Chapter 1.01
I sat on the sofa, curled up so my knees were pressed up against my chest, and sipped at my hot cocoa. It was eight in the morning, Christmas Day. The day of the selecting. The selecting on the twenty-fifth of December, every year. What a way to ruin Christmas. Two thousand people between the age of eleven and twenty-five were randomly selected, and their names were put on a long list. Those people were given one week to stay at home, say their goodbyes, pack their bags, and prepare for what happened next. They were sent to war.
Around century ago, 2052, the world had a major disagreement over medicine. Back then, a liquid cure to a few types cancers had just been developed, and all of the countries desperately wanted it. However, at the time of the success announcement, only a few thousand small bottles of the stuff had been created. This caused quite the argument, over who got the bottles first. In the end, it was divided out evenly, and more was in the process of being made. But that was not the end of the arguing. A while after that, a whole new disease broke out. The disease was very deadly, and killed it’s victims within a time period of two weeks after it entering your body. It targeted the veins and heart. It ate away at your veins for the first week, but as it got stronger, it started on your heart, until it killed you. It wasn’t a nice disease at all, and was one of the most painful ways to die. Families of victims were apparently interviewed and most said that when their relative had first gotten it, they screamed about how it burnt. Then they became too weak to form words or scream, and ended up just letting out agonized, sorrowful moans. It was discovered that only the people who were victims of cancer and used the cancer cure developed the disease, it started forming in their bodies around a week later. But, once the disease was created, it was passed on like chicken pox. An injection to prevent it was created around five decades later, but not before the disease had wiped out millions. When I say millions, I mean like hundreds of millions. The disease was eventually eliminated from earth, and all of the cancer cures were destroyed, so the disease couldn’t be brought back.
The survivors, most of which who had survived using the jab, started to you know, repopulate, and the human race started coming together again. Only after civilization was at a healthy pace, twelve years ago, when I was two years of age, the countries started blaming each other for the disease. That was when the war really started. After the war raged on for a year it was named “The Great War”, as it was the largest war in history. After another few years, soldiers started dying off, rather rapidly. The Rulers, the people who ran the world, and weren’t on any countries side, decided to make a new war rule then.
If a country were to completely run out of soldiers, they would be forced to surrender. If they didn’t, their whole country would be blown to bits. Once they surrendered, the Rulers allowed other countries to fight for the surrendered country, which they would take over if they won. To determine which country got the fallen country, the Rulers randomly chose fifty soldiers from each country, who’s names would be kept secret so they didn’t know if they had been chosen, let alone other soldiers. The war would continue as normal, and after six months, the Rulers would look at the fifty selected soldiers and see who was still alive. Whoever had the most of the chosen soldiers left would get sent a letter that told them they had won the country, and they got to take it over, and claim it as another part of their country. The countries that failed got letters saying that they lost, and told them who won the surrendered country. First the required army age was lowered down to eleven. That got a few more people joining. But there still wasn’t enough. That was when the Selecting started.
My parents sat down beside me, and placed the family laptop on my lap. I shot a nervous glance at each of them, and flipped open the lid, my stomach churning. I kept reminding myself that there were millions of people in Australia in the age restrictions for the Selecting, and only two thousand were selected. I tapped the space bar a few times, waking up the laptop to reveal the dreaded list of names that took over every computer in the world for a week. The background was black, and the writing was green. It reminded me of those movies from way back, when they were on computers that screens looked like this. The list was in alphabetical order of last names, and each letter had it’s own category. I scrolled straight down to the ‘H’ category, and scanned the names for ‘Kate Harlesworth’, my own name. My parents read the list too, but they were faster at reading than me, so they would spot my name before me, if it was on there. When I heard a sharp intake of breath I knew there was something wrong though. I desperately read down, until eventually my eyes rested on the small green writing that read my name. I felt lightheaded all of a sudden, and thought I was going to faint. When I didn’t, the feeling gave way to a nauseating one. At first it was only faint nausea, but it grew the longer I spent staring at the screen, eyes bulging, mouth hanging open. Then suddenly it was overwhelming, and I made a dash for the bathroom. I clutched the toilet bowl, waiting for the vomit to come. It never did though. After a while, my head in a toilet, I decided I was being dramatic. This happened to two thousand kids, some younger than me, it couldn’t be that bad. So I stood, gathered up all the courage I had, and marched back into the room, where the sight of my distraught parents awaited me.
