Chapter One

The sunlight shines down and I'm suspended in bliss for a moment. Highlighted by the sun's rays, surrounded by vibrant wild flowers and soft grasses, I feel like a fairy in her magical kingdom. Green is everywhere, birds are chirping, and all is right with the world.

My fingers skim the top of the waist tall grass and I find myself feeling giddy. I start to twirl through the grass, my pale blue dress swishing around me. I haven't felt this happy in years.

As if the life of the forest had been drained- all noises halted. The birds stopped singing, the trees leaves ceased rustling. Somehow the good was being evaporated, replaced by something more sinister. The birds start shrieking an ear splitting sound, making me drop to the ground, curling up in a ball. I cover my ears with my hands, trying in vain to block out the horrendous screeches. Through my squinted eye lids, I can see that the rays of sunlight retract, and I'm left in darkness. The birds stop their shrieking only to be replaced by the sound of the wind howling through the branches of oaks. Tiny, hushed whispers echo around me. Telling dreadful, morbid stories to the beautiful trees. Except the trees aren't so pretty anymore, they cast creeping shadows that make me want to run and hide. They've become comrades in battle with the evil wind. Haunting every living soul in these woods.

I can no longer feel the grass around me, I get up to take a step and hear a crunching noise. The grass below me has withered and died, turning brown. As if the meadow I was standing in had shrunk in on itself and was tortured painfully. My dress suddenly felt too heavy. I was suffocating. Wind was rushing all around my ears. Screaming at me. Telling me to run just so it could catch me. I cried out as I saw my dress turn a vivid red, drenched in blood by the wind.

I scream in terror as I see my deceased mother appear before me. Mangy, black hair partially covers her face, casting shadows across her blood smeared body. She's hunched over slightly, and I can unfortunately see that her torso is sliced open, leaving her stomach, intestines, and organs hanging out. Swaying slightly in the wind, most were rotting away and it looked as of her skin had shriveled up and cracked in lots of places. Drawing even more blood to the surface. The bones in her right arm were broken, dangling loosely by her side, bent an unnatural angle. I bent over and retched what felt like were all the contents in my stomach. The vomit left a disgusting acidic taste in my mouth.

With her head cocked to the side, she regarded me through all the chaos. Studying me as if she weren't cut open and looking like she should be extremely, absolutely dead. I stumbled backwards, trying to run away from the monster who wasn't my mother. My mother was beautiful.

Then it hit me like a freight train.

That night 11 years ago. The night my mother had been tortured to near death in front of my six year old eyes. That god awful night. The night I heard my mother sob in agony, whimpers the only sound to be heard as her flesh was cut and bruised. The jarring shouts of glee from the men harming her.

She looked exactly as she did now, just without the guts threatening to spill out. Unwelcome tears ran down my cheeks as I remembered. Remembered why this nightmare continued to plague me in my dreams. Why she kept reappearing. To remind me.

"They will come for you."

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I woke with a scream tearing it's way through my throat. My chest rose and fell rapidly, my lungs trying to gasp in some oxygen.

My mind was in a turmoil, images from the nightmare came back to me and made me quiver. Even though it happens every night.

I can still see my mother standing in front of me and I rush to the toilet to empty my stomach, but find myself in a bit of a predicament.

I have no clue where I'm at.

I'm in a bedroom I've never seen before, it's a small cramped space littered with junk on just about every surface possible. The walls are painted a hideous hue of mustard yellow and I'm lying in a bed that is not my own.

Where am I?

I cautiously slide my leg over the side of the bed, not making a noise in fear of being heard. As my toe reaches the ground the door to the room bangs open.

I jump and spin around to face my captor.

I'm such an idiot.

It's my friend, Kenzie's room, that I'm in. I can't believe I forgot. And there she stands with a grin set on her face, trying to calm my distraught mood, though I can see through her green eyes that she's concerned about me. She was the optimistic one of the two of us, hoping to raise my spirit all the time. While I gladly remained the pessimistic.

"How are you feeling?" she asks, a little to cheery at this hour, considering how early it is- wait what time is it?

"What time is it?" I ask her.

"Just around five-"

I groan, interrupting her, and fall back onto the bed. It's five a.m. Damn these nightmares.

"Did you have another dream?" Kenzie inquires softly.

I drag my hand over my face and scrunch up my thick hair on top of my head. Kenzie has been my best friend since I moved here to Shangalke, about five years ago. We shared apartments sometimes, like tonight, when the Frontline guards came marching through the streets to enforce curfew. Nobody should want to be alone on these nights.

When we would have "sleepovers", I always manage to wake Kenzie up by thrashing around or screaming in my sleep. She's known about my night terrors for a long time now. Though I've never told her what they're about, I'm grateful she never asks.

