Eden

Chapter One: Momento Mori

Something is burning, I think. I rip off the blankets and jump out of my bed. It smells like burning biscuits. I get up and stretch my arms. My bed is an older one, it's flimsy and I sink into it when I lay down. My sweatpants cut off around my calf and they have little rips from when I took out the drawstring. I tiptoe to the living room, the TV seems to glare at me with its broken screen. It sits on a stand near the couch. We don't get many channels on the TV, we're too far away from Eden. My stomach grumbles furiously, and I realize I haven't eaten in a couple of days.

I look through the cabinets there's only a little bit of the oatmeal left. Everyone else needs to eat more than I do, Emma is only 10 and Wilma is in her 40s- nearly unresponsive at times. She's an addict, her time is spent in her room doing lines and little to no work. Wilma is Emma's Mother and my foster Mother. My Father gave me up to Wilma and Berite Gilde 17 years ago, he didn't want to raise me in Eden, I guess. My Father, Beowulf Emery works closely with President Brone and the rest of Brone's Court.

I sneak back to my room and get dressed, I hear the dogs roaming outside. I went back to the living room to get my boots on. I feel the tightness around my soles I try to loosen the laces but they've been loosened to their extent. I pull my hair back and start heading towards the porch.

"Kirsten?" Emma whispers in the hall, "Where are you?"

She looked like she had been crying. The pink pads under her eyes and flushed cheeks stand out against her sand-colored skin. I hurry over to her, bending down to reach her height.

"What's wrong Emma?" I brush her tears away, "It's okay."

The Project scares her, the Graduation, all of it. She is sensitive, even though she doesn't know the kids who graduated before her she feels a sense of attachment to them. She cries about them, she wants them to live. I hope this passes, she can't become attached to everyone. Everything ends in death and Emma needs to learn that. While I do agree with her, the Project is a brutal thing but that's just our lot in life and we have to find a way to live around it.

Emma has a condition called Limb Length Discrepancy. Her right leg is normal-sized, but her left leg is shorter by an inch. The brace is expensive, I had to take out a loan to pay for it and I'm still paying it off. Emma had to wear a leg brace for a long time, and she still wears it to school because we can't pay for a new one. She is small with light blonde hair that is often in pigtails. Her mother is in her room- the only room with an actual door. Emma is holding the old stuffed animal rabbit that I got from Wanda, my Great Aunt, for my 7th birthday. It had a ripped ear, patches, and old vomit stains from Emma's toddler years. I think Emma is still upset with me, I tried to drown her stray cat a month ago. She named it Dopey, I told her not to take in the cat. But she did anyway, we don't have the money to feed him.

"What if you're an Applicant?"

"They won't do that to me." I say, "Why would they? They don't even know I exist, Emma. Beowulf has never admitted to having a daughter."

I don't know about it being a secret, everyone here in Community Ten knows I am his daughter. But I don't think Eden knows.

"But what if they do? They always do it to the kids of Representatives."

"I'm 100% sure," I enunciate, "that I am not going to be chosen. Okay?"

I hope Wilma overdoses. It would be one less person to take care of, Wilma abandoned us. Left us to die, and for what? A powder to relieve her stress, to ail her grief. I was grieving too, and where was she? Her husband died 9 years ago. Bertie was stupid. He knew that the Sentinels would kill him if he ran up on that stage. His sister graduated and was chosen to be an Applicant, so out of his anger he ran up on the stage and tried to kill Claire Caligo. He took a gun from a Sentinel and tried to shoot her, it's not her fault. Caligo didn't choose the names. Eden did, the teachers did, not her. Bertie missed, horribly, and was executed there. Emma is too young to remember this. I was 8, I hardly have any memories of him besides that. Was he kind, compassionate, helpful, or intelligent? I couldn't tell you, all I could tell you was he was foolish and he almost got us killed with him.