Rupture

Chapter 1

                                                                                Angelica's POV

"Angel!"

My body responds on instinct, my feet stumble back. As soon as I've peered over my little sister's sleeping face, her eyelids have snapped open, now wide awake in an instant.

"Hey, Rosie." I let a flitting smile pass over my lips, though I don't feel it.

"Does Rosie get her pancakes? Please?" begs Rosie, drawing out the please.

"Mmm-hmm," I confirm, lifting her out of her crib. It scares me how many warning signs she has of holding emtions in her. Yet most young children are more affected by it than any other age group. The older you get, the more your mind adapts to the right way, to the safe way. It's just the way life works for us.

Rosie closes her huge gray eyes, same as our father's, and inhales dramatically. She does this as if she can already smell it, even though the ingredients are still in their storage places.

I set her down in her chair, and she squirms impatiently, even though she shouldn't even be able to feel impatient. I know what impatience is because we had to study all of the emotions at school, in our Emergency Health class. That way if anyone shows warning signs, they can immediately helped and rid of emotions like they should naturally be. No one seems to know how it happens to people, it just does on occasion. And it usually doesn't turn out well for the victim the scientists and doctors have to help. They always end up blanker than before, less life in their eyes.

I don't know what they do to them, it's kept secret by the government. Probably so no rebels can reverse it and poison us all with the emotions.

She starts tugging on my shirt, and I snap back to the kitchen. I whip it up real fast and before I know it she's stuffing the golden pancakes into her mouth, along with her tiny fingers.

Then I clean up quickly and help Rosie off the chair. As soon as her feet hit the ground, my cousin Edith walks into the kitchen. Edith is in her late twenties, with honey blonde hair and pretty gray eyes. She's very pale compatre to my little sister and I, Rosie and I are more tan. We live with Edith and her husband Leo, plus their two little girls Chloe and Tatum.

"You fed Rosie?" Her eyebrows arch in question.

"Yep. I'm going for a bike ride."

"Alright, but you'll be home for dinner." Edith makes it sound more like a command than a request. Then she quickly turns her back and starts to prepare breakfast for everyone else. Edith treats us well, but she's always checking on what I'm doing and making sure I'm doing it right, as if somehow she things I'll stain the name of the family.

I walk the bike outside and let the wind run through my platinum blonde hair. I gather it into a loose ponytail and jump on the bike. It's a hot summer day, the only relief the strong wind, and I have to push against the heat and the wind running straight at me as I pedal to the Park.

We all call it the Park, but there's really nothing there, just some old benches with names and various things carved into them and worn away by the weather. It lies behind some trees and bushes sheltering it from the road, and beyond the clearing is the edge of some woods.

I don't even get off my bike when I pedal around the trees and bush that surround the park. There's barely anyone here today, just an elderly couple and a mother and her son. I drop off my bike by a tree close to the edge of the woods and lie down under it's shade. 

The grass tickles my cheek, but I don't even move to adjust my head, I'm too tired from the night before. Rosie would not go to bed. I share a room with all of the kids, and last night Rosie called to me from her bed on the other side of the room.

"Angel. I can't sleep." Her voice broke at the end of the sentence. I immediately rushed to the side of the bed to see what was wrong.

People only cried if they were hurt physically, and I didn't think Rosie had managed to hurt herself between when I helped her into her P.J.'s and now.

"Are you...hurt?" I questioned.

"No." She said plainly, as if it was obvious of what the real reason was.

"Well then what's wrong?"

"Why don't I have a Mommy and Daddy like Chloe and Tatum?" I saw tears glint as they rolled down her pink cheeks. I didn't know what to do, it was too unfamiliar, but it seemed to match the descriptions of what we learned in school, of the emotions.

Unlike humans in the old times, our species is now free of feelings. The only thing associated with emotion which we posess is what is explained to us all as, "a general feeling of what is bad and what is good, what is to be expected of, and one may rarely feel a dull emotion of which matches the chart on pg. 53, Sect. 2. If any of the emotions on the chart occur often or become more than a dull presence, contact a doctor immediately for health and safety reasons."

Our species was made perfect, in the sense of no emotions, and that keeps us safe and healthy. It also keeps those around us safe, which is why if we have unusual emotions we're also a threat to the whole community, which is where the law and science get involved to make the person perfect and free of emotion again beofre it's too late. If that doesn't work, other consequences take place...

We are also told that the good and the bad feeling remains because if we didn't have that we couldn't judge anything, know when something's dangerous, be productive, etc.

Which is why I didn't know what to do with Rosie last night. I decided it's just because she's young, and her mind hasn't adapted yet to the right, safe, and healthy way. If we were meant to have feelings, then why aren't we born with them? It's simple logic for everyone, even a toddler can understand and agree.

I open my eyes and the sun isn't beating down so hard anymore as it sits behind the clouds, and the last thing I remember before drifting off to sleep is the sounds of everyone leaving and the sun sinking lower in the sky.