The Five Unnecessaries

Chapter 1

SPRING

Grey shouldn't be a color. It's a void.

A grey sky hides the sun. The low clouds threaten storms, without the promise of rain or sun. There is no hope to weary leaves or thirsty grass. It is not darkness or light.

I shook my head, as if to release my restless thoughts. Grey couldn't be that bad. I pulled my dresser drawer open and saw the grey pants and shirt I would wear: the same outfit everyone would wear today. I stared at the grey cloth through the dust floating in the lamplight.

No. It was a void.

I heard footsteps running across the floor right outside. The sound of a little hand knocked on the door. My brother's laughing made me smile, helping my mind wander out of the grey and into childlike wonder.

They would not wear grey today. We wore this color to symbolize sorrow and hope; the light is never able to burn the darkness out. The Territory had found a way to save a few lives, stealing them from the death sentence of being labeled an Unnecessary. But the little boys who ran down the stairs didn't know how powerful the darkness was and didn't know that thousands still died. The boys would wear white, like the other seven-year-olds; oblivious to the fact that despite all our bravery, we were losing a war.

I changed quickly and sat at my desk, squeezed my pencil between my fingers and scratched out a few sentences. I wanted the thoughts to leave me and stay on the paper, not haunt me. I also wrote a few sentences about the growing flowers, how the sunbeam had traveled across my wall at dawn, and the jealousy of innocence. But then I kept thinking about the ceremony. I sketched a picture of the Arches on the next page.

In just a few hours, the leader of the Territory would announce the twenty-six girls who had trained for five years so that they could have a different name: a name that would define them forever.

Protector.

Someone who was brave enough to fight a losing war to save one person.

We marked this significant event with both somber ceremony and elaborate celebration, a mixture of pride, mourning, and hope. For decades, the Territory had gathered all its members to honor the Protectors chosen each year and remember our history. But over the years, our scars had healed, so instead, it had become more like a party. The festivals and feasts marked the joy we felt in the only hope we had.

But today, all I felt was the scar. No one thinks about their scars or usually looks at them with more than a glance. But when they focus on it and remember the moment of injury and the pain, when they trace the scar with their fingers and remember the blood and fear, they feel queasy as if it were a fresh wound.

That's how I felt today.

The feet ran by my door again, followed by the louder feet of their older sister. They would be wearing white. I would be wearing grey. Megan would be wearing black.

"Enough," I said, almost startled by the sound of my voice.

But then, I whispered to myself, "This was always going to happen." I realized that talking to myself out loud was strange, even for me, and tried to calm myself calm by listing everything that would remain the same. The ceremony would be the same twenty minutes: someone would share our nation's history with cheap and fast words and then summarize the reason for the Protectors. Then the Head Trainer would name the Protectors of the 188th generation. The festival would begin after the feast, and I would feel sad because we'd miss most of it. We could never afford the individual shuttle tickets to and from our local transport station and the festival lasted too late to make that trek at nighttime.