Our World. Never the Same

I woke to the sound of birds. This isn't strange considering my house is located in the middle of a forest. The birds are like my morning alarm. Every day at 6 AM sharp telling me to get up and stop being lazy. I'm not the type of person to want to lay around all day but I don't like getting up early. What teenage girl does? Not many as far as I know. Ignoring my urge to go back to sleep I got up. The first morning chores consist of feeding the cats and waking my sisters an hour later for school. Being 18 I do not attend school anymore. In life, when you turn 18 you stop attending schooling. The next big life event comes exactly one year after your 18th birthday, The Life Path. For me, this "path of blah blah blah" is in 2 weeks. All of my friends have already picked their lives and here I am still deciding. I think that I should just run away and never go back but where would I go? There isn't any place I know that isn't monitored by The Leaders. Just as I was beginning to plan out my run away my youngest sister Anne came running in. Anne is almost 6 now and just started kindergarden a few months back. She is always eager to learn and I can already tell what life she will have. I know she will be a teacher. Its so obvious to everyone. Her love of learning and desire to take in new information every day is amazing. Not to mention Anne is the most adorable child in this village. I'm just sad that I won't see her pick her life. When a villager turns 25 everyone throws them a big party! But the strange thing is the next day, they are gone. Completely vanished. And its normal. Well normal to everyone else. Nobody ever thinks as much as I do. I fear the day that the celebration will be for me. And then I will be gone. "Lilly why didn't you wake me up?" Anne said in a sad voice. " I'm sorry Anne I was deep in thought." i apologized to the child. She was worried that she would be late for school. The middle child, Rane, had no intention of getting up unless I dragged her out of bed. She's 10 now and is the type who doesn't want to ever leave her bed. Dreaming is her specialty. She loves to sleep. Always at dinner we hear about her "dream world" where there are "oldies" who are wrinkled and look to be at least 40. And there are people who have amazing lives and much more craziness. Sometimes I dream of this too. But I think it's just Rane's crazy stories getting to me. Is it?