Two People

What Exactly Are You?

    "Rosalee Adams, get ready you're up next," One of the 13 told me poking her head out of the what my family called the Judgement Room.

    The 13 were a group of 13 individuals, all completely different in all respects of the word. 6 were straight 6 were part of the LGBTQ community; 6 were female half male; all spread across the age range of 19 to 100 (here everyone lived to a hundred); 12 people all from different backgrounds all completely different. Wait, did you catch that, I only described 12 of the 13. The 13 had a leader, the 13th individual, The Elder. Now, the Elder wasn't always always technically an elder. The elder was just a man or woman who fell in the precise middle of the spectrum. His or her job was pretty simple: Pick new members of the 13 if one of them died and be the deciding vote if the other 12 were split evenly on a matter. No one ever knew who the elder was except their family and of course the other 12. I don't think I could ever be one of the 13, it's a very secretive job and I personally suck at keeping secrets.

    Anyway back to the judgement room; in the room one of the 13 would inject you with a truth serum, then they would ask you what the worst and best things you had ever done were. The truth serum would cause you to open your mind completely any suppressed memories would come forward and you would tell them everything. Then using one of their many algorithms they would calculate wether you were, by their standards, a good person or a bad person. Now, it's not as if stealing a candy bar from the drug store made you a bad person, it was more along the lines of killing someone or committing another major felony. After they gave you a title they would let you back into the world. If you were good they gave you some kind of papers, you went back to life as usual, and you were eligible to get a job. If you were bad it was a different story. No one knew for sure what happened if you were labeled bad but I had heard stories. My grandpa used to tell me, before he died, that if you were labeled bad they would let you back into the world for 48 hours with everyone else. In those 48 hours you were supposed to go home say goodbye to your friends and family and have your last few meals. After your 48 hours were up you were supposed to go back and be sentenced to death. Of course, some people would try to escape but they were captured in the first few hours after their attempt. Only 10 people in history are known to have escaped successfully and it was said they only managed to survive a few years on their own before 3 of them returned saying the other 7 died and that they wanted to die peacefully rather than slowly die like their friends had died. A lot of my friends grew up on the same story from their grandparents and parents, their parents most likely using it to get their children to behave.

    The lady that had told me to get ready a few minutes ago motioned for me to go into the Judgement Room. "Hi, Rosalee Adams," I said stepping into the room. In the center of the room I saw a young man, probably only a few years older than me, he was standing next to a cart with what I assumed to be the serum sitting on top in a tiny bottle and a chair. Next to the bottle there was a syringe and a small cup.

    "Hello Rosalee, how are you today?" He asked smiling. He had a very nice smile, it was pleasing to look at. For a moment I thought I recognized him. A few seconds later and it hit me, that young man was my best friend from two years ago. We had stopped talking after he went through Judgement, he had just disappeared. Now I knew why.

    "Beckett? Is that you?" I asked slowly, I didn't want him to think I was weird if it wasn't him. But he soon recognized me as well.

    "Oh my god! It's you! I knew I recognized you. It's been too long," he ran over to me sweeping me into a hug, my feet flying off the ground.

    "So this is where you went. You're parents told me you went out of the country to go to college somewhere in America."

    "No, I told them to tell you that so you wouldn't worry about me. After I came out from under the serum they told me I had two options. One was to join the police force and the other to take the place of a the 19 year old that had died a week before Judgement Day. I didn't want to worry my parents by going into the force so I chose the second option." Being offered a job in either the police force or as part of the 13 was reserved for the best of the best. "I do need to do my job though so what do you say we get on with this. I know you are terrified of needles so here," he said handing me the cup full of what looked like sparkling water but was most likely the serum. I sat down on the chair taking the cup out of his hand.

    "Wish me luck," and with that I swallowed every last drop of the bitter liquid as everything went dark.

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So... what do you think of chapter one? Leave a comment if you want, or vote if you thought it was good. If you have any suggestions or notice any mistakes feel free to leave a comment and I'll fix it. Thanks for reading, hoped you liked it, and byeeeeeeeee.