This writing contest entry come from Kiele! Check out the story below. If you would like to win prizes and be published on the Lafayette Public Library blog, then read all about our National Novel Writing Month Contest for kids and teens!
CONTROL
By Kiele
20 years ago, an atomic war happened, wiping out 90% of human population, and poisoning the air. 6 months 50% of the remaining people committed suicide due to depression from lost family and friends. To prevent the rest of humanity from dying off, a government called the Eye took over and made everyone identical. Now, whenever we turn 5, our hair is dyed black, cut depending to our gender, our freckles, and our birthmarks are erased, our skin is changed to be the color white, and our eyes are altered to be brown. This is how its been for 20 years.
Jail is a terrible place. I wound up in there after I became a murderer of the eye and a violator of the laws. Now I’m slumped in the corner of the room, wearing torn skinny jeans and a black tank top. My bleached blond hair is a matted mess around my back. I once might have been called pretty, but that would have been years ago, which was before I got sent to jail. “ I will escape”. That thought is hopeless, knowing that I’m barely strong enough to take down one guard, much less the thirty guarding my cell. Why thirty, not ten or something? Just because she was the ONLY prisoner in the entire 100 cell jail, why thirty guards? Don’t they have better stuff to do than to watch a 17-year-old girl die in a corner?
If there was an escape, I would have taken it. I would have done anything to avoid what is happening now. The smoke fills my lungs, suffocating me, and the government’s flames lick the gainsboro sky. I trip over the sharp debris of one of the hospitals. A woman cries for help, her leg blistered and shredded from the shards of melting glass. how can fire be this hot??? I think, even though I already know the answer. Something rock solid clips my shoulder, and I yelp in surprise as I fall toward the rough ground, my heart pounding so fast I think that it will. The flames advance faster than I would have thought possible. A decapitated body falls off the building to the right of me, smelling of old dirt, and dried blood. I knew this person… I think as I try to wrap my head around who it was. Josh. I want to stop from the shock of this realization, but my survival instinct steps forward, and I keep running. the name pushes its way to the front of my head. That traitor. He started this in the hopes that the government would either kill me or catch me. Gunshots erupt to my right. Wet, sticky, warm tears spring from my already puffy eyes, intensifying with the smoke. Why does it have to be like this? I think as I sprint away from the flaming city, leaving my old life behind me.