With the events of yesterday still trapped in her mind, Hailey wakes up to a new day. Her eyes are crusted from crying and sleeping. She leans up to look around and some of the kids are gathering clothes to change in the changing rooms. It’s still early morning so their local star’s light is barely visible over the horizon as dawn sets in.
Hailey uses the bed sheet to pull herself up a little more because she’s emotionally exhausted from everything that’s happened. She buries her face in her hands and is not sure if she wants to start crying again when a voice comes to her:
“I heard you crying last night. Are you ok?” The boy from a few beds down asks gently.
With a little bit of trouble from her hurt throat, she looks up at the boy and starts:
“Yeah. I guess so.”
The boy sits beside Hailey and puts his head on her shoulder while awkwardly looking forward. Hailey moves back a bit from this gesture but ultimately lets the boy rest his head. She isn’t sure if he is trying to comfort her or not but the thought of anything or anyone trying to comfort her seems nice.
The pair sit there for a few minutes until one of the Sisters of this children’s house appears at the door to scream at the kids and remind them they have half an hour to get ready for study.
The boy leans up from resting his head and looks at Hailey and then says:
“We better get ready for today. I woke up a little early. I really couldn’t sleep last night with the storm…”
“You couldn’t sleep because of me?” Hailey interjects.
“No, no...but I was saying that I grabbed some girl clothes from one of the sisters in the hallway. She knew that you needed them but I was on my way back from the bathroom and offered to help her by giving them to you. They’re always busy this time of day and the less we see of them, the better.” The boy finishes while chuckling a bit.
Looking over at him, young Hailey cracks a small smile as the boy immediately does the same.
“That was nice of you. For both things. But maybe not the last part...” Hailey leans in, smiling a bit more, and whispers as the chaos in the room from the kids gets louder.
The boy just looks at Hailey for a moment after now grinning from ear to ear and gets up. Hailey watches him as he motions for her to go down the hallway to the girl’s changing room.
Not wanting to see the headmaster Ms. Yuni again, she gets up in a hurry with her new-used girls school outfit and fumbles her way down the hallway, asking other kids where to go along the way.
Her first days in class were different from when she had learned in her primary world government run school - the one when she was with her parents. The teachers, which are the ‘Sisters’ of this ‘house’, are very stern and don’t leave much room for play or imagination. The coursework was difficult and it reminded Hailey of trying to read some of the documentation her dad would bring home when he had long services to perform and needed to read material before he started a ‘job’. Hailey’s dad reminded her to stay away from the documents but her father would read them at the dinner table - she couldn’t help but look.
On this world, jobs are the smaller things you do to complete your service. No one has a career here. The world government says, very vehemently at an early stage in life, as you could tell from the children’s broadcast earlier, that every citizen’s duty is to serve the state. The cab driver that is taking Hailey to the hospital right now, in current time, has been on the job for a little over a week. That may explain why he ended up badly hurting Hailey as public transportation has replaced any freewill driving experiences on this world.
Citizens get the opportunity to try for a service with an assessment test and then they are placed in a bracket system that’s based on the assessment. If you do not place high enough on an assessment then your service options are limited. Since the cab driver just started, just as in any other world, he just wasn’t as experienced as he should be.
To ensure that all citizens get a ‘fair chance’ at any service, documents self-destruct, so to speak. The world government does not want someone reading documents that were printed for someone in a service that other citizens could read to get a ‘leg up’ on that service or assessment test. This is a punishable offense on Hailey’s world.
Moreover, documents are printed with an ink that fades per the required days of preparation and one's service. The documents then turn into recyclable paper. The printed ink cannot be recovered or 'hacked' to reveal anything intelligible.
Outside of service documents and in general, Information in this world is also heavily scrutinized. There is a network for computers but in comparison to earth’s Internet, the information is limited and the devices that can connect to the network are licensed. This way, the government knows exactly who is using the device, the network, and if they share any information regarding the government or world religion, they can be investigated. All traffic on the network is monitored including 'pattern habits'.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Pattern Habits are the sites you visit on the government network, in a particular order, the frequency in which they are seen, and if they are revisited. Through a form of AI or artificial intelligence, the enforcers and other law enforcement are able to see if a person is plotting against the government or world church, possibly looking for information or drawing ulterior conclusions against the world government or religion.
More about service, citizens are required to perform all sorts of jobs and there is NO excuse for having a different build or body type. Under the world religion, the great spirits within the sacred texts of Hailey’s world, say that all beings are the same and there are no differences between them, physically.
With that being said, her mother’s last service was with a construction public-works group that were digging ditches and running cables. Her mother was not fond of the service but every citizen must do as they are told when they’re assigned a service.
This, according to the world government, keeps everyone honest about what they can do to help their fellow beings. Not many who have performed a service have died in service, but there are statistics on the government run sites that don’t add up to what Hailey’s father was discussing with her mother when she had the construction service. Hailey is pretty observant, even at a young age, so she listened to them not too long ago discussing it. Hailey recalls her mother not eating dinner for a few days when she started her construction service because she was too exhausted to eat.
