Chapter One.
Before Slythes there’s nothing.
Not a single memory, but that’s easy to say coming from me, because I was born in the middle of this.
But my mother was born ten years before Slythes was created, although, she never say anything about it. I think the government prohibits people like my mother to talk about the past, they want us to know anything, and when I say anything, it’s really anything.
My name is Ivy, I’m sixteen years old and for now that’s all the important information that I know.
There’re no schools in Slythes. There’re no dreams in Slythes. There’re no books in Slythes.
We only have our family, our neighbors, our neighborhood and our job.
I’m working as a waitress since I was, like, eleven. My parents own the restaurant, and our job’s to produce the food that all the people in Slythes are going to eat, sometimes people come to our restaurant and my sister, my little brother and I have to serve them. My mother told me something about the past once, and that’s the only thing that I know about it: In the past, sometimes when a pretty girl worked at a restaurant, some jerks insulted her. Now that never happens, the rules in Slythes are strict and the punishments are worst so people are always afraid.
It’s obvious why they want us to know anything about the past, about common knowledge or things like that: They want us to be weak, and the only way is making us a bunch of idiots, my sister always says that.
She's the smartest person in Slythes, everybody just love her; I mean it.
She's, like, the smartest person in the city, everybody thinks she is as wise as our president and founder Ertelekzy Slythes, who's like 28 years old, he's very young to be a president. But, oh god! He's as evil and strict as our government. So, yes, Elle, my sister, is one of the most famous persons here. How did she got that knowledge? Nobody knows, but there are theories: Maybe she born as a genius, maybe she's intelligent as hell, actually I don't care.
Any way, comparing to my sister my life is bored: I wake up, go to take a bath, go to work at the restaurant, sometimes speak with my “best friend” Gunther or with my wise sister, if she's not occupied giving smart advices to the people who come to our restaurant, or to my parents. Otherwise I spent my time giving food to everybody and, when the day is over, I just go back to my home and sleep. Then the routine repeats and repeats with little variations.
I grew up in the shadow of a famous sister, from day to night, with rain and with sun, every day, without exception, the crowd would swirl around the glass gates of our restaurant hoping they could see my sister; only a 30% of the people outside would have the chance to see her. Everybody just needs her, and what do I do? I'm a waitress and sometimes I have to take care of my little brother: Kurt, or BIG K, like I call him. So, my sister is very appealed and I'm just me: Ivy Dratmeyre. For two years the Slythers, the security officers of Slythes, thought that my family were hiding something, it wasn't normal that a girl of 16 years old, now she's 18, had that knowledge and an innate talent to words. So they checked every corner of our house and our restaurant, they didn't find any proof, so the government gave my sister permission to give advices and share her knowledge with the citizens, of course there were some restrictions. Although, people always come asking for advices of economy, love and family, she's like a psychiatrist, more than anything.
What can you do in a city like this? There's no escape, there's no education, there's only ignorance and power, and obviously we're not the group with power in its hand.
So, today's over, I see Gunther eating a last plate of soup and a family leaving our restaurant.
“So...” Gunther breaks the awkward silence after everyone left.
My parents are washing the dishes and it's my sister turn to take care of Big K. It's a raining day in Slythes and the darkness of the cloud’s transmuted into the citizens walking in the wet pavement, sometimes I think that tomorrow's going to be a better day with changes in it, but always it's the same routine, in Slythes nothing changes.
“It was a good day isn't it?” Gunter says sarcastically.
“Oh! Of course!” I reply.
We don't have long conversations, sometimes there's only silence between us but there's a connection somewhere in there that makes us understand each other without a single word.
“I have to leave” He sighs as he pulls away his empty plate. Hey, waitress! Check please”
I laugh and give him what he wants; he leaves the money at the table and smiles.
“Goodbye, Ivy”
“Goodbye, Gunther” I replied.
The next time we would see each other will be so different, I didn’t know I had to appreciate my life as it was then.
I wake up holding my pillow strongly, by the instant I see my sister I know everything’s going to change.
She’s holding a gun… Against her head.
“Oh my god, Elle! What are you doing?” I say trying not to scream.
It’s, like, 05:30, everybody must be sleeping.
She drops the gun at the instant and starts crying.
“How did you get this?” I say.
Weapons are prohibited in Slythes. There’s no way she could get one… But then I see a Slyther in the floor.
“Oh my god! What the hell is going on here?” I’m so afraid; I don’t know what’s going.
“They discovered it…” She whispers.
“What?” This’s only making things harder.
“I thought it was obvious by now, Ivy! I’m not a genius, I wasn’t born with an innate talent to words!” Then there’s a light I’d never seen in her eyes, there’s something crazy in that eyes that always inspired me, the girl who always was over me now is crazy, she takes the gun again. “You have to continue…”
“Continue what?” I’m still in bed, I’m afraid if I make a movement she’ll shot.
“Remember when mother was in her deathbed and called me?” She says.
I nod.
“She told me about a world without limits, a world beyond our imagination, a world that would give me knowledge, it was a book, Ivy… At first I thought that she was crazy but she was right! Thanks to that book and one hundred and three more, I’ve counted them, I’m… I was considered a genius.”
She’s mad. That’s the only thing in my head.
“In the past there were this groups called Fandoms… Groups of readers that share thoughts about a book or like to write fanfics, or play games…”
Fanfics? Fandoms? I don’t understand anything!
“But… Where are those books? I never saw you with a book…”
“I read at night but they found my secret. You’ll find the books in the restaurant, under table six… The password is…”
A loud siren interrupts her, they’re here and they’ll not only give her a punishment for breaking the rules by having books, she’d just killed a Slyther, they’re going to kill her.
“The password is Gutenberg”
“How do you write that? How am I going to read?”
“You’re going to take my job, Gunther knows.”
Gunther? My day wasn’t supposed to started this way; of course I wanted change in my life but not this kind of change, Elle takes the gun again and put it against her head again.
“Elle! Don’t!” I scream, the sirens noise grows; I hear my father wake up in the next room, then my mother, then Big K begins to cry.
“Yeah” My sister replies. “I don’t have the guts…”
I sigh, but instantly she gives me the gun.
“You have to do it.” She says.
“No”
“Please!” She cries.
I can’t do this… She’s my sister…
“Ivy, if you don’t do it this way I’ll suffer more!” She insists.
My hand shakes, tears run down her cheeks and I know that if I killed her she’s going to left us more problems, on the other hand she’s right, if I don’t do it right now the Slyther’s going to torture her until she’s dead.
“I love you.” I say.
I can’t feel anything, the world is over for me, I’d never cried like this, ever, indeed, this is the first time I cry since I was little.
“I love you too, Ivy, you’re going to be always better than me”
There she is, the smartest person in Slythes saying I’m better.
“Never stop fighting.” She says.
I’m about to shoot when I feel a cold hand in my shoulder, I turn, I’m afraid I might see a Slyther but then I’m staring to the blue eyes of my mother, Elle is as beautiful as my mother, they are identical, they have the same eyes, the same upturned nose, brown hair, thin, red lips always with a smile, except now.
“You don’t have to do this, Ivy.”
“Mom…”
“Go with your father”
“Mom”
“Go with your father”
I run to the door, open it, close it and go with Little K and my father, he doesn’t say anything, he evades my eyes, he’s crying, I can hear it… The main door localized downstairs is open; we know that by now cause ten Slythers enter to the room with guns in their hands.
“Where is she?” One of them asks.
As soon as he finishes his question we hear a gunshot, a chirr, a scream and now I know everything is over.
That wasn’t my mother screaming after killing her own daughter, it was my sister screaming after killing her own mother.
