Chapter One

I was filing away documents when the sun hit the coast, nearly blinding me instantly. I’d filed away seemingly thousands of briefs, and was starting to lose energy. Everyone worked with the people in their age group, yet almost never spoke with each other until seven, when the power in the building begins to shut down. Then, Zenyth and I would walk toward  Apartment Complex 10b, where all populace ages seventeen to age nineteen lived. The floors were arranged in alphabetical order according to our last names.

Once we got inside, floors separated the alphabet. A is on the first floor, B on the second, et cetera. Zenyth and I were both “C” names, so we went to the same floor.

“Zen,” I asked as we walked into the main hall for the third floor, “Are you up for a study night? I still have a page left to do for the assignment in history.”

Zenyth eyed me with his blue-brown eyes and replied, “The one due tomorrow?” He pulled out his day planner, turning on the device and flipping his plans from the touch screen into the air, projecting a holographic view of his assignments in a larger view.

I nodded. “That would be the one. I’m afraid I don’t understand the concept of psychological malfunctions.”

The speakers turned on, the warning announcement proclaiming, “All residents must be inside of their assigned apartments in five minutes. All violators will be penalized.” We glanced at each other and hurried toward his apartment, which was closer than mine, which were about five apartments away, in the women’s hall. Zen looked at me, his red hair creating a glare if I looked straight at it under the light in the hallway. “I’m almost finished. I’ll give you a ring.” He grinned and shut the door to his room, after urging, “Hurry.”

I rushed to my apartment, making it inside and locking the door just before the bell rang. Inside, my room mates, Lux and Tazra were closing the gigantic curtains that kept the room warm at night and gave us a little privacy while we were washing up.

“Cutting things a little close, Elixir,” Lux chastised when she saw me.

I shrugged. “I made it in, didn’t I?” I sauntered toward the pantry, punched in my designated memory code and extracted a bowl of spaghetti and the bowl of Firelight, a green bottle full of a drink that was customary for dinner meals. It was carbonated, bitter, and had a kick to it, but I managed to down a few swallows if I kept my mind off of the tingling as it went down.

Lux was the oldest one of us in the room, and therefore was the one in charge of the girls in the apartment, kind of like a mother. Though, I admit I can’t really remember how my mother acted, much less remember very clearly how she looked. I just assume that it meant something good to be compared to a mother.

Tazra was seventeen, almost a year younger than myself. She can be arrogant and hard to talk to sometimes, but nonetheless she was like a sister. One I had to tolerate. She’d sprawled herself out on the sofa with her food, watching something about zombies. Obviously it was a pretty old video. I didn’t understand what was so fascinating about them. From what I saw about them, they were highly illogical, mindless, totally lacking in the state of hygiene, overly persistent and quite frankly just unpleasant to watch.

“Can you believe people used to think we’d end up like that?” Tazra laughed.

“I can’t believe you watch stuff like that.” I said bluntly, landing on a banana seat.

“I must have much better taste than you do.” Tazra replied, flipping her pink hair back in a sassy manner.

“Could you two keep it down? I’m trying to study.” Lux called out from the kitchen table. Lux was soon going to be examined, and if she passed, she’d be promoted to Technocratic Assistant. She’d soon be working in the offices of the High Courts, serving as a secretary of sorts. In a year, I too would have to take the examination of advancement.

My communicator vibrated, and I answered the call, a holographic version of Zen appearing in front of me. “You ready, Elixir?” He asked, casually looking around the room. Tazra waved flirtatiously and said, “I should have guessed it was your boyfriend.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Taz.” I scorned, walking toward my room.

“I guess you’re right. You're not his type.” She said maliciously.

I chose to ignore that statement and shut my door behind me, sitting down at my desk. “Sorry about that, Zen.” I said, turning a little red.

Zenyth laughed. “I figured we’d get accused of that sooner or later. All cousins do.”