"Yeah," I mutter in response. I'm still pretty shaken up over the dream. This one seemed more real than the others. As if I was actually there.

"Do you want some water or anything?"

"That'd be great," I say, no offense to Kenzie, just to get rid of her. I don't like when people are around after my dreams. It just makes me feel uncomfortable and under pressure. As if by them being there means I have to tell them. Tell them about the gruesome scenes that my mind conjures.

Kenzie doesn't hover, and I'm glad I have a friend like her.

As I recollect my bearings, Kenzie returns with a glass of water and half a cookie. I crack a smile at that. She knows me too well.

She plops down next to me on the bed, and starts to hum a simple melody while I nibble on the cookie.

"So are you going to Reestablishment today?"

Reestablishment was like a university. Most 16 year olds would go to Reestablishment once they finished getting there PHD's in Secondary, a school for all the kids. Ages 3-16.

Reestablishment teaches us about the ways of mankind before the uprising happened, it reminds us of what we were and how we are better off today.

Supposedly a 156 years ago, there were schools everywhere and the curriculums were extremely slow. Nowadays the pace for learning was rapid, all students at the age of 10 would be mastering physics or learning Trigonometry. Anybody and everybody were smart here in the safety of Frontline.

There was no prejudice, no ill will towards another. Everyone was on the same level except for the officials. But to be an official meant you had to be chosen. Though why someone wanted to be an official was beyond me. Terrorizing citizens into not acting out of line, enforcing overbearing laws, and being a toy soldier following the Frontline's every command did not seem like an appealing career.

Nonetheless people were chosen, and if you didn't make it as an official at 16 then you went to Reestablishment, and after that the Frontline chose jobs specifically to match the person. It was fantastic. I started a year late at Secondary because I couldn't get on my feet fast enough when I made it to Communal, but they still allowed me to enroll even if I wasn't of age.

"Probably, I've got nothing better to do," I sigh dramatically and throw an arm over my face. Kenzie giggles and gets up.

"Come on, lazy butt. We've got things to do! Sights to see! Plac-"

"Places to go!" I mock her. It's the mantra the Frontline has drilled into our head. To "inspire us". Kenzie actually believes in it and recites it every day, annoyingly peppy. Rolling my eyes, I get up and get dressed.

40 minutes later we leave the apartment and head to Reestablishment, about 10 miles away. It takes a long time to get there so we head out early. The street is desolate, but it's not unusual. There are hardly any people living in Sector 43, it's on the lower side of things. More criminals in hiding live here, still nobody judges us and despite the rumors I have yet to see a criminal.

We link our arms and head down the street quickly, there are no cars like there were in the past I had learned. They wasted too much precious oil, or something like that. Everything runs on water-

"Oh SHOOT! I forgot my ID card!" Kenzie squeals. I found it comical how she replaced every curse word with a non vulgar word. Kenzie couldn't bare to curse. She points a finger at me. "Don't leave without me."

With that she spins, sprinting as fast as she can back to the apartment. ID cards are like tracking devices. If you get caught without one and a official sees, you're under immediate arrest and taken in for interrogation. Most are sent to Treason. I shudder just thinking about it.

Two minutes have passed, and Kenzie still isn't back. What could be taking her so long? I start to walk back towards her apartment when I hear leaves crunching behind me. I tense automatically, but keep walking as if I hadn't heard it. Maybe the person will go away.

My heart starts to pound faster as I hear another crunch. And then another. The person is following me. Panting audibly now, I start to jog a little through the leaves, my stalker keeping pace with me. The stalker's crunches finally stop and when I spin around to look, no one is there. I gulp and my wide eyes look around frantically for any source of life, to show that I'm not going crazy. Like I hadn't imagined the whole thing.

I clench my satchel tighter around me and take a step back, only to bump into someone. I freeze and I can't control the shaking. Because Kenzie is a small girl and this is not a small girl and oh my gosh. I take a step forward to run, but the man, woman, something, grabs both my arms with one hand. Oh lord.

I kick my leg backwards and hope to hit something. The thing only let's out a deep chuckle at my attempt. Oh my gosh, it's a man. It's a man, and I can't get out of his grip. I start thrashing around uncontrollably, shrieking out Kenzie's name.

"KENZIE! KENZIE! KENZIE!"

"Shutup! You stupid little bitch, your friend can't help you."

He wrestles with my arms and shoves them down only to stuff a cloth into my mouth. I try to spit it out and I can't and I'm breathing too fast and I can't stop the sickly sweet aroma from invading my senses and oh my gosh the world is fading around me. My body goes limp and the only thing I can think is, why me?

A/N: So how'd you like it? Ignore any typos and please leave a comment, I would love to know what you think.