Overshadowed

Chapter 1

I lay in bed playing with a strand of my auburn hair, waiting for the rising bell to cut through the morning quite before the cold lights flickered on, telling us to rise.

We live in a society where everything is rationed, food, electricity, clothes. There are some safe houses who do not have this system or did not, but they have been destroyed by greed and plagued by humans natural way. Their punishment for their crimes against humanity, to labor day and night, producing the resources we need to survive. They also have something called money, a way payment for all they own. Our teachers tell us this is a terrible system where, forced to work you and are paid back with items invaluable to the work you have done, struggling to make ends meet and provide everything for yourself. I'm not sure if I can believe the teachers, but then worse things have happened to the world. In fact, I'm more jealous of those cities than anything else, why do they get to control the quantity of everything they own, why do we not have the right to do the same?

The rising bell rings through my head, interrupting my thoughts. I pulled myself out of bed and got ready for the day, dressing in my "neatest" attire. My mother and I wondered down the tiled corridor away from our holding area to the mess hall where we were served a meal of soggy pancakes and bruised apples. It was the same meal as yesterday and actually as far back as I could remember. The food we ate here at Grey Society (my safe house) is rationed according to our health and age. As a healthy seventeen-year-old my portions were the biggest for I need the food to help my grow healthy so I could contribute well to our society once I graduated, that was in a years time. I swallowed, trying not to think about it. I cut a small piece off my apple offering it to my mother while no one was looking, she gladly took, her thin lips twisting themselves into a smile in return. I finished the rest of my apple before parting with my mother and leaving for class, arriving just in time for the register.

Today was our annual class trip but there was no buzz or excited chatter, only the moans of students complaining about the visit to the Protector's Station. I admit it had been fun at first, but after having the same trip every year for the past, what, eleven, had begun to bore us. The only thing to look forward to was the armory but it was the same every year they promised to let us in the following year but as time went by they made up more excuses. This year, being our last class trip I was going to get into the armory, no matter what. After all, how bad could it be?

***

The trip was dull. No one paid much interest to the Protector's Station anymore, most people just stayed in their cliques and talked while the guide mumbled on to himself. I began to get agitated as we near the second armory. After letting us have a look at our surroundings the guide led the class forward. I hid in the curve of the building, blood thumping in my ears. Once I could no longer hear them I scampered to the doors of the second armory. I had a few minutes before they realized I was gone. I pulled at the door in an attempt to open it but it refused to budge.

How stupid I had been! First I had attempted to break into a roof and then I had forgotten to taken into consideration the chances of it being locked.

'Good one' I thought to myself before rattling the door one last time in desperation before I left off to join my class once more. However, this did not happen as both to my surprise and pleasure the door slide backward. It was a sliding door! I had read about these in books. Why was it open? I quickly entered the circular room, closing the door behind me. It was well lit, across from me where the other half of the circular room should have been, was a curved pane of glass, a window looking out to the forest surrounding us, from which light flooded in. Something was strange about the window, though, it looked as if it had been put in later after the room had been built. I walk into the room observing the scene that surrounded me. To my left and right stood two cabinets, in fact, their where cabinets leaning against the curved walls of the room. there was something particular about these cabinets, though, they were the only ones in the entire room filled with weapons.