La Fin

Chapter One: The beginning

"How could we let this happen, time and time again?" My mother would ask my father after the daily news broadcast. "Who says we let it happen? We have no other choice!" He'd respond as his eyes, once full of power were replaced with those full of fear and uncertainty. We were young, how could we know how bad things had gotten we didn't know anything different. We'd be woken each morning by a loud siren signaling us to wake up and begin preparing for the day if we hadn't already. Because of the war and all the violence we were given a curfew but the wars were long over by the time my sister and I had been born. I remember our old house, each one looked the same except some were bigger depending on the number of people that lived inside. Since there were four of us we got a bigger two-story home. It was grey with white lining around each bulletproof window that could only be opened by a passcode. Our door was heavy and white, and we had to use rental scanning to unlock it. The first floor was a living room with the TV, one couch, a lamp, and a chair, government issued of course. The kitchen was across the hall it was all white with stainless steel appliances and a stainless steel table with exactly six chairs. Down the hallway is where the staircase is, up those stairs there were four rooms. My room and my sisters were on the right, the doors were white and every wall was grey in that house. Our room had one twin sized bed, one dresser, a floor length mirror, and a closet just wide enough that hangers could fit in it when you shut the sliding door. My parents room was on the left, they have a queen sized bed, two dressers, and two closets. We all shared one bathroom on that floor, it had a tub and shower combined, a sink, a toilet and a wall mounted mirror over the sink. We'd wake up each day at five o'clock sharp, my sister and I would get dressed in our black skirts, a white button down shirt tucked in, knee length white socks and shiny black dress shoes. While we brushed our hair into buns on the nape of our necks and made sure all the wrinkles were out of our shirts our parents showered. Those 18 and older had to shower in the morning, 18 and under showered at night those 10 and under took baths at night as well. It's part of the water allowance for each person. We'd all meet downstairs around the kitchen table at six o'clock for our breakfast of plain oatmeal, a banana and a glass of milk. We wouldn't​ speak, it took too much time. At six-thirty a siren would blaire​ signaling the school children that the buses were ready and waiting the end of each neighborhood street. My sister and I would kiss our parents goodbye and walk hand-in-hand to the bus idling ominously at the end of the block. We'd sit in separate schools, I'd be in the middle school she would go to the elementary school then we'd meet at 3 o'clock, go to the bus and go home to do our chores and homework before mom and dad got home from work. We'd all eat a bland dinner at 5:30 then watch the daily news announcements, my sister and I took our showers then we'd all say our goodnights and go to bed to repeat it all the next day. My sister Emerson has never known anything different, granted things weren't much better before it was definitely better than that. Sure we had food and water restrictions due to pollution but we could wear what we wanted and talk about what we wanted. The worst part about all of this is the second you turn eighteen you face a board of people from military, educational and manual labor fields of work to decide where you'll fit in to society. That's what I fear most is being sent into the military away from my family. Surprise, surprise that's exactly what happened.