NaNoWriMo Prep 2017

Protagonist Background Story -- Contest

The stars were out tonight. Soft sparking lights against such a dark black, a world that Julessa wished she was a part of. It had to be better than the one she was in. Had to. She rested her forehead on her small bony knees and sighed. She celebrated her twelfth birthday the day before and no one noticed. No one even said "Happy Birthday" to her. They barely acknowledged her presence here. It was different here and she wondered what she did so badly at her old orphanage back in New York that would cause them to send her where she was now.

She missed her friends. They had been there when she lost her siblings. Caesar, Shara, Lucas, and Deacon. All gone. Losing her parents had been one of the worst things in her life, but she'd had her siblings. Caesar was going to take care of all of them, he said. He had been sixteen and they asked him how he planned on doing that? What job did he have? He wasn't even legally an adult. How could he take care of four young kids? The youngest one six years old. They beat him down until he could do nothing but join the orphanage like a good boy.

We believed it couldn't get any worse. A tear trickled down her cheek as she remembered the day they found out that Deacon had started to come down with it. She remembered the fear inside everyone. It had been eleven years since the beginning of the outbreak. Shouldn't it be over? Then again, their parents had succumbed to it the year before.

After that, Shara was next, then Lucas, and then finally...

Finally, Caesar was the last to go. She'd begged to get it too. What was there left? Yet, here she was. Normal. The other orphans had been there with her. Even those in charge had been very kind.

Now, she was alone. There were others here. Other orphans that had lost everyone they loved. All locked up in an isolated room and three times a week they were dragged down into the basement and experimented on. They were told they would be heroes. They would save America.

Julessa might only be twelve years old, but she wasn't stupid. There was no saving America now. There was this anarchy, this awful nightmare where everything was skewed and blurred just enough to leave you on edge. That unnerving feeling that sends a shudder up your spine.

Was it like this everywhere?

She wished she had been alive before the outbreak had happened. She wanted to know what life was like. What was happiness? What was it like to not be in fear of something?

With her eyes still on the sky, she absentmindedly tried to put her hair behind her ears and was reminded of something else. Something else that gave her determination. Even if she couldn't know those other things, she wanted to have her hair as she wanted it. Not so that it was cut so short she was just barely able to put her dark blonde hair behind her ears. She wanted to wear whatever kind of clothes she wanted instead of the hospital-like gown she was required to wear.

One of these days, she would get out of here and she would do whatever she wanted, she vowed as she looked back to the stars and again dreamed that she could go to where those stars were.