The Community

I've lived in this world since I was 11 years old, where we now live as a new community inside this building. Our world was struck by a plague that many did not survive seven years ago, and we were unable to stop it. For as long as we could, we tried to carry on with our normal lives, but it posed too much of a threat to mankind, and people were dropping like flies. My school had only 150 students when the globe seemed to stop spinning, but by the time the world seemed to stop spinning, there were only 45. My mother and I lived with my grandmother, but she died just as the world was attempting to build "safe houses" to safeguard as many people as possible. She gave me her necklace, a tiny heart-shaped pendant, that my grandfather had given her on her wedding day while she was on her deathbed, and she told me that one day it would guide me through life. Of course, I didn't understand, but she was suffering from dementia, so I'm sure she was just confused. Even so, I've been wearing it every day since her death.

I had a couple of pals in here, which helped me acclimate a little better, but not being allowed to leave makes me feel like I'm going insane. I miss going to the movies and shopping at the mall. Everything is given for us here, and we must follow very stringent regulations or face discipline. I'm not sure how they do it, but I know for a fact that some of the rebels who have gone into the headmaster's office have never returned.

Rule number 1: Do not speak to adults with harsh language or tones

Rule number 2: Do not try and sneak around with someone of the opposite sex until deemed appropriate to be married.

Rule number 3: Men and women that are not married are not allowed to be alone together

Rule number 4: Do not try to escape this building and go back into the outside world

The most critical rule is rule number four, because they cannot risk the virus entering through the open doors. When we need more supplies, they ship them in from military bases across the world, where they are placed on a conveyer belt and cleaned before entering the building. My best friend Lacy doesn't seem to mind because all she has time for anyhow is her studies, so I feel like I'm living in the movie Wall-E. I'm not sure why she wants to be the best in school since we don't have to work because everything, we need is handed to us without inquiry. That is normal, though, because if we can't have other forms of entertainment without being supervised by grownups, the only way to avoid boredom is to focus on our studies or read books from our library.

My mother is a biochemist or was before this whole life we now call our home began. They put her to work in the scientist's laboratory to see if they can find a treatment for the virus. No one believes we will ever discover one because we have already been here so long. I believe people would have a difficult time readjusting to our previous normalcy.

“Addy!” Lucy shrieked before nearly colliding with me and knocking me out; she has a history of getting too excited about everything that happens here that isn't normal. “Did you hear what I said? Someone attempted to flee. Headmaster apprehended her before she could type in the code, and she is presently in her office, screaming.” The severity of the discipline depends on which rule you break but since this person tried to leave the premises, I am sure they are getting quite a harsh one. Once I get my thoughts in order I can finally think of something to say back to her, “Why would anyone try to escape here? They know the rules and yet people still try to break them. It is not like they can escape anyway, if the headmaster doesn’t kill them then they will surely be out somewhere no one will find them.” Lucy seems almost shocked at my response, but I am not sure why because she knows that I am blunt. I do not want to live here any more than anyone else, but it is not like there are many options.

Once she stopped staring at me like I was cruel she asked if I wanted to go into the solarium with her. They make every effort to provide us with rooms containing animatronic representations of the world we once knew, but nothing beats experiencing them in person. We decided to lay down and choose the stars because that's how we used to converse in my backyard when we were youngsters. “Are you sure there aren't any plants or trees outside?” Lacy was always more interested in nature than I was, but I appeared to be more interested so she didn't feel like a burden. “I'd like to believe so; occasionally I have dreams about the world we used to live in, and about how we used to go trekking in the woods when we were meant to be sleeping in my room.” We have a curfew here, and although though it wasn't on our list of regulations, we all understood it was just an unspoken understanding. When it was time to return, I came to a halt since the entire site was oddly silent, and the headmaster's office was no longer yelling. I've always been curious about what was in there, but Lucy and I have never broken a rule, so we've never been inside.

