Things must be done for earth to prosper. |
The sun laminated a crescent the shade of plastic on the quilt. Every minute the sun rose, the silhouette did the same. In no time at all, the crescent covered up Kaleb's entire face. Reacting to the bright light, he woke up with a jolt. The alarm was also ringing. Perhaps that's why he had woken up, he thought. That was why he had woken up. Every day of the year, every single person in Kaleb's society had to wake up at six. Also, every single person had to sleep at nine. Kaleb slid outwards from his bed and trudged to the bathroom, the same thing he had been doing for as long as he could remember. He took exactly ten minutes for his morning necessities. Six ten, the clock read. He was told to follow a schedule as precisely as possible. He seemed to never get bored of doing even the obvious things in the listed order. Kaleb had twenty minutes to eat breakfast. The size of the breakfast depended on the size of the person and therefore, the time limit had to be set to the longest eater. Kaleb, however, a skinny and average height fellow, took only eleven minutes to eat his. The meals followed a seven day rotation cycle rotating by the weeks. Today, it was scrambled eggs and bacon. It was the same for every single person in the society. There were no vegetarians or people with allergies. Kaleb's society couldn't afford people with allergies. Therefore, they were banned from the society and sent down. Down was the only way out. The society was located on a large group of mountains. The mountains were about nine miles high and nine miles from the nearest civilizations. Going down was the only way out because at the edges of the society, there lay nine miles of cliff. There had been news about people trying to climb down the cliffs and back to the rest of the civilization. But, the news was kept to a minimum. The regular people didn't hear much of it. The clock read half past six. Kaleb grabbed his suitcase and headed out. So did just about every person his age. There were about two thousand people his age that lived in the miniature two story and two room houses. The people of Kaleb's age took about a thirty mile road for all the housing. All the people were grouped by age. The minimum age was also decreasing. At about twenty, Kaleb's generation was the youngest. Kaleb rushed to catch up with Ashton. Kaleb and Ashton had no differences. They were forced to wear the same clothes and do the same jobs. They were forced to live the same lives. But, the people of the society couldn't fight back. Every night before sleeping, they were given a pill. The citizens weren't given any food if they refused to take the pill. However, refusing to take the pill now was almost impossible. Taking the pill for twenty years, Kaleb had been completely hypnotized that boredom was a number one. The same had happened to Ashton. However, refusing to take the pill for one day set the person back ten years into his or her knowledge. Pills controlled the society but the people didn't know it. Kaleb and Ashton worked underground. Most of the younger population did the same. Underground work was the hardest. However, by the irony of it, they were working inside a mountain. There were thousands of tunnels and passageways in the mountain. Only one led back to the rest of human civilization. No one had ever seen humans from a different society except the leaders. The leaders sat in a town hall located at the center of the town. Everything was located at the center of town. In rectangle figures, the houses bordered the center. Kaleb and Ashton reached the town center, also, the only way down. Their jobs were to make a dam or barricade and control the amount of water which reached the town. The only place water was found was in the rest of the human civilization. When they gave the hundred thousand people a different society, they swore they would provide them with limitless water. They had been sent about ten years ago up the mountain. However, every single person had their memory erased except the leaders. No one remembered their lives ten years ago. No one questioned why they had been sent to the top of a nine mile mountain. They couldn't remember. The subway was very convenient since there were already thousands of tunnels underground. Ten years ago, it wasn't much of an effort to build the trains in their readymade tunnels. Kaleb and Ashton reached a subway. It was only about one mile from their miniature houses. The subway took about fifteen minutes to get to work. The time was 6:45. Everything was perfectly aligned in their schedules. Once they reached the city's center, they grabbed the equipment for their jobs. It had been the same equipment for the last ten years, the same job for the last ten years. They worked about two miles inside the mountain. No one had ever been past three. There had been runaways who didn't take their pills but they were caught about three miles down. The news was barely heard by the common people. There was an elevator for the first one and a half mile but, Kaleb and Ashton had to walk the rest of the way. It took about two hours to get to work since all two thousand people were required to do the same job. The amount of water which came and left the society was massive. It was the amount of water for the two hundred thousand people who lived in the in the community. Every day, Kaleb and Ashton got caught in line for two hours and every day, the two reached their work site at nine. Kaleb was in charge of instructing the labor workers to build the system. There had been a sewage system and a water filter for the last ten years. However, often times, the two mixed with weak pipes and plumbing to cause deaths easily. The first people who experienced the deadly water were from the first layer of houses who lived along the town center. A majority of these people were the older generation. Traveling to work and recreational retirement areas was easy. However, since they didn't have longer to live and weren't of much use to the community, they were asked to face the difficulties first as they came in from below. The rest of human civilization would view this as a barbaric and inhumanly thing. However, the people who lived in this community weren't regular people. They were given pills to change for reasons unknown. After an elevator ride and walk to the work site, Kaleb and Ashton were put to work. Kaleb worked on plans and designs of a foamy and absorbent fabric which could control the amount of water coming into the city. The water would be absorbed into the fabric and kept there until water was needed in the community. Ashton did the labor work along with a majority of the other two thousand plumbing workers. Their entire project took about a tenth of the mountain's area. Therefore, mass labor was required. In a regular civilization, a simple plumbing job in fixing a sewer system and water filters would take about two months. However, since the plumbing job had to go up nine miles, it took a couple years. They were still developing the technology for water to go up nine miles. That night a meeting was called to the people of the community in groups. There was an enormous stadium in the town's center which could seat fifty thousand people. The people went in four groups. Ashton's group went last since they were the farthest away from the stadium as well as the city center. "We have been successfully living as a community, a city, a miniature civilization for about ten years." One of the leaders talked on the microphone. The leaders all had equal positions and power. There were seven of them. They were the only ones in the community who didn't take pills. That made them very different. "There are always times in a community were changes must occur. Past society's from our previous civilization have always changed and progressed, evolving with us. Now, it is time for our community to change. The leaders have decided you could live as a society completely isolated from the rest of human civilization. We have decided to cut the water source from the bottom of the mountain and leave this community. You must elect your own leader and continue your journey as a community." "Cut the water source from the bottom of the mountain." The words ran through everyone's minds. However no though was produced. All the people including Kaleb and Ashton took suspicion through the words. But they had been hypnotized through the pills. "We haven't been building a better sewage and water filter system but blocking of all connections to the rest of the world. You have used the wrong plans and have blocked all but one of the tunnels which go down. We are leaving through that one and blocking it forever. Good bye." The leaders ran out of the stadium. The crowd was showing signs of intelligence but still couldn't completely process the words. But it was too late. After ten minutes, water started streaming in. Every minute the level of water rose by a foot. The people expected it to fall of the mountain or go back down but it only came up. The people who were denser than the water were sinking. No one knew how to swim as they were never taught nor had a swimming pool. The people went up and the water stayed on the mountain. Finally it stopped. Every single person was underwater and dead. The water touched glass about a mile above the mountain range. Then it stopped coming. The isolated city had always been inside a massive glass dome. The people just didn't know it. Over a couple hundred years, the process was repeated. The rest of the human civilization did it for birth control. Every time, the amount of people sent a new life for the time, but in the long run, death, increased. There had always been a plan for this. It went on for a couple thousand years. Random people were chosen to leave their final ten years away from the rest of the people and given pills to reduce intelligence. It had always been this way. Until... |