Caught In The Gray

Chapter One

My alarm buzzes and I groan before rolling over to check it. It tells me that it's nine in the morning. I roll over and try to fall asleep when it hits me.

I remember that I'm late for what is arguably one of the most important days of my life. If I manage to fuck it up, then it makes me look very undesirable and that basically fucks me for the rest of my life.

Shit. I throw back to covers on my bed and rush to my dresser where I have a gray pencil skirt and a white blouse laid out along with a pair of nude heels. It's pretty standard issue and very suitable for what I was instructed to wear today.

Today is the day that I among the other eligible girls between the ages of eighteen and twenty get interviewed for the possibility of being the next Military Commander's wife. The fifty most compatible girls are selected and the Future Military Commander meets with them and chooses one. I personally don't see the reason in it, the system's pretty flawed still, being fairly new.

There's only been two Military Commander's in the newly established world in America. All of the other nations have each had one besides a few that have lost one to the Epidemics that are sweeping through the world.

America lost the first one to old age, he, Mason Alaric, had been the President for two terms when the conflict between every nation escalated to an unbearable, unspeakable level. Every nation had become panicked about the Epidemics that were spreading rapidly and it turned into a bad combination of militarism, imperialism and nationalism.

The leaders of each nation came together and decided to create a peaceful solution where each country selected one person to be the Military Commander, the person had to accept that their country wasn't better of worse than one another and that if they didn't possess a heir they couldn't be eligible for the position.

The Treaty was signed and every decision is run by every Military Commander of every nation and is modified so it best fits the need of all the nations put together. Since it's new, there's still work to be done before it's considered perfect, an endgame being perfect world harromination where disease is eradicated.

One thing that creating the system did was it stopped immigration, the diversity of each nation being limited to a single point. I think this seems to be the opposite of what the end goal looks like, it limits what perspectives people have but I can see that it would create less conflict.

One of the solutions to come is that if no one in the nation is found to be compatible to the next Military Commander, someone from another nation is selected which would help open views.

Not even mentioning the fact that Earth is ridden with Epidemics and heating up more and more every year, the coldest it gets in the world is ten degrees. I'm just happy that people are trying something to try and fix the flaw.

I've always been fascinated with war and strategy and history. It's so interesting how it works, intense and like a game of capture the flag.

I finish dressing and run to bathroom where I brush my teeth and put my hair up into a ponytail, I tie a gray ribbon around it to match the skirt. My hair is color between dark blonde and medium brown, my skin reflects olive tones and my eyes are a bright green.

No one really looks like me, no one seems to have the odd complexion. My father immigrated from Jordan with his parents when he was a child, they fled Jordan trying to find peace in America. He was one of the last immigrants, the Treaty being made a few years after he arrived.

Everyone tells me I look like him, sharing the same bright green eyes and similar skin tone even though mine is lighter from my mom. My hair is more along the lines of hers, being a bit darker.