Prologue

My earliest memory is from when I was three years old. It was the day after my birthday, September 23, 3207. I only had two years left with my parents before I would be sent to the Azuli Academy. At the time, I didn’t know much about the mysterious academy, except that my brother was being sent there that day.

Like me, Jack is an Azulate. As a small child, being an Azulate meant absolutely nothing to me. All that meant at the time was he had a birthmark on his left cheek that resembled an “A,” he had blue eyes and he got to go to a fancy academy in the south.

We lived in a dictatorship, which was all anyone still alive had ever known. In 2012, a disease struck, annihilating three quarters of the world’s population. All the survivors from every country congregated together on what was formerly known as the North American continent. One man named Blaze Viperson took over, creating a reign of terror that still lasts today. Laws were written, standards were set, and the New World became the new way of life.

About 150 years after the New World was brought into existence, the law enforcement detected more and more people were trying to start revolts. Preaching about the past that no one was old enough to remember, they started convincing the crowds that there was a better way to live.

Afraid of losing his place of power, Blaze Viperson’s great-grandson started imprisoning the rebels. After a couple days, he was able to differentiate them from regular people because of two things that they all had in common- a birthmark resembling an “A” on the left side of their face, and blue eyes.

Since they were already monitoring the amount of children born in each family (a maximum of two), the law enforcement officers were ordered by Blaze IV to monitor how many babies were born with these physical traits. The Vipero started reporting that about one out of every fifteen babies fit that description.

Given the name “Azuli” because of their blue eyes, they were all shipped to a prison facility in the south. They were stuck there until Blaze IV could figure out what to do with them.

After years of research, scientists discovered that the Azuli carried Memories, glimpses from the past, pieces of history that had been forgotten. After more research, they discovered a way to rid the Azuli of their precious Memories. By drawing what they saw, these gifted people would lose the Memories forever.

Starting at age five, while other children were sent to school, the Azuli children were sent to the prison facility, which had been renamed the Azuli Academy.

On the day that my brother left, I didn’t know any of that. I didn’t know of the experiments and the forms of torture, both physical and mental, that went on behind the walls of the Academy. I was told that it was a great honor to be an Azulate, and that my parents would receive a place of honor at the High Table, where the dictator and his officers dined, just for giving birth to two Azuli, when some didn’t even have one Azulate child. I was told that I had special privileges, like drawing. None of my neighborhood friends were allowed to draw, but for me, it was encouraged by the Vipero that visited each day.

Two years after watching my brother leave, it was my turn to go to the Azuli Academy. I knew that I would miss my parents, and that they would miss having children around. Even though both of their children were no longer living with them, they were forbidden to have any more. I didn’t think they would miss me personally, though, as sending children away was something that people had learned to accept as a part of life. Standing at the train station, I hugged my parents for a long time. As I boarded the train, my five-year-old heart was filled with sorrow, but also excitement. I shed only one tear that day, and then moved on to the rest of my life.

I arrived at the academy two days after leaving my parents. Immediately, I was given a light blue jumpsuit. On the left side of my chest was my name, a bunch of numbers, and two dates. After closer inspection, I realized that one of the dates was my birthday, and one was the day that I was admitted to the academy.

After donning the jumpsuit and dumping my personal belongings on a table in a small room, I was taken to a room with many chairs and tables, which I later realized was the cafeteria. There was only one other person in the room, and he looked to be a couple years older than me.   When he turned around, I recognized him as my brother.

He had changed a little bit, but not enough to make him unrecognizable. He was so skinny that his dark blue jumpsuit hung on his shoulders as if he were a coat rack instead of a person. His long legs peeked out from the bottom of the jumpsuit, and his white shoes were spotless. His brown hair was sticking out in some places, but plastered to his head in others. He had a small bruise under his left eye, right on top of his birthmark. His blue eyes held fear, resentment, and hopelessness, among other things. His hands were shaking until I reached out and grabbed them, keeping them steady.

It was in that room that I was introduced to my new life at the Azuli Academy. I was told what was expected of us, the way the day generally went, what to do, and what not to do. I must have looked scared, because Jack kept reassuring me that as long as I followed the rules and stayed out of the way, I’d be fine. I was given my schedule, which was pretty simple, my cell number, and my identification number. Then, Jack drilled me on how to introduce myself if any of the Vipero addressed me.

