Reclaim

Griff

6/12/26
I got this book as a late birthday gift, and there's a lot of blank pages near the end, so I decided I would write about my life, just in case I keep this book for long enough to look back on it when I get out.

My name is Griff Rucker. As of the time of writing this, I am 15, and this is my story.

I was born inside the Instigate,
"The second worst class of people."
Our family was taken early on during The Cleansing, an era in which the world wanted to fix up their act and separate the capable from the poor.

Since they didn't contribute the quota necessary to be considered capable when it came to work, they were rounded up and put in trucks to be sent off to a portion of the map guarded off from the normal world.

Now we do the minute things that power the real world today. Water purification, power generation, food growth, and processing, as well as creating clothes, packaging, and other products.

We wake up, eat, and then work till our shift is over. If we're lucky, our shifts and jobs change, but usually, we aren't. I got off easy with dish cleaning, I got the regular dishes, while other people had silverware, which were closely guarded to keep us from getting bright ideas with sharp objects. I had one other person working with me, Andrew. Andrew was a little older than me, only about 19, which meant he must have been on good behavior to make it here.

At the time, I was only 15, so my behavior was just as on point as his, which was why I got easier jobs as well. We both talked about usual things that kept us more or less sane, like what our friends had been jobbed and whatever else might come up from our very limited selection of books.

We got ones that really weren't interesting or had any meat on their bones, just stories from the inside.
The last one I read was about a man who managed to work so hard, he got promoted top of his sector and used his power sparingly until he tried to escape, then he was... well, you can probably guess.

Everything was more or less the same, we wore white on white clothes, tight around the arms and the legs, at least until we leave a work area, then these things in our fabric detect were outside of our job area and loosen immensely, so if we ever try to run well most likely trip over our own pant legs before we get far.

The H-Rags, on the other hand, get tight black kevlar, as well as some extra armor around the less jointed areas, so they have an edge in a fight. Punches are useless against their armor. You'll more likely break your fists, trying to fight them rather than do actual damage.

The promise of freedom at an older age keeps most of us going anyway. I've heard a couple of people get free in their 40s, but most wait for their families, usually dying in the process of old age or some disease. Our shifts aren't very strict, once were done with a job, we can leave on our own terms, so the faster you do your job the better, but if you do a bad job, or no job at all, they'll remember, and you definitely will too.

It's not all bad, though. The outside is nice, fresh air, nice scenery and places to walk like the park, or the "library." Just pay attention to the watch strapped permanently to your wrist and make sure you don't miss any shifts or roll calls, and you'll be ok.

To be honest the instigate is pretty draining sometimes, but I'm determined to get out for my family, even though they probably won't be able to leave due to their extended sentence for a reason they won't tell me.

I still got a while till I'm let out, about 20 years, actually. By then, dad will be old, and mom will probably be gone since her cancer is back. I'll make her proud, though. I'll work till I get out, and maybe if I do something miraculous enough, I'll cut my sentence in half. Only time will tell, though. I had hope for her.

6/28/26
Well, that was until the new conduct came in about a month or so ago.
As if we weren't already being used and abused enough, the Granting order was just passed for the instigate, which meant people who really didn't do much productive and ran through their warnings wouldn't get killed, but "Reclaimed."

I asked mom what it was about when it was announced... she didn't give me a straight answer.

"It's a way for people like me to make things better."

That's all she would say, and she said it with a smile on her face. I could only think of it as a good thing. Mom might be ok. She would be reclaimed and help people, and maybe she would be set free because of it. Maybe they could cure her cancer because of it, maybe we can all go free because of it.

They came to our house one day and took her, dad was happy and she was happy, crying tears of joy with a big smile on her face saying how much she loved me and how she would go on to help so many people. I was so proud of her. All I could do was smile and wish her the best.

7/1/26...
7/10/26...
7/17/26
I hoped she would come back soon, but it had been a month, and she wasn't home. I asked dad about it, and he said that it might be a long while before we saw her again and that maybe we would see her in a couple of years. I saw a lot of people start to disappear, like Andrew, Kevin, and Drake, as well as dad's friend and his sister and brother.

He looked lonely, so I tried to stay near him as much as I could to cheer him up.
I hoped he appreciated it.

Things felt different with Andrew gone. He got replaced with someone named Cal, and Cal was nothing like Andrew. He was jumpy and rushed things, which still worked, but it wasn't as smooth as the way Andrew did it. He didn't talk either. I tried speaking to him but he didn't respond much. Guess I'd have to get used to him slowly over time.

8/22/26...
9/15/26...
9/29/26...
10/12/26
It took a couple of months, but I finally got him to start talking to me more.
Turns out he's a pretty cool guy.
His dad was the brother of my dad's friend who got Reclaimed, and talking about him to my dad makes him smile, so that's gotta be good.

10/17/26
Life was doing pretty good again, dad was cheering up, I had a new friend, and I was getting really good at my job, I was maturing, and dad was proud of it. He always says that he sees himself in me, and he's glad I'm growing up to be like him, I even get the occasional, "You know, you really remind me of your mother."

It's really gratifying.
I love hearing the stories of him and mom when they were young, he always loves to tell them, but today he told me about a story that happened during a time outside of the Instigate, the one memory he has of the outside, and it was of a book he read by a man named John...John something or other. It was a story about a great land dividing due to continental drift and how their cultures all grew differently while they were apart, and it made me think of the outside more and more. I wanted to see the outside world just so I could tell dad all about it.

"When you get out of here, you never turn back Griff, not for me, not for anything."

Dad was always talking about how he wanted me to leave since he couldn't. He wanted me to strive to do great things, and he wanted what was best for me. It felt like whatever was out there would separate me from dad for good.
I was really all he had left, and now I didn't like the idea of leaving very much, even though he wanted me to leave. All I could really do was enjoy my time with him while I had it.
I just smiled and nodded, glad to have him while I did.

11/3/26...

11/16/26...

12/31/26
It's almost time for the big one.
New years.
I'm gonna have a hell of a time celebrating, but that also means that before we celebrate we'll have at least 10 times the amount of dishes to do after dinner since every sector is eating, and they're all eating a lot more. Cal and I have been training for this moment since November.

Today's a big day, but it's gonna be a good one. However, today's turnout will be more than apparent in the next entry I make for 1/1/27.

1/1/27....
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