a point of the last sentence, and I can understand why. If you left your backpack here, you'd be thrown out in the wilderness with literally nothing and would probably die.

I can overhear one of the guards speaking to another flight attendant. "These kids won't stand a chance," he whispers. "It's fall now, and it'll soon be winter. I betcha' at least half of 'em will die before the new year comes."

The flight attendant looks at him in disgust and replies, "I'm sure more than that will survive!"The guard shakes his head.

I stare out the window, and am greeted with an endless stretch of orange autumn trees.

The guard was right. Half of us probably wouldn't survive into the new year, much less a whole 365 days.

Would I be one of those people?