Experiment 232

Chapter 2

When I get home, I go straight to my room and read. I love to read, because it’s so relaxing. It is a book handed down from generations ago, since there is no access to new books in anywhere but our capital city, Meyerton, or maybe Heighsborough, the only other city in the country. Hundreds of years ago, everyone could have access to bookshops which had all sorts of books, but after the revolution the government had given up on other places but the capitals, leaving the whole country to become overgrown and forested.

Before the revolution, the people of the country could vote for whom they wanted in the government, but one person, Alfred Meyer, wanted to overthrow it all, and somehow succeeded. He chased out the Royal Family, and ruled over the country by himself. He was horrible to the people. He cut off international connections, used up all their resources and issued laws to suit himself. He even changed the name of the country, its major cities, and named the capital after himself. He killed people whenever he felt like it, and if anyone spoke out against him, they would die too. People across the country were outraged.

Then one day, they tried to kill him. Millions upon millions of people gathered in Meyerton to try and get rid of him. And no-one quite knows how, but they lost. Meyer somehow managed to stop them, and not just that. Most of them were killed. Some were shot. Some hanged. Some were even killed in ways that is just too horrible to know. Some managed to escape, but very few compared to the amount killed. There were some who didn’t try to take part, only out of fear that something like this would happen. Even then, Meyer sent out troops to find and kill – or take prisoner – any others who had been involved. However, since the troops couldn’t identify the rebels, innocent people also became victims. Some people had gone to the capital city with their families. Not even the children were spared. In only a week, the country’s population had decreased drastically, reducing further in the months that followed.

The dead were buried in one field, carelessly. That land is now an extension on Meyerton.

Then Meyer set up his own small government, in case something like this happened again. All the money gained from the dead went straight into Meyer’s pocket. It makes me sick. I can never hear anyone say Meyer’s name without feeling an overwhelming anger. Even though that happened hundreds of years ago and he is long since dead, the government have not changed. They still live and work by Meyer’s rules. No-one even knows what all the money was used for – probably stupid government stuff – but now there is not enough for the rest of us. And even today, there are only a few million people in the whole country, or so I’m told. And most of them live in the cities. The rest of us are scattered across the country in tiny villages with barely enough to live on.

Even then, someone would think that we’re freer in a way, but every few months, a government official or two is sent to check on each village, take half of everything we grow or make so it can be provided in the cities, check grades of the children and young people at school…

Take children with high grades off to a survival skills camp…

Tell people that the little girl that everyone loves is dead…

I close my eyes. No. I can’t think about her. It hurts.

Maybe it’s stupid that I still grieve this much. I was only eight, after all.

But she was my best friend…

Shaking my head, I close the book and go to the kitchen, where my mother is cooking dinner. It smells delicious. She turns when she hears my footsteps.

“Hello there, Jamie. How was your afternoon?”

I sit at the table. “It was fun,” I say vaguely, before adding, “Did you know that the Merchants’ niece is staying in town?”