Short Stories

The Utopia

DISCLAIMER: I acknowledge what's going on now is a serious situation and I do not believe this is at all exactly what's going on this is just for fun have a lovely day! :)

It was...strange. At first I was a total skeptic you know? I saw jokes about it I saw the news even talked about it in my classes but I never thought it would come to all this. It was like the flu. You wouldn't even know you had it until a week or two after getting it. Then you would get a fever, sore throat, trouble breathing or talking, and in serious cases, you would die. Of course this rarely happened. Only if the person was over a certain age or was already sick. Some people who I considered insane and dramatic bought out shelves at the store preparing for the apocalypse. I wonder if that helped them.

We were let out of school after spring break for a month and there were rumors about letting out for the rest of the year. Seniors were pissed- I'm sure. Hell I was. I didn't want to be shut up in my house for a month. But alas- it was a state of emergency. My hometown all but shut down. No one left their house unless they had to. We played outside some but only when it didn't rain. It was like the weather could sense how dreary everyone felt. It rained all day and stormed all night. Every night. So I didn't sleep much during quarantine. That was even before it spread here. That was while it was in the city. What we didn't know was just a few countries away, casket were being imported because they ran out. All shapes and sizes.

The first few days was fine. We cleaned the house, donated clothes, food, whatever we didn't need and threw out the junk. I listened to music but soon tornado season started. Right smack in the middle of tornado alley as we call it so we gotta be careful about that. We weren't allowed to bring other family members and friends into our tornado shelter so that's how we lost some of the town at first. We tried and for the most part people made it to the schools and wherever they could without getting sick but those people ended up spreading it. It got to the point we couldn't leave to get groceries so the house was tight on what we could and couldn't do. No snacks, smaller meals, shorter showers or better yet just a bath, three squares of toilet paper, turn off the lights when you are done in the room, one heater, one hour a day on electronics, homeschooling, etc. 

Then the deaths started. The first was a lady at a nursing home so we didn't think much of it. The next few were similar, an old man who lived alone by the school, a man with lung cancer, a kid with another kind of lung disease I could never pronounce. But then on the news I saw a whole family wiped out. I recognized them. The youngest kid was in my mom's class and the oldest was in mine. Their parents too- they were all young and had great health. I called everyone I knew. This was real panic. This meant it was real. I couldn't breathe. That night we climbed into the storm shelter again to wait for the tornado warning to pass. 

When everything calmed down- the town was cut in half. I'd lost half of my friends. I was lucky most of my family was okay. I woke up to the tornado siren. Bleary eyed and heartbroken, I grabbed my bag and ran to the shelter in the yard.  We listened to the radio to follow the storm. It still rained.

"If you're listening to this message- you survived."

I looked at my family but they watched the radio. I hugged my little sister.

"You- the survivors- are the fittest of the world. The population was too crowded and majority of that population was the elderly, the weak, the sick. Now that mother nature has thinned the population, you will all be moved and strict ruled will be set in place to make sure this doesn't happen again."

"What the fuck does that mean?" my dad snapped. 

The shelter door then opened and we were all but dragged us outside. It wasn't raining hard anymore. We were allowed to bring a bag with us. My sister and I were on a separate bus while our parents, being adults, were on another. I spotted friends of mine that had survived too. We spoke in hushed voices as I kept my sister from crying as we drove along. A few other buses joined our train. More crying kids. I held my sister and one of my closest friends held me. I'd lost two of the three of my best friends to the illness. 

We arrived late at night. The place looked like a school. From there they separated us by age and I lost track of my sister. I told her to stay safe and to listen to what she was told. I hugged her and said I'd see her later before her group left. The high schoolers my age were brought to a building where they separated us again by gender. My boyfriend and I ended up in the same bunk only because his papers read female and neither of us trusted a bunch of teenage guys. We made it to our room which we ended up fending for our selves on which of the bunk beds we got. I made it to a corner with my boyfriend and a few of my friends around us. 

It was a school of sorts. They watched our curriculum and such very closely. It reminded me of a novel I'd read. The government thinned the population and controlled the education. I did see my sister some and we were able to talk but we were of course monitored. My class graduated soon and we were given jobs right off the bat depending on the classes we took and how good we were at them. I got biologist. One of my friends is a farmer, my boyfriend a doctor. He had to get specific classes after though. We were given houses too and even got to choose if and who we lived with. Depending on grades was the size. I ended up staying with my boyfriend and we got a nice house with a few of our friends nearby. I still talked to my sister but I didn't hear from my parents since that day.

It wasn't until I was an adult with my own kids who attended a school like mine that I forgot everything that happened. It became so routine it just- felt like it had always been that way. My husband got his surgery and we got married. Had two kids after getting permission to do so- you had to have a license to fill spots of those that had died so that the populations stayed regulated. We had a son and daughter, I named our daughter after my two best friends that I had lost and our son after family and friends of his. 

We got up in the morning at 6. Sometimes I made pancakes for breakfast but usually on work days I got coffee before we got in the car. We drop the kids off at school then my husband and I go to work. The lab was close to the hospital and since I got off earlier, I'd drop him off and go to the lab. In the evenings, we would take turns cooking or going out. The kids did homework and we watched movies or whatever until curfew, 11, then we went to bed.

It was nice for so long. Then I realized it was all fake. It was artificial. They said I lost my mind. They called me crazy! Everyone had forgotten about the sickness. They forgot how they'd lost their family and friends. They took me to a different hospital than the one in town. My husband was so mad, he knocked one of the officers out cold and game the other a bloody nose before they dragged him along with me. He held me before we were separated at the hospital. 

They put me in a room and it got dark. Suddenly everything came back. Every happy memory I had- even from before I remembered. I sat on the ground, tears flowing down my face when my husband opened the door. He smiled and I ran up and hugged him. Behind him my parents and friend smiled. he held my hand and I went to greet them. It had been so long...