Conbellia

Chapter 1

I open my eyes to the blinding sunlight falling through the window. I look at the clock in my room. It's 7:30 am. I close my eyes again. A second later I open them again. I feel my breath fasten.
No. Calm down.
I start doing controlled breathing to keep my feelings down.
After a few minutes, when I've calmed down enough to think clearly again, I get out of bed and make my way down the hall to the bathroom. I apply some decent make-up and braid my hair.
As I enter the kitchen my mother is already cooking. Usually I'd help her but today I just can't. I sit down on a chair and bury my face in my hands.
Two minutes later my sister comes in. She's 10 years younger than me, just 6 years old. She's almost too young to understand but apparently she does. She doesn't ask for anything as she usually does. She doesn't even talk at all. Instead, she sits down next to me and wordlessly takes my hand.
Today is the big day of my life.
300 years ago a group of humans decided that the society they lived in was against human nature. They chose a city in the middle of the USA called Phoenix. Inside the city they formed a state. Thwy called it Conbellia. For 100 years they were investigating, calculating, searching for way to live without the destruction of the environment. They built big walls all around the city and they also built a water circulation as well as all other necessary things. Finally, they tore down all old buildings and built new ones, of nature-friendly materials. They let parts of the city geow wild. After about 100 years in those palces the woods developed. In the last step the founders created a new society.
They divided it into ranks. The better the job, the higher the ranking.
These are the jobs from the lowest to the highest rank:
Workers  (they build streets, houses, work in factories etc.)
Farmers (they grow food)
Hunters (they hunt in the woods around town)
Office-Workers (they do paperwork)
Entertainers (singers, musicians, dancers, actors,...)
Scientists (they are still working on figuring new things out)
Healers (doctors)
Fighters (our police who also protect is from the outside)
Leaders (self-explanatory)
When you marry, the female gets into the same rank as the male previously was. That's why you can't marry before Testing Day.
I've known this story for ever.
My parents are Office-Workers. That means we're somewhere in the he middle. We live in a small house at the edge of town. My parents, my sister Celia and me.
I force myself to swallow the last bites of food. I wonder how obvious it is that I'm nervous. Today is my testing day. It always happens once a year on the 1st July. Every 16-year-old in town has to come to the testing building. It's in the very center of Conbellia. There, you have to go through various tests as well as a special brain scan. In that scan they see how your brain is formed, by that they also see which parts of the brain are developed the best. Because the other tests may not be 100% accurate. In the afternoon, they calculate the results and tell you your rank. Your parents' ranks rarely matter. A leaders child might become a worker. You can only change your rank by marriage or if you achieved something so special they decide to lift you up. But the latter hasn't happened in the past 150 years so the hopes are pretty slim...
My dad enters the kitchen.
"Hey Jeanine" he says "Good luck. "
I know that it's the best he can give me. If I get a different rank, which is very likely, we might see each other less than once a year. I give him the best of a smile I can manage.
"I love you all" I say.