The Dream Selection

Chapter One

~Rosalie~

It's hard, saying goodbye. You don't know how much you love something until you loose it.

Yeah, I know it sounds really cliché, but it's true. Today is my leaving day, and I have to say goodbye for a month. Or forever, that's up to the tests.

It's all for the dream selection. "It shapes the community" they say. Once someone turns 16, they are sent off to take a test, the dream selection. They knock you out, and they show your dreams on a screen in front of everyone.

It doesn't seem that scary actually, at first. But the complicated part is that you switch between your dream, and a screwed up reality they have created for you. You have to decide which one is real. By the end, you decide, and if you decide correctly, you wake up, return to whatever life you had before, like nothing happened. If you choose the wrong dream, you live out that dream, but you don't get out. Eventually, the dream takes you over, and you die.

They think that it reveals the best of the best, the smartest in the community. The best to survive are picked out, sent home, and haunted by the nightmares they faced.

I keep these thoughts in the back of my head, while I pack alongside my twin brother, Blaine. He is stuffing most of his clothing in his suitcase, frantically. He has always been one to be calm, but he gets nervous about important things like this.

His crooked glasses hanging over his chiseled face make me wonder what will happen to him. His black tufts of hair compare to my dyed burning red. We pack together, sometimes exchanging awkward but reassuring glances at each other.

"Rosalie I don't know if I can do this-" Blaine blurts out, hands shaking on a white dress shirt.

I interrupt him with a hug. "It's going to be okay." I pull him tight then his eyes find mine. "It's so simple, we can do this together. I need you to work with me, we just need to get through it." We pull away as my mom and dad walk in.

My dad has always had a tall bulky figure, his silhouette taking up most of the doorway. My mother appears from behind him, and we look at each other.

"I love you." I run up to my mom and dad and hug them. They hug me tightly and I hear Blaine join in. Holding the hem of mother's red skirt, my five year old sister Cora comes out, tears in her eyes.

"I'm gonna miss you Rosie." she whispers so softly against the small sobs, almost making my heart melt.

I pick her up and push her curly brown hair behind her ears and wipe the tears from her face.

"I will be right back okay? Me and Blaine are going to be back so fast, that you won't even know we are gone." I try cheerfully, hoping she won't see the tears forming in the waterline of my eyes.

Blaine comes up and kisses her forehead, and I hand her to my dad.

"It's time." My mother whispers to me and Blaine. We grab our bags and head out of our house- the home we may never see again- and wave goodbye to Cora and dad as we step into the car.

The ride to the academy isn't far from our house, so we only drive for five minutes or so. The minutes pass by slowly, like they were stretched on forever. We play a game that we used to play when we were kids. We counted the cars on each side of us, trying to ignore where we were heading, until my mother breaks the silence.

"You guys are going to do great. I will see you in a month, okay?" She says, almost uncertain, her hands rubbing the steering wheel, her fingers shaking.

We arrive at the academy, and for what seems like forever, we sit in the car in silence.

"We should get our bags." blurted Blaine.

"Okay." my mother says, sighing.

We get out of the car, and absorb into the scene of parents hugging their children, crying from not only fear of what lies within the tall black walls of the academy, but being pulled from the ones they love.

No one is allowed to speak of what happens in the academy, or there are consequences. So the mystery behind the tinted windows puzzle me.

My mother hugs me after Blaine, and she whispers something in my ear.

"I will always love you, no matter what." she pulls away, tears rushing down her face. "You guys will do great. I love you guys so much."

She smiles sweetly, and I hold back the croaks of tears coming. Every time I cried, I hated it, but this wasn't one of those times.

She helps us with our bags, and we wave goodbye to her. She waves, and it just sinks in. Some of these kids will never see their family again. Never have their regular life back.

Or any life, for that matter.