Chapter 1

A Chapter by Gracie_Girl429

Camille has just discovered the abduction of her brother and must form an ingenious plan to get him back

Prologue-

I take the note and turn it over and over in my fingers. I feel the breeze softly pushing my long, golden hair towards the west. The piece of plain white paper was folded neatly into a perfect square and placed in my school bag. I look up at the towering buildings that populate my city as I sit on the bench on my porch. I don’t know who put this there or what they want out of this. All I know is I must save my brother.

Chapter 1

Camille

I got home from school just ten minutes ago. I pulled out my books to begin my homework when a slip of paper fell to the floor. I bent over to pick up the foreign page. I unfolded the paper, smoothing out the creases on my oak bedside table. Then I read an unsettling letter printed in black ink on plain white paper that turned my world upside down in two sentences:

Maverick has been taken to the Dead Mile. You have 72 hours to come for him, or he will die.

How could they take Maverick? Who would do this? I begin to feel nauseous and a heavy stone in my chest sends a pang of fear throughout my body. I know I have to save him; I have to come for him. But how do I save him from the Dead Mile? My city is filled with skyscrapers and business buildings. The heart of the city has the most impressive structures. The quality decreases as you travel outwards.

The wealthiest citizens live closer to the heart, while the rest of us are spread out further away. Then, the middle class fades into the Forsaken. The Forsaken are the people who failed to prosper and were banished from our society. Once the Forsaken’s shacks, small buildings and shelters disintegrate, a fifty-foot electric fence constructed with metal and wood reinforcements separates our city from the insidious Dead Mile.

None of us despise our cage at all; in fact we are grateful for it. The Dead Mile is unpredictable, unexplored. No one knows what monsters inhabit the land we all fear, but what we do know is we don’t want them getting inside our city. The Fence was put up hundreds of years ago when explorers set out into the Dead Mile and never came back. The Dead Mile is a death sentence. Entering is suicide. But not coming for Maverick is murder. I may as well be the one killing him. I separate myself from my thoughts and begin think of a plan.

The fence constantly has two guards keeping watch over the enormous gate that seems like it shouldn’t be there anyway. Other guards are spread out like stars, guarding different areas on varying levels of the Fence. No one comes in, and no one goes out. If I could somehow convince them to let me out… No, it won’t happen. The guards aren’t trained to let people off the hook, not even a pretty girl. I must figure something out. Then I realize that I can no longer sit here. I am wasting time. Each minute could contribute to saving Maverick's life. I jump up off the bench and hastily enter the house that Maverick and I share.

When I was twelve years old, Maverick and I were at home. He had an apartment a little closer to the Forsaken than our child-life home and was babysitting me while our parents had gone out to my father's work party at a restaurant in the center of the city. Maverick and I noticed that it was nearly half an hour after they said they would return home. We weren't too concerned because we knew that my mother always had a hard time with goodbyes. Each goodbye led into a new conversation. We became more anxious as we waited. An hour late and they still didn't show. Finally, we got a call close to ten o' clock saying that our parents had been involved in a car crash. The man on the phone told us that our father died almost immediately, but our mother passed on the way to the hospital.

Since Maverick was already eighteen at the time, the Governors, our court masters, allowed me to live with him instead of being put into the orphanage. Maverick knew it would be difficult taking me on considering he worked as a mechanic in a nearby shop, but he didn't want me in the System. We had both seen the bruises on the orphans' faces at school. Ever since then, I have lived with him. After my fifteenth birthday, he was promoted to engineer at one of the research buildings in the wealthy part of the city. So, we moved closer to the city's heart than we had ever lived before. Thinking of what Maverick did for me was becoming painful. That heavy stone is back in my chest. After what he did for me, the least I can do is come for him. He saved me in so many ways, sacrificed all he had to take me in. I owe him this.

I slump in a kitchen chair and furrow my eyebrows contemplating what to do. Somehow, I have to get to the Fence and see if there is any slim chance I could get out. However, I know better than to drive a car right past the Forsaken and park it right in the open. They would steal it in a heartbeat with no hesitation. But I also know better than to walk through the Forsaken's land alone. No one in my meagerly small friend group would ever even consider looking at the Fence from a distance, let alone stand right in front of it. I need someone completely reckless. Then I realize that I know exactly who to talk to.

next chapter

© 2014 Gracie_Girl429

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Fernando Dardón

Wow, interesting plot you have for your novel. But, me I suggest something?
Although the story hooked me up, I feel everythings going just too fast!!
The girl was returning from school and she finds that strange note just to know that his brother was somehow kidnapped. Then she starts figuring how to get to the Dead Mile. Don't you think your story is going so fast? Maybe you should broke this chapter into pieces. I noticed that each paragraph explains a part of the story.
My advise (and I'm not an expert writer :D) is that you take this chapter as a guide for writing more chapters.
Another advice: what I usually do when writing a story is thinking about the plot, in short sentences. Then I evaluate whether those are part of the same chapter or can conform a hole new chapter.
Afert that I extend the ideas enclosed in those sentences, and thats it!! I have a chapter.
If you thing thats ok, anyway i loved it. Makes me wonder what kind of world thel live in, and what happened with Robert. Hope my advices were usefull to you.
Excellent job!!

- Fernando