Hysteria

Hysteria had been told she was cocky. That her overconfident attitude would wind up killing her on her eighteenth birthday. Everyone from teachers to students to even her own parents seemed to think that she was doomed to perish on what she believed to be her most significant birthday yet. But to those criticisms she had this to say,

“I have no use for advice from the dead.”

As she and all the other unlucky souls who just so happened to turn eighteen today were sorted into neat lines and marched inside the building belonging to the High Court, she could think of nothing other than lambs being led to the slaughter. Except these lambs knew exactly what was in store for them. You could see the terror on their faces, some of them were completely unprepared for this. But she wasn't like them at all. Today they would die, she would survive. The "High Court" as it’s shameless members called it, wasn't so high at all. As a matter of fact it was hardly distinguishable from all of the other haphazardly thrown together buildings in the area. The only real difference was that this place was built with a few hundred more pieces of splintered wood and fragments of broken bricks than its neighbors, and above it's large doors was a crudely carved out symbol of a circle with an x drawn through it. She didn’t know what a proper insignia was supposed to look like, but she couldn’t help thinking that this was a painfully uncreative one.

It didn't take long for them to be led to the judging room; a large room with hundreds of chairs in the main space and a stage with three podiums stood on it. There were quite a few people born today in this district, 129 of them if she’d counted correctly. And that was quite intentional. The High Court didn't want to have to open its doors every day for one or two people so those with similar birthdays were herded to the same towns and were forced to stay there. Hysteria didn't really care since she’d drawn the long straw in terms of which town she’d been made to live in. Those born in May got to stay in a decent sized village called Ramshackle, an appropriate name given how run down and ugly it was. But unlike many towns they at least had a river close by which meant fresh water. If they were allowed to visit other towns Hysteria would do it simply to boast about her good fortune. The moment she walked in her eyes focused on the stage where the Judges stood. On the left side of the stage was an old man as bald as an egg and with a face spottier than a Dalmatian. To the right of the stage was a rather young looking woman, clearly a new judge, with tattoos of seemingly random symbols on her face. Finally, at center stage in this little circus act was the Grand judge, a ridiculous name for someone who looked old enough to crumple over and die at any moment. Grand Judge Nightshade was an ancient man probably entering his final years on this planet. He had a long white beard that extended past his knees and equally as long and white hair. All three wore severe expressions and long black robes. Hysteria had always taken a keen interest in watching court proceedings during the rest of May since they were open to the public. Though she guessed that it was for a much different reason than everyone else. The first few days of court were always packed full of people there to only gauge the speeches others gave. To them, perhaps if they watched for long enough they’d be able to see what responses the judges favored and just maybe they’d walk away with their lives. To Hysteria though, it was all about watching other people squirm.

Once everyone was seated, Nightshade began the same speech he gave every year about the necessity of the process they were about to go through. Hysteria had stopped listening to the speech years ago and had instead recounted the events in her head as she believed they truly happened. The diction Nightshade used when he spoke was infuriatingly sugar coated. He tried as hard as he could to make what they were about to go through sound as important as possible. But Hysteria much rather preferred to listen to the unbiased version in her head which, to her, was the truth. And that truth was that everyone born to this world was being punished by the idiocy of their ancestors. Hundreds of years ago when humans had it good, they had tons of machines that could go hundreds of miles per hour and deliver them via hundreds of miles of seemingly endless roads safely from city to city. And speaking of cities, they were said to be these huge sections of land with buildings that stretched into the sky where people lived and worked. Buildings were shiny and polished and were made up of whole bricks and huge metal beams, nothing like the sad little structures randomly constructed from materials found from the shells of those old buildings. There were endless ways to entertain yourself, but of course, as they did with anything, humanity screwed it all up. In schools they say that the reason it’s always so blisteringly hot and why the fog never goes away is because of something called pollution. Back then no one thought it was a big deal since there was so much atmosphere to fill it up with. So humanity kept filling it and filling it until it got full and a permanent fog was set over the planet. To be honest if there’s any part of history that Hysteria doubted, it was that part. It’s hard to imagine a “clear” world since all there ever was was that dense, hanging fog. Early humans didn’t only screw up their air either. Oh no, it seemed that they thought it a good idea to satisfy their momentary gluttony rather than considering the future and decided to hunt almost every animal they could catch to extinction. As a matter of fact all she’d ever had was deer meat. She’d heard news of a few places in the south having something called bear meat. She’d never even seen a deer, let alone a bear, and she probably never would. Though that didn’t bother her much as she assumed they all tasted the same. She was sure that humanity didn’t hunt different animals for their taste. Rather, because there were just so many mouths that needed to be fed. Seven billion of them she’d been told used to exist. That number seemed implausible compared to the 60 million of them that remained.

