[This story was written for a school writing assignment. My teacher got the idea from The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. We were assigned to write a short dystopian story about the future for sea creatures. Tell me what you think!]
The chair I had thrown hit the wall with such force that it broke in various places. Gasping at my sudden strength, my legs gave out, and I fell to my knees on the floor. I put my hands to my face and screamed into them. I didn’t worry about people hearing me; I was already in jail.
I had been arrested on every one of my birthdays since I was five. No crime had been committed; it was just because I had turned another year older.
In the books I read in the guarded section of the library in school, it said that in the past, birthdays were celebrated as holidays, whatever those were. But that stopped when California broke away from the United States of America in the year 8043. Some of the history books said that one day, the state just disconnected from the rest of the country. And since that happened, the government officials of California decided to become their own country. That didn’t take long, I guess, because independence was gained in 8045, and the former state of California became the United States of California of Reformed Elections Without Egotistical Desires…also known as “USCREWED”.
In my opinion, it was named the opposite of what it really was, except for the “USCREWED” part. Firstly, there were no elections held after the year 8046, and second, everything that was done was egotistical. There was no concern for people and their needs. Even worse, there was no regard to animals of any kind.
This time, the reason I was arrested wasn’t because I turned seventeen last month, or because I turned sixteen the year before. The reason I was arrested this time was because of my care for animals. More importantly, my care for sea creatures.
The government had restricted all animals from staying in their natural habitat. Thus, animals were to be kept in crowded zoos and aquariums, never to be seen by the public. I, being of the lowest social class, was forced to go to work at age fifteen, when I received my post as “Critter Control” at the aquarium. As one of the few who ever got to see the sea animals, I witnessed and was forced to carry out terrible cruelty toward them.
I had begun to ask myself, Is this the future of lower class citizens as well? I’ll be next. We’re all going to die. We’re all going to die. I was sure these thoughts were only in my head, and not anyone else’s. The others did everything the government told them to do. If there were any rebels within the past century, they were most likely sentenced to death or imprisoned for life and committed suicide.
The torture was put upon so many innocent animals, and I couldn’t take it anymore. It was almost a year after I had started work at the aquarium, my sixteenth birthday was coming up, and I was about to get arrested anyway. I remember it was the tenth day of the week, only because I had begun planning that day for over a month.
I had gone to work that day prepared to shut down the video cameras on the walls, just like I had done the day I went to the library to research the country. In the bathroom, I slipped a Critter Control mask over my head and pulled gloves onto my hands. Wearing the whole uniform, I wouldn’t look suspicious.
Looking over both shoulders and noticing no one around me, I walked up to one of the walls and punched it hard. Like planned, I smashed a hole in the wall, exposing the camera that was previously hidden behind it. I reached into my pocket to take out the bug I had taken off my TV that kept it playing the same channel over and over, and I stuck it on the side of the tiny camera, hoping the effect would be as I expected. I took off the backpack I had on and took out my synthesizer. I pointed it at the broken pieces that had come from the wall, pressed the button, and the wall returned to how it was before I got there.
I turned away from the wall to face the main area where the animals were contained. The tall fence was locked with a large combination lock. I had read about them; all you had to do was listen for the clicks. I thought it would be easy, but it took me awhile. Finally when the lock was off, I clicked a button on my watch and three large moving trucks drove backwards through the wall where the camera had been. The wall was annihilated and a mix of glass, wood, and metal flew all around me, luckily going everywhere but near me.
I opened the fence and heard nothing. No creatures moved from their spots within the fence. Getting frustrated, I ran in and started pushing sea lions and seals into one of the trucks. The other two, I knew, were filled almost to the top with water. Switching a huge robotic net on, I moved onto the tanks, and it caught the fish to put in the hatch at the top of the trucks.
Another click and the trucks were gone. Off to the ocean, where I set the trucks to arrive and empty. That click…the last thing I had done before they got me.
No longer able to help the sea animals that had stayed in captivity, I saw no purpose for me to linger in jail for the rest of my life. I might as well die. I would’ve been dead in that metal cell eventually. I glanced at the syringe left on the table next to my bed. That’s death, I thought. Then I looked around at the metal walls. And this is surrender, the walls whispered back.
I picked up the syringe and shakily brought it down to my arm. My last thoughts slipped away along with hundreds of captive sea animals’ lives…and mine.
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