Chapter One - Seventeen Years Later
My name is Zam Turner. Note: Zam with a Z, not an S. I'm seventeen years old. I’m a typical teenager but this is not your typical bedtime story. It is not a romance of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, vice versa, happy ending. Nor are there vampires or demons haunting the pages.
Sorry to all you Dracula fans.
I don’t mean anything by it, but this story is real, it’s not a fantasy. Sometimes I wish it were. I lie awake at night, replaying the events that got us here over and over and over. It’s a never ending cycle. The thoughts come alive and wander through the maze which is my head.
Dreaming. It’s a dream that started this.
Corruptive
Destructive
Sadistic
Just trust me on this now? Don’t dream. Oh yes, you may say that dreams can represent hope. Everyone dreams. Yes, everyone dreams. They didn't used to, but now everyone does. But everyone has nightmares too. And it’s those sorts of “dreams” that did it. Did this.
So people are scared to dream, we don't want this to happen again. One person with The Power and now we are helpless. I try not to dream anymore, everyone does. Most people are successful, they go to the Cull, the one person with the power to make you forget. Man, you can hear the screams a mile off.
But they always come back.
Sure, their eyes are lifeless and betray no emotion. Indeed, their skin looks like wax melted under a flame, hanging off in folds, as if they have aged fifty years. And yes, if you call their names: “Scarlet! Francis! Patsy!” ...they do not acknowledge you or even glance your way. They move around the dirt tracks like zombies. Only they are not zombies, as I promised, there are no creatures of the night. But at least they do not have to dream.
I don’t want to end up like that. So I stay put. Most people have gone insane, driven mad by their own thoughts and desperation. They come in the dead of night, once every month – I can tell it’s night because although there is no light or dark – the wrist watch Annie bought me for my twelfth birthday still works. They come with their loud voices and blazing torches, dressed in the material we cannot afford: silk, denim and even cotton. They burn down our ramshackle houses, not that you can really call them that. They steal away the insane, the crazies, the elderly and we never see them again. Then shoot the ones who haven’t made it back for curfew – 8pm sharp - in the middle of the street, then laughing they take their pick of the women and ride away till next month.
The few hours after they go, our community is in bigger tatters then originally. We band together though, us that are still sane, and clear away the rubble and destruction. Our faces mirror each other, ashen, eyes sunken and red, bags under the eyes. This is through lack of sleep. No one wants to dream. We cover the dead bodies with anything we can find, and then burn them. We used to hold small funerals in the beginning, before the death toll rose so high. Now we don’t bother. Most have no family left to hold a service.
I guess you could say I’m one of the lucky one. I’m not crazy. Yet. And though I dream, they are never that painful. My father died before it happened, but my mother is still here. Her body is still heer, and half of her mind is. She is slowly and surely loosing it. I know I sound insensitive. But maybe it is for the best, she is in such pain. And I still have my best friend with me. Her name is Maddlyn, Maddy or Mads for short. We joke about that, Mads, but she isn’t mad.
She is the sanest person I know; and she is beautiful with big, innocent fir green eyes. They hold laughter within them, but at times also great sadness. Her hair is a brilliant auburn colour, which she always wears scraped back into a feminine ponytail. Her lips are full and her cheekbones well defined. I can’t say much about her body, cos I don’t really look. That much. But she is my best friend, has been for twelve years. She’s the person who keeps me sane.
And then there's my sister. Annie. She got out before it happened, got a scholarship to some university in Japan. She’s always wanted to go there. I wonder if she knows what is going on, if she misses me. I miss her a hell of a lot, she was the person I was closest to, second only to Maddlyn. And Annie’s boyfriend, Karl was always great to be around. He was like a brother to me, but he went with her to Japan, the last we heard of them was on January 13th.
The day before NID happened.
). So, let's get into it, shall we?
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