Tomorrow Never Dies || 5 Second of Summer au

Red in a Grey Town

October in our district was cold. My dull, lifeless jacket was tightly wrapped around my pale frame. It was six a.m and I was already heading off to school. Everyone walked to help with 'weight control' and 'daily exercise' to keep everyone within their specified weight group. No one, was different.

Time past as I admired the trees falling in color from bright greens to the dark oranges and browns that came along with the cooler season heading in. This meant the harvest season was coming to an end and from now on, all food would be controlled by government houses stationed in the center of town. We'd all go there for each and every meal starting on the thirty-first.

I once heard legends of a holiday that day served as a day to block off the dead from rising. How people would light fires and lay out delicious food to ward off the dead. And as time got older the legends fell into a tradition that children dressed in spooky outfits and begged for candy in exchange, they wouldn't 'trick' the houses. But, that was supposedly all fiction my old history teacher taught us before he was killed for the 'disclosure of false facts to minors'.

Sighing, I shoved my hands in my pockets and held my head down, staring at my dull shoes as I walked. Why did everything had to be so... boring? Everyone looked the same and had such similar personalities and ideas that its hard to tell anyone and anything apart. Mother says this kind of thinking is the thinking that will get me killed one day. She's probably right.

Coming up on the school, I look around for my classmates. Each and every one wearing the same outfits, their hair the same length and bodies the same size. Though, I fell into the 'tall' group and still managed to come out taller then everyone even there. I was considered 'odd' and have to be monitored for my height class. Which makes me feel even more as a freak.

"Lucas!" Mindy, my 'friend' given to me by the government spoke, slowly walking up to me, her smile wide and false. She doesn't think like me... no one thinks like me.

"Oh hey, Mindy." I said, rather distracted with my own head to even begin to think what might be in hers. "How are you?"

"Good." She said, looking up at me. "And you?"

"Fine." I admitted, not really wishing to prolong my conversation. My mother and father suspect she will become my wife in which I am forced to marry at the end of this year. Personally, I don't want that, not in any way. I think its barbaric to be forced into marriage with a woman I cannot fathom myself to love.

Now, Mindy wasn't a bad person. But, she was... normal. Too normal. I fear for my life when with her. My thoughts pour out of me sometimes. And I do worry that someday, I may say something and be killed for it.

"So, Lucas..." she said, batting her long eye lashes. "Do you have a date for the up and coming formal we have to attend to get our first job details?"

The question actually caused me to baby throw up. We are not allowed to pick our careers. We go along with what the district needs and agree to it. Failure results in immediate death. I, for one, do not want to have my life made up for me. I was planning on hiding in the woods, in all seriousness. But that also would get me killed.

But, at least they try and make up for it by making it like a 'ball' or 'dance' in which we dress up and dance around to dances we were forced to learn at young ages. At least we were able to pick our dates.

"No, I do not, Mindy." I admitted breathlessly. As much as I didn't wish to ask her, I knew that it was the 'right' thing to do on my imagine. "Would you like to go with me?"

Her face lit up like a light. "Yes! Of course!" She yelped, only to be glared at by neighboring students. You were never supposed to yell unless in danger. And danger was one thing she was not in.

Class finished, all nine hours of it, as the final bell rang. Standing, I fixed my tie and stretched my back. After sitting in a cramped classroom for nine hours, it sure knows how to stiffen up.

Not before long, I had gathered my things and began walking on the sidewalk toward my grey home in our grey, lifeless neighborhood. I wish, I hadn't been given this life. All I wanted was to sing, to write, to truly be myself.

Nervously, I glanced around to ensure I was, in fact, alone and began to hum. Hum the only song I'd known. The song of 'freedom' as someone once said... someone... who in which I could not recall.

Heading into the second verse, I glanced down, getting louder with my song. On the ground lay red... Splashes of red heading into the woods on my right. Red? Red from what?

Curiosity winning me over, I glanced around once more before abandoning my bag and dashing into the woods; following the red splashes now on fallen branches and leafs. My breathing increased, wondering what exactly I was truly going to come upon. Something from outside the wall maybe? No where such a color would be within our city...

I searched around the woods, looking for anything that could give me a hint on what this thing was as I ran. The splashes continues to trail on. By this time, I was utterly terrified and wondering how far off I was from civilization. 

I continued to run until the red ceased, right where I was standing. I looked around on the ground but the red ended there. "H-Hello?" I yelled, looking around myself, doing circles where I was standing. The red staining my shoes. "I-Is anyone there?"

The branches above my head began to crinkle and sway violently. I froze, terror filling my body. Something was coming down from those trees... and it was coming for me.