Markings

Prologue

It's the year 2297. Everything is different. The Ones had noticed a huge increase in the population and decided to make a change. In order to keep the population under control, we've all been genetically modified to have a birthmark on our bodies and a time on our right collar bone. They are both to match up with our mate. The time counts backwards until it hits zero and is the time of when you will finally meet them and the mark is so that you know for sure it's them because it will match your own. Once the time hits zero, the clock becomes part of your mark and blends in.

The population growth happened just after World War III had ended in 2052. Cities had been left devastated with piles of rubble everywhere and buildings wrecked. Riots broke out and too many people were dying. Because of the fact that people were dying, everybody thought it was a good idea to start reproducing but there wasn't much need for it after 2093 when the cities and towns had all been rebuilt.

The population of the world was over a trillion. That's when The Ones started to take action. They did human testing for over a decade before they finally found out what they needed to do.

The Ones created a law where you can't just choose to never be with your Mate. They won't tell us why though. They just say it's dangerous to be on our own. We're also not aloud to have any more than two children and some have been told they can never have any, due to the population.

The laws are strange and insanely strict. If we steal something, we get executed. We preform adultery, we get exiled from our Area. When it comes to being exiled, depending on the act you committed, you could either be exiled from your area and sent to the other province or you could be exiled and never get to live with the rest of society. I could go on about the different laws but I think you get the picture. The penalties are horrible.

There are 17 Areas in the Upper Province and the Lower Province has 28. There are the Outlands but no one dares to go there unless they're either exiled or just never want to return because the moment we step outside our assigned Area, they kill us. We only get to travel if The Ones have approved it which is near impossible unless it's a life or death situation.

Basically our world now is not the one it was before. There's been too much change. The Ones are our deities but no one has ever met them in person.

We aren't aloud to form our own thoughts anymore, we can't trust anything. We can only trust ourselves and The Ones. Or so we think.