The Captured World

1. Crazy Equals Genius

The best part about living alone is that you don't have anything or anyone wake you up in the morning except for responsibilities. That being said, I'm a little grumpy when my mom bursts into my room waking me up with unbelievable noise and way too much energy, that I reconsider visiting my home again soon.

"Get up, something great happened!", she shouts already on her way back downstairs to the living room, not even giving me time to whine. With the door wide open I can even hear the coffee that's getting prepared. That's weird, we almost never have breakfast together since we all get up at very, very different times. Maybe I should stop reading books and watching shows and anime 'till dawn.

Nah.

I get a hold of myself and get up slowly, change and make a stop at the bathroom before going downstairs to find my family gathered around the table. My little brother looks tired but sort of satisfied, watching some video on his smartphone.

"Morning", I growl, still dead tired and probably looking like I didn't sleep in 4 weeks, but that's okay, I burdened my family with this for about the last 5 years. I'm an excellent son.

"Josh got an email this morning", my mum whispers, she looks like she's going to explode and I can just guess that this means something extraordinary great happened.

What could it be? Did the government fall and we're all free people? A small electric shock running through my body lets me doubt that. But jokes aside, if it's an email for Josh, it's probably about college. I just sat down and sipped on some coffee when my mother couldn't hold back anymore.

"Josh got accepted in the highest ranking university in England!"

I choked on my coffee. Coughing I congratulate my brother, who doesn't even look up from his phone to check if I'm not dying. Why couldn't she just say the name instead of 'the highest ranking'? "Jeez mother are you trying to make me feel bad?"

"Oh, not at all, honey", she said with a shocked expression on her face. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize-" "Mom, it's okay", I snicker. That woman. As she realized that I was kidding, her expression became soft and happy again as she starts hitting me with a kitchen towel, I let out a small "ouch" and pretend like it hurt.

"But Josh, why England?", I ask, now curious. I always wanted to go there for a visit, but living there? I don't know. I heard it's pretty expensive. And hard to get back from there ...

"I don't really know to be honest", he replied. "I don't care about England actually but this university is the most advanced when it comes to technology and computer engineering, which, as you may know, I want to study."

"I see", I mumble, drinking the rest of my coffee. I think of my university. Compared to the one in England ... well it's rather cute. But what is Josh going to learn there? Computer engineering at its finest? How to build and program these nice little fuckers that are stuck in my body so they'll eventually kill me one day? Another shock runs through my body, this time it was stronger. After all it's my third violation today. And it's just breakfast time.

The tricelet's produced electric shock sounds just like ... a normal electric shock, duh. Shortly before giving you one though, the tricelet will glow in your color for a millisecond.

I stretch to get rid of the feeling of being fried. The more violations, the more painful they get but however at midnight it sort of resets to the original strength again. However here's the tricky part: The strength can also differ depending on the thought. If you start of the day with a really, really heavy violation the shock already starts of being immensely high, and the rest of the day is basically horror. Always afraid to think something wrong, because even if it's just a "minor" violation this next shock can literally knock you out. All in all there is 10 levels, set on heaviness of the violation and therefore the suiting amount of pain that will run through your body. If you 'screwed' up big time, they will hit you with a Level 10 shock that will knock you out and leave you unconscious, buying them enough time for someone to find you and take you into custody.

But back to my brother. Freaking genius. I'd pass that opportunity though.