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Chapter 1 - Emerson Clarke
“Do you have everything you need, Emerson?” Aubrey asks urgently, her long blond hair flying wildly in the cool night air. “Have you got a jacket?”
“Yes.” I say, rolling my eyes in amusement.
“Comfortable shoes in case you need to run?”
“I’ve got on the only shoes I own,” I laugh.
“Do you know how to get there properly?” She is twisting her hair around her finger, trying to restrain it from the icy wind that threatens to blow us away.
“Of course I know how to get there.”
“But, do you know how to get in and have you got the thing Crusoe made for you and what about-”
“It’s okay Bree,” I interrupt her before she has the chance to talk herself breathless. “I’m not going to the other side of the known world. I’m just going to the school. I’ll be back before you even wake up.” For as long as I’ve known her, Aubrey Waters has always been too willing to take care of me. It’s what we’ve had to do, growing up by ourselves. We’ve learnt how to look out for each other, but also how to pick ourselves up and move on.
“I know, I know,” she sighs, “we just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I’ll be fine,” I reassure her, trying to convince myself of the same thing. I don’t tell her that I really have no idea where I’m going and that the only leads I have are my unending nightmares. That definitely wouldn’t reassure her.
Aubrey wraps her arms tightly around me. “I know you will,” her voice is filled with conviction. She’s always had too much faith with my words. Ever since we met, and I told her the truth about the world we are living in, the truth about her parents and who they are really working for, she’s trusted me completely. The moment I told her the truth about the CSO, our government, she ran away as quickly as she could. I took her under my wing, and from that day on, we’ve had each other’s back’s. It feels good to be trusted, but it’s also dangerous. Having people’s trust gives you endless power and control. I would know, growing up in a society ruled by power and control.
When she releases me, I see the rest of my gang walk through the door to come outside. Aubrey Waters, Mason King, and Hayden and Crusoe Martinez. My makeshift family.
“I don’t like this, Emerson. I don’t think you should be going.” Mason has a way of speaking that makes you immediately nervous. His voice is soothing, but it is rich with warning. In doing this, I am running towards danger, and Mason knows it.
Aubrey and I were living alone when we met him at the Beast Eye convenience store. We both needed milk and there was only one bottle left. Aubrey and I were prepared to fight for it, but the tall, much more mature Mason took one look at us and decided that we needed a real home. He brought us to his house where he lived with his mum, Naomi, and dad, Dave King. They took us in with open arms, and my family of two grew to a family of five.
“Oh, let her breathe,” Hayden snaps, walking over to me and wrapping his arms around me in a hug. “Although you really shouldn’t be going alone.” He whispers in my ear.
“I’ll be fine, guys.” I tell them, pushing myself away from Hayden jokingly. “And you’re not going with me,” I smile when I see Hayden’s dejected face. “You’re too careless. I wouldn’t know how to control you.”
“I am uncontrollable,” he agrees.
“Have you got everything set up, Crusoe?” I turn to Hayden’s twin brother who has his nose buried in some type of apparatus.
“Uh huh,” he says, but I know he’s not listening. Whenever he is surrounded by technology, he gets this distracted look on his face. It’s like when he has a piece of technology in front of him, he is transported to another universe. He is distracting himself from the horrors of the world.
I don’t know what happened to Hayden and Crusoe before we met them, all I know is that whatever happened to them before they met us, scarred them in some brutal way. They came to us with nowhere else to go, promising to just stay for a week. They said they needed to hide. But a week turned to a month, and a month turned into a year and our family of five grew to seven.
“Crusoe,” I say again, hoping to get his attention. This time, he pushes his shaggy bleached hair out of his face and his hazel eyes connect with mine.
“Yeah, um, well I think that you should be able to get into the school with this.” He hands me the thing that he had been distracted by. It is a rectangle shape with a screen displaying columns of numbers running down the middle of it. I have no idea what it does, but I don’t question it. “It will help you get through the front gates,” he clarifies as I take it. “With this, you will be able to imitate the Mark, but it will only work on the doors with general access. If you want to go deeper into the school, this won’t be of any help because you need a specific code which I don’t have.”
The Mark is the Government’s way to keep people like us, the Ransacked, separated from the Civilised people of society. We are the ‘unclean’ people of society. People with a genetic anomaly in their DNA that contains potential psychopathic traits. Supposedly, certain events can trigger this gene to be turned on and send people into a psychotic rage. That’s what caused the Great War after all.
We did.
When every child turns 15, they undergo a test. This test will supposedly look for this gene and determine whether they are Civilised or Ransacked. If they pass the test, they become Civilised. This means they get the Mark. They can continue to go to school, get a job, start a family. Do all the things that people should be allowed to do. Basic human rights.
If they don’t pass the test, they are a threat to the CSO, the Civil Society Organisation, and are outcast. They are banned from shopping malls and supermarkets. Banned from living in proper houses or using trains and cars. The Ransacked are forced out of their homes and are made to live in Beast Eye, the old, run-down city a comfortable distance away from where the Civilised live in Genesis City.
Personally, I think that it’s just the CSO’s way of having complete control. Of choosing the people that they want in their perfectly, ‘peaceful’ new age society that they are building and throwing away the rest. We don’t fit in like them, so the Civilised are convinced that we are traitors to the human race. Outcast from our own people.
Humans can be cruel like that.
“Right, thanks Crusoe.” Hopefully I won’t have to go too deeply into the school to find what I’m looking for. The problem is, however, that I don’t really know what I am looking for. And I don’t really have any idea where I am going. My nightmares weren’t specific.
