Chapter 1

Along with 33 other people, Andrea boards the shuttle.  At 17 years old, Andrea Shan is going to receive her Message.  The Message will tell her her future occupation, area of living, and spouse.  For the past few years, she has been taking fitness and fighters classes rather than academic subjects.  Unlike most of her friends, Andrea yearns to fight for the Regime against, well, no one knows.  She hopes all her effort and training will pay off and she will go to war. 

Andrea is super excited because she has never actually been Up.  Her entire life, Andrea has been enclosed in a fake model of the Outside.  After the bombings, only Soldiers were permitted to go Up because of the poisonous air.  However, some people are born able to survive the toxin.  Andrea is one of those rare people.  If you are born immune, you will most likely become a scientist or soldier.  Because they can go Up, the normal citizens avoid them--jealous of their ability.  If you are not born immune, you will most likely live a poor life in Under. 

The shuttle is small for the amount of people and everyone cram in to get a seat.  Everyone but Andrea and some boy have to wear gas masks to protect their lungs"just in case.  Andrea is hardly able to buckle in because her hands are so jittery.  After her seat belt locks with a click, she waits for the green light to appear overhead to signal ready for liftoff.  Finally, after what seemed like forever, the shuttle shoots upward, leaving her entire civilization behind. 

Andrea has spent her teen years pouring over pictures of Up and can’t wait to see it with her own eyes.  In her textbooks, there were these towering things called trees and blue holes in the ground filled with water where different creatures lived.  According to her studies, Up was very different from her home environment.  Some things were similar like the rocky ground and mountains, but others were vastly different.  Under had no vegetation or many animals.  They just had cows, sheep, pigs, horse, chicken, and fish.   Not that she had ever seen any of those, for they lived on something called farms. 

Andrea watches her reflection through the window because it is too dark to see anything outside yet.  A flash of light zips by the window and is gone before anyone can register it.  The sudden light makes people jolt upright and crowd around the windows.  Another stream of light goes by, and another.  The fluorescent beams appear more and more often, until she is blinded by the light.  They have reached the surface.  For the first time in her life, and hopefully not the last, Andrea is in Up.

Author's Note

This isn't the whole chapter yet, I just wanted to post it before I went to bed. If I do decide not top add anything to this part, I will just make it a prologue.