I scrolled down to the very bottom of the document and read the question. “In what year were there two outbreaks of psychological malfunctions?”

Zenyth ran his finger across the desk and replied, “It occurred in the year 2989. The men were taken to the High Courts and subdued.”

“Subdued?” I asked confusedly, looking at the web page over again. “What do they mean by that?”

"What do you mean?" he asked, looking back up at me.

"What do they mean by subdued?"I repeated. I thumbed through my thoughts, trying to remember what the word itself meant. It wasn't often utilized. It could mean to calm down or diffuse, or it could mean to regain control by force. I couldn't understand what they possibly meant by that statement.

Zenyth paused, looking at me, then replied, “I actually don’t know. They don’t say. They just said that they were quieted to keep the peace. Oh, well.”

I felt very odd for a moment. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was I just felt. It was like I’d just downed a whole bottle of Firelight, and it was burning a hole in my stomach.

Zenyth looked up and saw the look on my face. “You alright?”

I swallowed slowly. “Don’t you think that’s odd?”

“What?” he asked, proving that he didn’t.

“N-nothing. I think I had to much Firelight.” I said, shaking my head. “Let’s move on.” I glanced back down at my desktop, when a really quick, almost incomprehensive flash flickered on the screen, and an image flashed by, and I couldn’t tell what it was. It left ghosts of the flash in my eyes, and that feeling came again, but only for a brief second.

“Elixir?” Zenyth asked again, leaning forward.

“It’s nothing, let’s keep going.” I said, jumping to the last few questions. Nothing else disorderly happened that evening. I assumed it was just a glitch in the system that had been wiped out quickly afterward with the security system.

“Thank you, Zen.” I said, and waved goodbye. He waved back, and we both ended the conversation and shut off our communicators.

The speakers came to life for the nightly warning, “ Time to sleep. All those out of their beds within an hour will be punished.”

I sighed.

“You heard the announcement girls, get ready for bed.” Lux called out from the hallway, combing her long blonde hair as she went downstairs. “Tazra, turn that trash off. It’s a wonder your brain hasn’t rotted.”

I combed my hair, brushed, changed into a pair of gym shorts and a tee shirt and flopped into my bed. I’d turned out all of my lights and tried to fall asleep. I overheard the other girls shuffling in their own rooms. An hour passed, and the shuffling had ceased. Everyone else was asleep. I was confused. I was usually asleep before they were. Yet today, I couldn’t. It was like my mind was rebelling the requirements.

I kept mulling over the text, wondering what they meant, and also wondering why I was so concerned about what they meant.

I could hear the sound of the Peacemakers doing their nightly rounds outside of the building and could faintly make out the outline of one of them outside the door of the lobby. They usually came in pairs and one would check the outside of the building while the other came in and made sure everyone was inside of their rooms.

I didn't know what happened to those who were caught, but you could hear on occasion a bout of shouting or the sound of feet thudding loudly outside the doorway. Sometimes the day afterward there would be someone missing from the apartments, but nobody ever questioned it.

I had a very hard time getting to sleep that night.

Reviews

[Mazie]

There are a lot of things I like about this first chapter :) I like the relationship between Elixir and Zen. I think you also do a good job of dialogue and creating a setting.
There were two things I thought you could work on.
-Slow it down a bit when Elixir feels odd about the word subdued. Maybe even have her have a sense of what the word means out of nowhere to make it convincing that she would have such a worried look about her.
-Have the specific information not messaged to her but communicated to her another way later on. I think that will help to make it more suspenseful and I'm not sure if someone would risk messaging that information.

These are only MY opinions though so take and leave what you wish. This is your book after all :) Looking forward to the next chapter!

[Kate Hunter]

Thank you for your feedback! It's only a rough draft and I know there's a lot to work through. I will definitely take your advice when I edit it later this month.

[Cass Morgan]

Nice display of someone coming to the realization that everything she thought was normal suddenly seems odd. I really feel with Elixir here.