Sarah Scott Journalist

We’ve been told to fear the weather.

Our city is safe from its destructive path so long as our leaders – The Core – can keep it at bay. 

I’m lucky to live in a zone covered by their machine. Some people on the outskirts of the city have to live everyday not knowing what weather will be above them.

The weather has caused so much pain and destruction on a scale unimaginable.

When the ‘One Week War’ began, countries and leaders did everything they could to overpower the elements. Some fled underground. Some took rockets to the sky. But most perished.

No one could have predicted the outcome.

The only thing that came from the war of the elements was the solution to overpopulation and a set future for the next four generations to rebuild the torn planet.

I’m lucky that my great-grandparents survived. They were protected by The Core’s machine that could harness the elements power and use it against the sky. Those living outside the city weren’t so lucky.

The planet is slowly recovering, day by day. There are still some scars etched in the hills and mountain tops that act as a daily reminder of the fragility of life.

No matter who you are, or what job you do, we are all responsible for growing and producing our own food – a system put in place by The Core who give us optimum growing conditions to produce food all year round.

For the people living outside the city, our spare food goes to them and earns us credits. Core workers ship supplies to them. We call them the unknown. We’re not supposed to ask but rumours whisper through the trees and tell us things about them. Some say the unknown just sit there and are lost in their own minds. Other say they’ve become a part of nature and they’re the breeze in the trees we hear.

The thought of the unknown is actually beautiful.

My eyes adjust to my brother’s anxious face. He wears that look when he has to deliver bad news. What have I done?

When my fuzzy head catches up to my racing mind, I allow the pit in my stomach to ask the questions I so desperately want to know. What happened? Why am I in the hospital again? What’s the bad news?

I feel his ice cold hand rest against my forehead and smile at the relief it gives my burning skin. But I shiver. What’s your bad news? I plead myself to say, but before I can open my mouth, a sob escapes his.

Have I actually seen Alex cry since Mum died? I ask myself.

“I’m so sorry, Alleyah,” he mumbles through tears silently slipping down his face.

“What’s going on?” I manage to say, though barely audible. He takes in a breath and becomes my big brother again. Just like he did when he told me he found our mother.

“We were in a car crash. I was driving and…” he trails off.

A mix of relief and confusion rushes over me. “Alex, don’t worry. Everything’s alright,” I say almost out of instinct instead of belief. I don’t know if everything is alright, but for now it is.

I stroke some hair behind his ear and watch as he winces when I gently brush past the cut on the side of his face. I study it. The congealed blood rests around the strips of bandage and in his hair, and the bruising that surrounds it is fascinating. Colours I haven’t seen in such a long time.

I find myself thinking back to the day when The Core lost control of the weather so they removed colours from the inner city, even the colour in the plants faded to a muted green. No one was sure why they did it, but they regained control somehow. 

“I’ll go get a medical attendant and tell them you’re awake,” Alex smiles, leaving the room in a blur.

I’ve always looked up to Alex. He always seems to have his act together. He’s at that stage in our planned, set-out lives where he is settling down with his childhood sweetheart, Octavia Dunning, a local nurse he met when Mum died. They’re engaged to spend the rest of their lives together. They’ll have kids, a house, and live out their years happy and content knowing that they’ve followed the repopulation guidelines The Core has in place. Exactly to plan. Nothing ever changes in our city, which is why it was such a shock when our mother died. It’s a miracle I’ve turned out so sane really.

My baby sister Tallulah and my father are also coping by following the rules. Heads kept down, in bed by 10pm, and security credits transferred to The Core at the beginning of every month. But Alex and I help with the latter. We try our best to keep our household going, but going until what is the question I’ve been asking myself lately.

The damp sheets that cover my body are beginning to become unbearable, so I shuffle them off and try to get out of bed, but I find myself pausing to look at my right thigh. It is only now that I see the full extent of my injuries.

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Read Chapter One – Dreams