This story was a result of a vocabulary story, that ended up way longer than it should have been...this is the product of me trying to make it short enough. Comments??? May be turned into a real short story...
My name is Arenia, and tomorrow is my seventeenth birthday. In my society a seventeenth birthday does not mean presents or parties; it is the turning point of my life. Tomorrow represents whether or not I live to see my eighteenth birthday. Tomorrow decides if I will be a Breeder.
I have known the story my entire life, of how our supposedly innocuous society came to be. It started when the government was overthrown. Our country used to be called the United States of America, but when the Germans took over in 2100, it created a fifth world war in which all of the “imperfect” people perished. All that was left was the ideal race: blond hair, blue eyes. We call our country Arete… “perfection.” Of course perfection is something that is almost impossible. Once in a while, a baby would be born without blond hair, or without blue eyes. They would be outcast—sent out to the far recesses of the country to do the work no one wants. Finally in 2131, they found a way to completely eradicate the anomalies: they found a way to control the births.
The Augurs, our scientists, found a way to isolate the reproductive gene of every man and woman in the world. This meant that they could select who would give birth and who wouldn’t. People were incredulous about this new feat. The government decreed that every seventeen years, 500 teens would be selected in every country to engender the new generation. The only cost would be the teens’ lives. In order for the population to replenish, each 250 female breeders would be impregnated with ten embryos, and each of those ten embryos would become a child. The strain was put on the mothers, and so the Augurs connected the surrogate mothers’ lifelines to the fathers’ in order for the babies to be carried full term.
The breeding started in January of 2132, after the querulous Mores, the moral council of the world, became subdued, there was nothing for the population to stop it. On the morning of 500 teen’s seventeenth birthdays, they woke to a searing pain on their palms. It was the sign of fertility, the sign of the call to their country, and the sign of their death. The Breeders would go to their nearest Augur facility and present themselves. There they would meet their Match, the one who would help them create the children. For nine months the couples would be drained, all the while a smile on their faces for their contribution to their country. And when the time came, The Birthing, they would slowly drift away, be honored as heroes, and their children would be sent to welcoming families, creating an artifice of normalcy.
Most people do not see the guile that the government presents to us. But I am one of the very few Cognizant. I am one of the people who see past the lies, the duplicitous stories that the government gives us, and I can do nothing. Do nothing but sit back and watch, and wonder if I am to be one of the chosen, one of the Breeders. If I am to be one of the ones who gives their lives for the tenet of today’s life. For if I am, I can do nothing but go along with it, and hope that my genes reach the offspring that will be the death of me; hope that they will have the time to stop what has happened and will continue to happen.
I look at my palm. The clean lines showing my lifeline, my life’s plan. If only I were one of the Readers, able to see into my future, to see if I will be a Breeder, or if I will have the chance to change this place. The lines, they weave like a river flowing in a path that is completely new. One only I can see. I peruse my palm. Will I be one of the Breeders? Is the tingling I feel in my wrist a sign of what is to come? No. It is just me trying to see into the future…into the future of tomorrow. My meticulous gaze surprises even me. Am I really that unwilling to die? Or am I just afraid that with the death of me, will come the death of the Cognizant?
I stretch out on my bed, the soft, plush blanket creating a cocoon of peace. A haven. Tomorrow will be the beginning. The beginning of my end, or the beginning of change.
***
Red hot pain. This is what I wake up to on the morning of my seventeenth birthday. Panic immediately starts to boil up in my chest; my throat becomes constricted, I can't breathe, I can't see, all I can think of is the death that is waiting for me if the pain is what I think it is. Maybe it isn't maybe I got bit by a spider or a bug or something. Maybe my palm isn't etched with the sign of the Breeders. This line of thought brings my panic down a little, down enough to slowly open my eyes and bring my palm under the glowing orb, circling around my room. NO. Jagged red, burning lines run along the life lines of my palm, intertwining with my destiny path, an ominous sign of death, betrayal, and life. As I stare at the glowing sign on my hand, I know this is the end. My end. Maybe the end of everything I stand for.
