The Decision

2. My Life

Okay, well that there is the beginning to my tragic story I have, but I need to make sure it doesn’t end as bad as it started. My name is Scarlett Rodgers and I am 17 years old and I live with my sister, Alexandria Rodgers, who is 15 years old, in a little cottage, in the middle of nowhere, out in the boonies. Yeah, we’re those people. We live in the freezing, very unpopular town of Denver, Colorado. They say that Denver was one of the most popular cities of the twenty-first century, but from the looks of it now, you would think the whole world never knew about it. It’s deserted and dirty and cold and it’s never sunny and there are about thirteen families who live here, including my sister and I. Denver isn’t the only city that is cold. The whole world went cold in 2100.

By the way, the year it is now is 2121. The Council says that this year is the year of the gods. I say that this year is just a bunch of crap. They say it will be better and it will finally get warm and those everlasting clouds are going to magically disappear. They are going to magically disappear like my happiness and sanity. The Council makes the Decision. In my dictionary, they are just a bunch of stuck up old people with nothing better to do than take my sister away from me. The Decision is what decides what your purpose in life is and how long you will live. For example, the Council may see a hardworking man and say that he will be the farmer for half of the acres of land he lives by. Then they take him to a room and hook him up to a machine that will tell how long he will live. So they may take him and see that he will die in two years and they will take him to the gunning square in the middle of town and shoot him in the back of the head. If they see that you won’t be useful in their game of life, they just end it early because they say they need the space. They don’t normally come to Denver because we have plenty of space but not enough people to fit it all. They try to transport some people but the people resist so we’re stuck at thirteen.

They decide that this week was a good week to come and destroy some lives by taking away their loved ones and taking them to the Council so they can be Decided. So, of course, you can guess who they decided they wanted to take. I have never been to the Decision because I was born the day the Council was established so by the time I was 15, they hadn’t even thought of the Decision yet. So I was never at risk of being selected.

When I was 7, my mother told me that she used be a singer and said that I may have the talent also. So, of course, I tried and realized that I may actually be good at it. When my sister was born and turned the same age I was, I told her the same thing my mother told me and she kind of went through the same thing I did and now we are partners in crime. Well, we were. We went to parties, bars, churches, special events, anything for a little bit of money. We really prospered and had fun doing it. So much for having a partner though, I guess it’s back to just me, myself, and I.