The Divided Rose

Prologue (Juliette)

 Notes: So I started this about two years ago and it took me about a year to write because I didn't work on it consistently and I'm a much better writer now then I was then so it might be a bit shit but meh. Anyway, feel free to vote, comment, whatever. Its finished, so at least that's good. Enjoy my lovelies <3 xx

“Two households, both alike in dignity

(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life.”

(Romeo and Juliet, The Prologue.1-5)

I never believed in love at first sight. Then again, I never believed in love, period. But all that changed the night I met Romayo.

            Males and females used to live together harmoniously in the beautiful city of Verona. But then the two families that ruled Verona decided they despised each other. It happened so long ago, no one even remembers why the families hated each other, or even what their names were. We do, however, remember the names of two of the children. The daughter of one family, by the name of Juliet, fell in love with the son of the other family, named Romeo. They married in secret, but then Juliet’s family wanted her to marry someone else. To prevent this, she faked her death and waited for her true love to rescue her. But some idiot told Romeo that his true love was dead, and so he committed suicide. When Juliet found out that Romeo had killed himself, she of course, killed herself too. The two families, upon seeing that both their children had died all for the sake of love, ended their feud and vowed that love would never again create such a tragedy in the city of Verona.

            In order to prevent this, they split the city down the middle with a great stone wall separating the two halves. From that moment on Verona became isolated from all the other cities in Italy. The females lived on one half, and the males on the other. There were only two times the different genders were ever allowed to meet. The first was to reproduce. Well, technically we didn’t actually reproduce with the males. The scientists simply gave the females one fertilized egg that would become a girl, and one that would become a boy. Then when they were born the father would take home the boy, and the mother would take home the girl. This usually happened at the age of sixteen.

The other time the genders were allowed to meet was when the representatives for the females and the males, known as the Council, met to discuss laws and other problems. There was a garden that had been built above the great wall for this very purpose. But even then, only Council members were allowed to enter the garden. Most people never saw a person of the opposite gender until they were sixteen. During the Council meetings, females and males would occasionally get into fights which would often result in injuries and sometimes deaths. The only other people allowed into the garden were the gardeners, who cleaned up messes left by the Council members and tended the plants that grew there.

Though those were the only two circumstances where Verona citizens were allowed to cross the wall, unruly teens with laidback parents tended to sneak up to the garden and down to the other side, to converge with the night life, always wearing masks and keeping to the shadows.

I was brought up to hate all males, and so I should have questioned my sanity when I fell in love with Romayo. But I didn’t, and so now here I am, waiting in the temple for him, while everyone else thinks I died in the fire that attached the Reproduction Lab. And I’m wondering, if Romayo will find me before it’s too late.