The Differents | ✓

Prologue

A/N
Hello! Thanks for clicking this book. This is something I have been working on for some time now and I'll be updating every week or so. Make sure to vote if you enjoyed the chapter :)

Above cover made by the amazing BookLoverVenue for the WattOriginals 2020. Thank you so much ♥︎

*****

The earliest thing I can remember was the room they gave me. I vaguely remember opening my young eyes to it, immediately taking in its details, which weren't many. The walls were blank, boring. There was a dim light hanging over me. A chest of drawers was tucked neatly into the corner nearest my small, creaky bed. I stared up at the ceiling, wondering just how I had gotten there.

I became very familiar with that ceiling over the years.

There was a small crack in one of the corners, running in a deformed spiral that zigzagged around before ending abruptly in a hook shape. The paint was peeling on the spot above the window. If I really searched the room, I could find little marks and holes in the walls, covered up with hastily applied plaster. I couldn't see over the windowsill, but I heard sounds of the outdoors and the smell of fresh but slightly musty air wafted into the room.

I don't know how long I stayed there. Maybe a couple of minutes, maybe a couple of hours, I was never sure. I didn't get up and go look for someone. I just sat on the rim of the bed, dangling my short legs over the edge, figuring someone would eventually find me on the condition that I wasn't alone.

The first face I remember was a masked one. They opened the door on silent hinges and smiled sweetly at me. Taking my little hand, they lead me out of the room down a blank hall, its walls painted white. As I looked behind me, I saw the door we had come out of swing closed, melting into the hallway as if it had never existed. We stopped at the end and waited, facing the wall in front, our backs to the hall that stretched out behind us, lined with who knows how many doors. Curious, as young children are, I fiddled with my dress and asked the person where we were going. I didn't know what we were waiting for until the wall slid open silently. I don't know what happened next.

I remember more things as I got older, and as I was quick to notice, there were a lot of rules that needed remembering too. They started off light and gentle, but the older I got, the more severe the rules became. Don't do this, don't do that. Make sure you don't forget this, be on time to that. But the most severe of the rules, repeated to us time and time again,

"Don't go beyond the Barrier. If you do, bad things will happen."

How could we even get past it anyway, with the force that always throws us back? Trust me, I tried to get near it once and earned myself a week and a half in the infirmary from falling from a tree in my attempt to see it and endless lectures from every possible person older than me. When I asked why there was a barrier, they simply answered that it was for my own good, that it stopped intruders and crazy people getting in and so we could learn in a peaceful environment free from any distractions.

They say we're here because we're Different. That we have to stay here until we're fixed. Everyone who lives in this place has something about them that needs fixing, whether they know it or not. It's because of our DNA, our blood, our brain. A genetic mutation, they told us, that's what makes us Different. Some are really bad, and can't be fixed at all. Those are the ones who usually get shot.

I only saw a guy get shot one time. They said he had lost it and couldn't possibly be fixed, put a gun to his head and killed him in front of us all. Then they slung his body up over one of their shoulders and took him away. They told us that this should inspire us to do better. They as in the Masks. Well, that's what I call them, anyway. No one's actually seen their real faces, only their vivid green eyes, hiding behind the masks they never take off.

I knew the guy who was killed. He was an odd kid, but he was nice. I sometimes talked to him, when he wasn't talking to himself or getting picked on. But I didn't cry when he died, didn't slam my fist on the table and demand them to stop. No one did. No one ever did, unless you wanted to be shot right then and there. It's just what we were trained to do. Don't feel, don't revolt, don't protest. If you did, you'd be Different forever.

Some people wondered where you go when you're no longer Different, when you're good enough to leave. There were those who thought you had to make your own life outside the Barrier, but there were also those who allowed themselves to speculate further. Rumours and contemplations about a superior colony, whispered from one to another when the Masks weren't watching. They spoke of a place where everyone and everything is perfect. No one hungers or wants, no one argues or fights. Everyone is happy and all their troubles are washed away as if they were nothing more than a slight inconvenience. 

I never believed the stories. To me, they were just things made up to make ourselves believe that our own existence wasn't completely screwed up, that maybe someone, somewhere, was doing something half decent to make up for the ruined Earth left behind by our ancestors. Some people thought that the colony existed and was waiting for us far beyond the Barrier, but we didn't talk about what was beyond the Barrier. Or the myth of a perfect society. We didn't talk about a lot of things.

Here, we only talked about things that we didn't get in trouble for talking about, spoke to instructors only when spoken to, and obeyed all the rules. You didn't want to disobey, because everyone knew what happened when you disobeyed. None of us were given names, only numbers. Like me, I was 9412.

And after what I did, I doubt anyone would forget it.

*****

A/N: the next chapter is  l o n g  but just bear with me! I try not to make them as long as chapter 1 lmao. I've learned my lesson-