“Penny Azul. Last Name: Miller. Date of birth: September 22, 3204. Date of admittance: September 24, 3209. Identification number: 1274882. Cell: 1A-5.”

After telling me about life in the academy, Jack wanted to hear about home. I told him about Mom and Dad, and about the beautiful Azuli children that had been born in the neighborhood. I told him everything I could think of, and then it was time for him to go, and for me to get settled in my cell. One of the guards took him into a dark room, and another took me to my cell.

Except for two beds, an end table in between, and a lamp, the room was empty. There was nothing on the walls, and not a single window. On one of the beds, there was a stack of sheets, folded nicely, with a pillow next to it. On the other bed, there was an elderly woman who looked like she was about 65. My roommate.

She sat up when we walked in, but didn’t say anything until the guard left. It wasn’t until he shut the door, which had a large section that was barred, that she moved towards me. When he was gone, she got up. I must have looked terrified, because she enveloped me in a bear hug.

“You poor child!” she exclaimed. “You look so scared. Don’t worry about a thing. They will hold off on any and all punishments until you’ve gotten used to things a little bit. And I’ll help you out as much as I can. My name’s Macy.”

She looked like a woman who’d seen a lot of terrifying things in her life. She had silver hair, cut short, “for convenience,” she told me. Her wrinkled and bony fingers seemed to be paler than the rest of her body, something that I could never figure out. Her blue eyes sparkled, but not in a good way. They sparkled the way water does, as if they’d been holding tears back for so long, the tears just got stuck, leaving a permanent gleam. Behind the sparkle, though, I saw the same emotions I’d seen in Jack’s eyes. Her eyebrows were thin and, for some reason, dark. She had bags under her eyes that, at the time, I thought were temporary. I soon learned, however, that the bags were there to stay. Her lips were thin and pale, but did not look cracked or unhealthy. I later found out that she was only fifty-five, but being at the Academy for so many years had aged her much more than time had. Her small ears popped out from her face a little bit, revealing a mole on the right lobe. Her nose was small and pointy, with a couple freckles across the bridge. She was short, but also pudgy. Where the jumpsuit had hung straight down from Jack’s shoulders, there were bumps and lines all down Macy’s. The bottoms of the legs and the ends of the sleeves had to be rolled up to fit better.

Macy soon became my best friend, and pretty much the only person I talked to besides Jack. For the first two weeks, she showed me around and made sure I got to where I was supposed to be. She protected me from the things that happened to Azuli, the things that would someday happen to me.

The first two weeks were the easiest. Every day, I was taken to a DarkRoom and told to draw. I was in there for as long as I wanted, just drawing by the lamplight. When I was done, I was to turn the lamp off, which would make the florescent lights overhead buzz, and flicker on. I would find the red dot on the wall, which moved to a new spot each day. After sticking my drawing to it, I would walk back out the door and into my cell, happier than I’d ever been with the easy way of life.

But then the first two weeks ended. I started getting punished after my drawing sessions in the DarkRooms. Instead of drawing the Memories, I drew things I remembered from personal experience. Simple butterflies and flowers, not elaborate scenes from history. At the young age of five, I hadn't yet discovered that I even had the Memories, so I couldn't access them. The Vipero constantly nagged me about drawing with my eyes closed. Since I wouldn't have been able to see if I drew with my eyes closed, I kept them open. I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t let me do it my own way. Until I closed my eyes, though, long sticks would come out of the walls, the ends blazing with electricity. If they touched me, I would be shocked, and the marks never went away.

It only took a few days for me to learn to obey them. By closing my eyes, I opened up a whole new world that had been hidden from me, and from everyone outside of the Academy. It was a new world of pain, history, and reality.

On the second day that I drew a Memory, I was taken into another DarkRoom, but the lights were turned on. Someone had brought another chair in, and a man was sitting in it.

He was short, with a big bald spot in the back of his head, while the front seemed like a jungle of hair. His glasses sat on top of his nose, and he looked over them at me. Every few minutes, he would pat the pockets of his lab coat, but he only pulled anything out twice. His fingernails were bitten to the nub, and he kept looking around, as if nervous about something.

In that room, I learned the history of the New World, and of the Azuli, who he called “your people.” That night, I cried myself to sleep. I cried for my crushed dreams, and for my people.

Reviews

[Ninja'sMuse]

This is really good, a great concept! I'm excited to see where you go with this.