“Unlike you, I actually set an alarm when I have something important to wake up for,” he said grimly. I ignored him, mumbling “Whatever…”
I grabbed a bowl of leftover oatmeal - which was even lumpier than yesterday - and ate silently. Isaac sat across from me, looking at my bowl of oatmeal, surprised that I even had the stomach to eat it.
My mother came in,
“Alright, today’s a very important day for both of you so you kids better eat properly…” she eyed me as I ate away, “Remember, I’ll still love both of you no matter what sector you’re chosen to be in. The leaders know better…” she said as she looked away and started to rearrange the mugs on the shelf.
Isaac, who stopped eating and started to fidget with his hands, looked indisposed as his hard eyes shifted up to my mother as she was running around the whole place,
“Does it even make a difference if we were in the Mermaid sector rather than in the Dragon sector…?” he asked sternly,
“The only difference between the sectors is that they have different weapons. The personality stuff about every sector never even applied; people just made that stuff up…” he said irritably. My mother didn’t answer. She was a bubbly type of person, always happy about anything and everything. Sometimes her happiness even feels fake and unrealistic. But even she knew that there was nothing happy about the day of the Sector Commemoration.
Isaac shook his head. I looked at him, waiting for a bit of a reassurance about the Unknown. He had passed more subjects than I did this year since it was the year we all had to be evaluated by our skills and knowledge.
“Isaac. Are you nervous?” I asked him. He looked at me, still looking slightly grim.
He sighed,
“Don’t worry; people like us go through this every year. Don’t let the Unknown get to you,” he answered me in a flat tone. I nodded. I wanted to believe my brother, but the Unknown maze got harder and tougher every year.
I suddenly felt like I never wanted to leave this place, but at the same time I also didn’t want to stay here forever. This is the day I needed to show my courage the most.
I felt tension in the room and wished I knew a way to ease it.
++++++++++
We filed out of the house and trudged towards the car, which was parked right in front. The yellow, dusty atmosphere made the car look dirty. There were no green patches of grass, not even a small area. It was all just a field of unhealthy, yellow grass or mostly weed. The leaders didn’t take good care of this part of the city. As long as it’s keeping the Undecided alive, they’re okay with it. But there was a very private area an hour away from here called the ‘Private Compounds’ area where the leaders and other people with high ranks reside. It definitely has a lot more greenery than this part of the island.
I wish we could have just walked towards the train station instead. The only reason that would probably make me want to ride the car was-
I suddenly heard a loud scream coming from across the street. Two guards pulled a boy from behind one of the buildings. He looked like he was my age. He tried to resist the guard’s strength and yanked his arms away.
That…
“I- I -I wasn’t trying to run away!” the boy stammered.
“Lying won’t do you any good, kid!!” The guard threatened the boy with a gun, “How dare you think you can try to run away from the Unknown!” he yelled out menacingly.
A woman rushed out of the door, begging the guards to let go of her son. She started screaming curses at the guards as she tried to pull her son away from them.
I looked behind me to see my mother backing away towards the house door, looking cautiously at the guards. Isaac looked down at the ground. I knew Isaac, and I knew that he didn’t like to see this sort of stuff happen. It happened every year, and I was used to it by now. But that didn’t mean I liked it.
The boy’s reaction was so sudden. He elbowed the guard’s ribs and ran towards our house. My mother quickly pulled Isaac into the shadows near our house. I stepped forward, my mother missing me by an inch. I looked back to see that rage had replaced the love in my mother’s eyes,
“Iris, get back here!” she said in a harsh whisper.
Before I could even reply, the boy slammed into me and grabbed my wrist,
“Come on! Let’s make a run for it!” he pulled me, but I couldn’t budge. I gave him a perplexed, panicked look. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow,
“Do you have a death wish? Run! Save yourself from the freakin’ maze!” he said, pulling me forward. I yanked his hand away and took a step back,
“I…” I started, but I didn’t know what to say before it was too late.
The guard hooked the boy’s neck with one arm and pointed the pistol at the boy’s temple with the other. The boy struggled, screaming insults at the leaders. A loud bang erupted from the guard’s gun and the boy slumped on to the ground. The woman ran towards her son, sobbing. Blood trickled down his cheek and soon surrounded his head.
I looked away as the guards dragged the boy’s corpse from under his arms while the woman stood there sobbing in front of our house. I walked towards the car and so did my mother and Isaac shortly after me. My mother quickly placed her hand on the car window. Light blue light emitted, outlining her hand. With a click, the door opened slightly.
“Hurry, we also need to pick up Mason on the way there…” she said solemnly. My mother quickly opened the car door with a displeased look on her face. Isaac and I sat in the back seats.
We drove away with my mom behind the steering wheel. She seemed to be looking at emptiness rather than a street. She kept muttering sentences like, “They’re still young,” or “They’re not ready,” or, the one she kept repeating the most, “Why so soon?” For a second there, I believed that my mother had been driven to the brink of insanity. I actually knew many teens with parents that went crazy on the day of the Sector Commemoration.
My brother sat a meter away from me, making bizarre facial expressions as if he were talking to himself. I stared out of the window, as we passed by hundreds of small, plain, white houses. I felt overwhelmed by the car’s speed and held on tightly to my seat. Speed was my greatest fear.
“Mom, can you please slow down a bit,” I pleaded with my mother.
“I’m sorry, Honey, but we have to get there on time. Just bear with me for another ten minutes,” she said in a tone overburdened with guilt.
This part of the city, where I lived, looked a bit deserted and it was not entirely cared for. This part of the city was not the leaders’ major concern; it looked like someone left their house without cleaning up the mess. The rich took over the poor (as if there were any rich people in this part of the city anyway). It was where the Undecided lived or most commonly known as The Land of the Undecided. The Undecided were the people younger than the age of seventeen who still did not determine their sector. The only unusual thing in this part of the city was the subway station with one train that would only take you to the plaza where the Sector Commemoration took place, and to the Valley of the Myths, where all the sectors were. This city was just a really huge island in the middle of the ocean. I didn’t even know why they called it a city. Even the school didn’t explain that to us.
We passed the unusual, tall glass tower that arched like a bridge. That was where they kept the files containing the history of every affiliate and a mainframe that contained every single piece of information about every citizen in Purlieu. Most people called the tower The Information Bank, even the people who worked there. When you first entered a sector, your files automatically jumped from the computer mainframe into printed documents about your entire life. It had very heavy security, making it impossible for anyone who thought of entering unbidden.
I glanced at