When I turned around to face Lucy, she was already on her way back to her room for the night. While I returned to my own, I was struck by the thought of all the folks we no longer see and wondered where they went or what happened to them. Sometimes I assume there is a jail concealed here somewhere, but it would be difficult to hide from everyone, and if there was, someone would have discovered it. Then, weary of being the perfect daughter, I decided to sneak around in the headmaster's office to learn more about our "perfect society."

I rushed straight to Lucy's room the next day to wake her up, but she was already awake hours before me, studying for the approaching exam. “Do you ever wonder what the rebels face in terms of disciplinary action?” I questioned her in a calm tone so she wouldn't be suspicious. “I have always been interested, and you know that,” Lucy said, looking at me as though she didn't quite comprehend what I was driving at. Since we were four years old, she has been able to read me like one of her books, so I knew we both knew what I was up to. “Would you like to know more about it?” With that inquiry, she finally showed me more emotion, terror in her eyes, but I didn't want to do this alone. “Ad's, what are you thinking?” “Do you want to go with me tonight after curfew and break into the headmaster's office, something is not right with this place, and I want to know why?” I hesitated to agree, but I felt I had come too far to back out now.” She accepted, much to my surprise, and we decided to form a plan and go see what's going on around here.

We snuck out and gathered at the bathrooms once it was a little after curfew and we knew everyone would be in their rooms. We then peered out the window and over to the headmaster's office, where the lights were turned out, but he never closed the door because he felt everyone knew better. When we got to the door, we heard footsteps and realized it was just the guards checking that everyone was in their own beds and not with someone they shouldn't be with. When we arrived at the workplace, our anxiety level soared because we had never done anything so risky in our lives. We observed that the files were color-coded with red and green dots while searching through files of people we didn't even recognize. We came across our files, which had green dots, but then we came across one of the rebel's files, which had red dots.

We both felt sick to our stomachs when we realized what this meant. They assassinate those who attempt to flee or breach the regulations. I'm not sure why such a terrible punishment would be issued, but I'm sure that's why the grownups implore their children to always follow the regulations here. We came into a locked filing box while exploring around to see if we could find anything else. There were no keys in sight until I noticed the heart-shaped hole in the lock. I remembered what my grandma had said, so I didn't hesitate to remove my necklace and place it inside like a key. It fit and unlocked, and we discovered papers and syringes filled with liquids that appeared to be the same but were labeled differently. On the other side, one of them was labeled as a cure, which perplexed me since if they had discovered a solution, why were we still trapped in this glorified cage? Then we heard the office door open, and the headmaster came in and grabbed us.

We attempted to confront her about the box, but she remained silent and glared angrily in our direction. We were about to flee when he strolled in, followed by two huge guards. After all, we might learn what they do to rebels. “I presume we are going to have to make an example out of you girls, so we will have a large assembly of the community in the morning,” the headmaster continues after a moment of them looking directly at us to see if we say anything. I didn't want to show him my fear, even though I was on the verge of puking. I felt terrible about pulling my best friend into this as well. She let us return to our rooms for the night, but I couldn't sleep because I was worried about what she was going to do to "make an example" of us.

I could have thought I was going to puke from the nerves that came with it once daylight arrived. We were getting ready to leave for the community meeting when we noticed the headmaster standing on a platform. He invited Lacy and me to come up to the stage. “Because this isn't a direct regulation, I'd like to use these two ladies as an example for anyone else who wants to break into my office. They don't trust my leadership, so I'm going to send them out into the world to show them what freedom looks like in today's world.” After that, I didn't hear anything else she said because it was all a blur to me. They slid us onto the conveyer belt and pulled us back into the world we used to know. We were depressed at first until we noticed a tree off in the distance. After traveling for so long, we decided to sit under the tree in the hopes that the headmaster would alter his mind. After a few days, we began to feel ill; our symptoms were caused by the virus, of course, but we chose to remain beneath the tree and eventually become part of the ground that surrounds it, awaiting our ultimate deaths. We will die knowing the truth about the headmaster keeping the cure away from our community.