The Fence

Chapter 1: Last Day

The world is different now.

At least that's what my father tells me when we sit at our rickety dining table, peeling clementines for breakfast every morning in our dimly lit home.

My dad often tells us stories about things that existed back when he was just a kid, still roughhousing with his friends and crying because of a scraped knee. He notes every change in government, leadership, life, and freedom.

Dad complains about how he was sucked into this city when he was so young. I try to feel bad for him, but sometimes I can't understand. I never had any freedom.

"Don't get me wrong, I understand why," he would say. "Why the world had to change."

I get it too, at least I get as much as I can comprehend. How could the world not change, after a scientist's dream crash-landed on Earth in search of a new world itself?

"I never thought those people with aluminum foil on their heads could ever be on to something," Dad had muttered. "But it turns out aliens did exist."

I try to imagine what life looked like half a century ago before the yukos appeared in Earth's stratosphere. How, 42 years prior, the world was bustling with activity like the inside of a beehive. How food and water weren't at an all-time low, and resources weren't dwindling from the inside of an electric fence like sucked into a vacuum.

When I was small enough to still sit on my father's knee and get tucked in at night, he tried to explain how the fence was there to keep us safe. I didn't understand the concept of aliens back then, but I could see the struggle in his older features. His words weren't simply for me; he was trying to convince himself, as well. Trying to justify giving up his freedom all those years ago to be trapped inside a safe, fenced in city called Gambos.

I asked him once why the yukos were so bad. Why we had to be kept safe. He told me that the yukos were deceitful, that they stole our food, water, clothes, and people. I wasn't sure what he meant by people. When I was a bit older, he told me that the yukos ate humans.

The thought of this gave me nightmares until my reasoning started to kick in. Although there were thousands of disappearances when the yukos first landed, I couldn't bring myself to believe in such a rumor. My father couldn't seem to, either. The next time I asked about it, we just laughed it off.

I can believe, however, that the yukos are destroying our planet little by little, each year. I hadn't been alive for the first 24 years they were here, but based on what my father is always saying, life used to be worth living.

And when I'm not fantasizing about feeling real grass in between my toes or breathing in the crisp, mountain air that hasn't touched our city of Gambos, sometimes I feel like reaching out and touching that electric fence.

Sometimes.

Just for a thrill.

Then I realize that could kill me, and my father has already lost enough.

"Kirbena, you still with me?"

I blink down at the orange clementine peel in my hand, imprinted with little divots the size of my fingertips.

"Huh?" I stare at my brother, snapping out of my old thoughts. His matching hazel eyes meet with mine across the table. He cocks his head to the side, curiosity swirling in his light expression. "Yeah, sorry. What is it, Ky?"

"We need to get ready for school. I hope you're not planning to show up to our last day with your hair in knots."

I grab at the frizzy strands, trying to get a feel for the full extent of damage the night has done. "Is it really that bad?"