Laniatus

part 1

Hello there, my name is Troye Hale, tall, brown hair, blue eyes and the body of an eight year old. I am nineteen years of age and I live in Sector Q, which really is the perfect place to live if you want to spend your life living in fear and poverty, dreaming of the day when you are asked to move up in the sectors. Unfortunately that is not going to happen to me. For as well as having the body of an eight year old, I also happen to be pretty useless and talentless. I can’t hunt, fish or fight. The only thing I can do is sing. But that must be kept secret, as singing is a crime that can result in banishment from Laniatus, which, by the way is the country I live in. The only country left in the world that hasn’t been taken over by the Diabolous’: Foul creatures with impenetrable, armour-like skin, that have invaded our earth from a planet called Exspes. But we'll get into that later.

“Troyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeee!”

“Mmmhmmm”

“Get up! You need to get ready for work.”

“Ahhhhhrrrrrrgg”

You see in Sector Q, only women are allowed an education since they learn more effectively. So once a boy reaches the age of fourteen, their childhood is officially over and they are required to go to the Sorting room where they will be told which job they will do, until they have potential to be something much greater, but a I mentioned before. That won’t happen to me.

In Laniatus, we are divided into 17 Sectors. Sector A is the most powerful sector, so everyone there is Concilium: the people in charge of the rest of the sectors. In Sector B there are the uniquely gifted. Those who can read minds, Fly, become invisible and so on and so forth. Sector C are the brains, developing new technology, finding new medicines and more incredible things like that. Sector D are the protectors, the warriors, those who defend our country against the Diabolous. And the Sectors continue on like this until you get to sector Q, right at the very bottom, janitors, grave-diggers and burger flippers. That is all most of us will ever be good for, and most people will just be content with this... I guess you would call it ‘life’? I feel like I’m in a cage, imprison from freedom, but how would I know you must all be thinking? Never having known any other life.

I trudge down the stairs to the familiar spotlessly-white kitchen where I see my Guardian; Tanya cleaning the dishes. The guardians are a group of people who look after the parentless children in the lower sectors. Even though I am technically a ‘man’ I am not allowed to live alone until my eighteenth birthday, when I will go into the sorting room for the last time, in front of all the Concilium and will have my fate decided for good. Who I will marry, my death day, and how many children I will have. Everything gets decided for the last time, and you just have to live with it. This way we will live in a balanced, safe universe, without choice. That’s what I want, choice… and freedom. But like I said, I live in Sector Q. And I absolutely hate it.

“How do you like your eggs,” Asks Tanya, the same way she does every other time we have eggs, which is quite often.

“Fried” I reply in monotone. It’s not that I don’t like Tanya, I’m sure she’s a lovely person. I just hate it here where we live.

As I eat, the alarm rings to signal 10 minutes before we are required to be at work so I wolf down the rest of my eggs and rush to my job at the jetpack factory. Putting together jet packs for the people of Sector D.