Young Writers Society

Wow,
That was really good. It looks to be a book I would buy for myself and pssibly for my science fiction obsessed uncle too.

There was only one thing I had a question about...

Her fiancée stood behind her, politely smiling and standing very stiff and still. He was a new acquisition; his dark good looks and crisp navy uniform were obviously what had appealed to Liseli. I felt a pang of pity for the young man, and hoped for his sake he would last at least until the marriage legally expired in a year.

In this section, do you mean marriage, or betrothal? A person is a fiancée during the period between the proposal, and the marriage also known as the betrothal. After the marriage legally takes place they are the husband or wife.

~®®§

sorry. i'm trying to explain without explaining, if that makes sense. in this world marriages so often end in divorce that they just made a law where marriages expired in one year, and if you chose to you could renew them but otherwise a husband and wife relationship wasn't for life, it was just for a year.

Oh, okay that makes sense thanks.

4
Dax: On a Mission


We needed food. The meager paycheck that usually got us through the month hadn’t come this time. Dad was late to work one day, the day Mom had lain in bed with high, high fever. She couldn’t eat anything. She barely had the strength to lift her head. Although she kept insisting she was fine, Dad wouldn’t leave her side for a moment. It was a long, anxious night and a horrible morning, but finally the color began to creep back into her pasty cheeks, and she could drink a little lemon soda without vomiting. So Dad went to work, four hours late, and gave me strict instructions to call if Mom got worse.

He came home late that night, his clothes still reeking of the sewers. He looked upset. “Mr. Reginald is angry,” was all he would say. My stomach knotted. Mr. Reginald was Dad’s boss, a fat man with a purply complexion and a breath that reeked of smoke and beer. He’d hired my father reluctantly and had instantly put him on probation, hoping to find some reason to get rid of him quickly. But Dad never gave him a reason. He never shirked his work, never forgot anything, never took sick leaves. Despite Mr. Reginald’s hatred of him, he could find no fault in my dad.

Until now. The very first offense. And it lost him his pay.

Which means we were hungry. Very hungry.

Mom had started making soups out of discarded meat in the dumpsters, but before long the stove ran out of gas. Then we made do with a fire in the alley behind our house. But soon the firewood was gone as well. Mom and Dad kept working. I begged on the street and sifted through dumpsters and traded what I could for food. I looked for a job of my own, but I was continually turned away. I was too young, too small, too dirty. My eyes were strange, my hair thin, my features irregular, my complexion splattered with freckles…

I had no pedigree and so I didn’t deserve to live. They expected me and my family to lie down and die, to make way for the gods and goddesses that were being born each day – the worthy ones. The ones who would live and thrive and create more gods and goddesses, the ones that would further human evolution and make our race perfect, sacred.

To them, my family wasn’t human. We were accidents. Zits on the face of mankind. No one cared that we were starving to death. They wanted us to starve to death, so they could go on with their perfect lives and not have to think about ugly brown birthmarks or crooked teeth or big noses.

I had to do something.

I’m not known for my good sense. Dad says I’m impulsive. Mom says I’m thickheaded and mulish. But I wanted to live. In spite of the stupid world I’d grown up in, I wanted to live.

So I dressed myself in my black canvas pants, a black turtleneck that was two sizes too small, and old black sneakers. I pulled a glove onto my ungloved hand and yanked a black ski mask over my face.

I moved in front of the polished copper disk that served as our mirror and stared at myself, breathing hard and feeling adrenaline pump through my veins. I looked like a specter of death. No one would recognize me. No one would have anything to say if the cops were called. “Oh, Officer, I’m so glad you’re here, there was someone…dressed in black…didn’t see their face….no, I don’t know what color hair…uh, I don’t know – Judith, was it a man or a woman?”

This was so illegal. So incredibly rash and stupid and all those things I’m not supposed to be. But I felt oddly at ease. I was finally doing something. I was on a mission like some hero in an old suspense novel. And if it worked, my family would survive.

I slipped out of the house and headed for Olympus Street.