Vivian

• Layla Boehm , Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2021

It was nighttime when she heard, the news, of course she did. It was all that was playing on the TV! With the news reporters and their big headlines. She had never liked the tv much, preferring to stay huddled in some cosy corner with a book. Although she couldn’t ignore it tonight.

She was 11 then, just young enough to be safe, but that news would go on to change her life forever.

*1 Year Later*

“MUM! Where are you?! It’s happening, it’s tonight!” A young girl screamed, darting around the corner, her orange hair flying behind her, desperately looking for her mum.
“MUM!”
She ran into her room, hoping her mum would be in there, waiting to read to her as she promised. As she looked around her room at her small bed and plants that hung from the ceiling, her heart sank. Her mum wasn’t there. She sat on her bed and looked across the room into the mirror. She had blue almond-shaped eyes with wavy shoulder length ginger hair. She looked at her light freckles that dotted her face, just under her eyes, hardly visible but still there. This girls name was Vivian, a pretty, bookworm, 12 year old girl.

Vivian was close to crying, today was the day her age group would be sent away. Today is the day where her life was stolen from her. Wherever her mum was, she hoped she would be back soon, this was the last night that they would have together. Before she was taken away to the Windstone Academy where they would decide if she was smart enough to become a part of the new generation. If she wasn't, she would, as so many before her, be executed for her genes in a grand ceremony. Where everyone that had a bad grade and failed the yearly test set by the government would be murdered.

She could never have prepared for this moment, the one where she would have to leave her home town for the nearest city. She could never have prepared even though she had been her whole life.
“Mum…” whimpered Vivian, “where are you?” Slowly, she got up and walked across her fluffy carpet floor towards the door. She was stressed and needed to get her mind of the expanding doom of tomorrow morning. She opened the door and ran hurtling down the spiral staircase. She flicked on the news, there it was, top story.

She say down and turned the volume up.