The permafog settling and the extinction of over 90% of the species on the planet happened within 10 years of each other. That meant that humanity began to starve and suffocate at the same time. Food storages that countries had saved up for seemingly this exact situation ran out much faster than anticipated. The permafog meant that heat increased dramatically which in itself killed many. But it also brought about the tainting of the water and the rising of the sea level so severely that the edges of many continents were buried underwater. And as it turns out, heat tends to worsen natural disasters. The tornadoes, droughts, floods, and fires were all supposedly much worse now than they used to be. Because of that, humanity found itself on the brink of extinction. “But fear not,” Nightshade would say, “for we are steadily righting the wrongs of the past. To ensure our species survival it is necessary that only the ones most capable of ensuring our future are allowed to remain and repopulate. Those of you who are seen as a hindrance to our species will be thanked for your service in the world thus far and sent to a place where your services may be better received.”

All of that was just fancy talk for “The useless ones among you are going to die today.” And thus was the plight of every person eighteen years or older. Starting on their eighteenth birthday and for every birthday they had after that the citizens of the world would have to go above a High court and vie for their lives. They would have to stand before the three judges and explain why they should be kept alive. If the answer wasn’t satisfactory they would be seized by a guard and taken through the left door where they would be, as Hysteria liked to put it, brutally murdered. If their answer was seen as satisfactory then they would be sent through the right door which led to the exit. There they would be able to walk freely until the next year.

By the end of the Grand Judges’ speech there were already several people around her crying silently to themselves, knowing their fate. Pathetic. Hysteria had already decided that if she ever became a High Judge anyone caught crying would be sent to the left door no matter how good of a speech they gave. There was simply no room for the weak willed in the world that was to come. She herself wasn’t nervous in the slightest. She was the smartest person in her school which in itself was enough to ensure her survival. In the old days she would've been called the Valedictorian. Though that word wasn’t used anymore, she still resolved to use it during her speech.

Most speeches went along quickly and boringly, as they had each year. She wasn’t particularly paying attention until it was the turn of the girl seated right in front of her. She had bright blonde hair and wore a long black robe that concealed her entire figure. Hysteria was sweating in a short sleeved shirt and skirt so she couldn’t imagine how this girl remained composed in an all black robe that seemed to be made of heavy fabric. From the moment she turned to the audience to introduce herself to the moment she bowed to the judges Hysteria could tell that something wasn’t right with her. Her blue eyes, only one of which was visible due to her hairstyle, were bright and lively though her expression was completely dead. And what was stranger yet was that she didn’t speak. She only reached into her robe, setting the guards on edge. But instead of being a weapon like they were probably expecting, the girl, who had introduced herself as Fae, had pulled out a large piece of jewelry. She didn’t even need to dangle it from the chain before Hysteria and everyone else in the room noticed what it was. It was half the size of her hand and was shaped like a heart, two golden angel wings wrapping around it. The room fell silent as even the Grand Judge himself, whom Hysteria had never seen with anything more than a cold grimace, held his mouth slightly agape. There was no mistaking who that locket belonged to and what it’s return meant. It was obvious that this was the real deal too based on the way the wings seemed to glow when you looked at it.

It took several moments for Nightshade to regain his bearings. But once he did he cleared his throat and spoke like he wasn’t as surprised as the rest of them, though the shudder in his voice betrayed his calm demeanor. He informed them that they were all allowed to exit through the right door, they had all passed. But instead of letting out a relieved sigh or a chuckle of shock, Hysteria was angry, furious even. What did it matter that she passed since she’d never even gotten to tell anyone she was the Valedictorian...