As the day went on, Hailey got to know a few of the other children a little better by talking to them at recess and at lunch. She did not try to talk to others during class since she did not want to see what the Sisters, whom she had not formally met, would say or do to her if she did.
In her last class, she daydreamed about being at home. Her mom and dad, busy downstairs cooking dinner with Hailey upstairs and her TV-device on while watching her favorite programming, comfy in bed. At this point in time, no one is supposed to prepare food for you on this planet as the government deemed this act as unsafe and unhealthy. The government explained that people cannot routinely make safe food for other's consumption so all food from vouchers must be prepared by the individuals consuming them, at least this is what the local government has told everyone in Hailey's district. Places have opened and have tried to serve food but the story goes that their 'businesses' were shut down by government officials, their owners arrested, and never heard from again. Typically, a government official will drop in on a family without knocking to inspect kitchens and foods to make sure it's safe to eat. If a government official, without any scientific method of testing - just a gut feeling, deems the food unsafe, those Individuals making the food are arrested. Since the food may affect someone up until their dying breath after eating bad food, most of these offenses are dealt with by public executions. If you attempt to kill someone by food on this planet, you better darn well make sure a heartfelt government official wasn't waiting to inspect your food because otherwise you'd be destined for demise, yourself. Governments are a cornerstone of this world's reality - making everyone safe from themselves and others. Sure. Mistakes have been made with prosecution and execution but how many lives have been saved by killing the cooks? I'm sure that amount far outweighs the amount of would-be cooks on the planet.
Even as those days pass in the memory of bad food being served long ago, and 'the squirts' draw meaning on this planet, many cooks die per government executions. To even having loose stool on this planet after consuming a meal before this legislation meant you were destined for the guillotine. Public health is more important.
The days after were filled with the same ins and outs. She’d study, try to keep up with the rest of the class per the horrible material, ask for help from others about their assignments, play a little outside, and go to bed. All the while she still thought of her parents every day. She was not ready to confront Ms. Yuni about her parents. Until the monotony got to Hailey….
One day, as Ms. Yuni passed by Hailey and the other children in the halls with her fake and smug smile, Hailey, who was walking the opposite direction, turned around and started to follow Ms. Yuni. When she did, Ms. Yuni sensed that the young girl was behind her and abruptly stopped to greet her.
“Ooooohh hi Hailey. Are you enjoying our wonderful house here?” Ms. Yuni smiles and leans in to a startled Hailey. She continues: “Meet any new friends? Hmm?”
“Actually Ms. Yuni I wanted to ask when you were going to tell me what happened to my parents. You never really told me why I was here.” Hailey says looking up at the woman.
“Oh! Why yes I did little one. Don’t you remember?” Ms. Yuni replies with her fake, trademark, high pitched voice. She continues: “We were at the mess hall on your first day…..remember?”
“I think I do but I don’t remember much from that day because I was very upset.” Hailey quips, remembering only that she was hungry and looking around trying to figure out where she was at the time when Ms. Yuni was talking to her in the mess hall.
“Well dear, if I must….” Ms. Yuni says, now pulling Hailey’s arm and motioning her over to a less traffic filled corridor.
“Your mother and father, well….passed away I’m afraid sweetie. Yes. Very tragic.” Ms. Yuni continues while putting up a fake frown.
Hailey begins to tear up while the headmaster leans in to comfort her but she is only doing it momentarily so she can get back to her duties. The typical there-there ensues.
It seems the headmaster has seen this same thing happen to other children but has built up a callous against it, emotionally speaking. When you don’t really like your job and then aren’t any good at it, things fall apart. Hailey doesn’t realize that the lady that is telling her this is sort of an empty shell. Ms Yuni has never told anyone at the house ‘her story’ but she came to this house as any other Sister and rose through to the top, very quickly. This may be all she knows and/or exactly how she is.
Hailey is so upset that she turns abruptly away from Ms. Yuni while Ms. Yuni tries to comfort Hailey and begins to run down the hall towards the sleeping room. Ms. Yuni stands up straight with a grim look on her face and snaps her head up in the air, almost like the young Hailey offended her for not continuing listening to her half hearted words of comfort, and walks off.
The Sisters call it the sleeping room because the children are to use it to sleep and not play. The Sisters, and the world government and church, have labels and messages in just about every facet of the kid's lives in order to condition their behavior.
Hailey finally ends up crashing on her bed shortly after while still crying. Once again, Hailey drifts off to sleep and begins to dream.
In this dream, Hailey sees some new things. She sees her parents again, who are right outside the gates of the South Larrington Children's House, waving at her and telling her to come home. Ms. Yuni is standing at the threshold of the main entrance holding Hailey back and telling Hailey something she can't understand - all with her trademark fake smile, which Hailey even realizes in her dream as bull crap.
Her mom and dad start to lose their grins while waving at Hailey, then suddenly start to disappear. Ms. Yuni's demeanor changes from a pseudo-helpful one to a menacing one. Ms. Yuni starts to laugh maniacally as Hailey starts to sob in her dream.
She wakes up from the dream in the quiet sleeping room though not crying now, she still remembers the dream. She leans up shaken by what she dreamed about but the dream changed her. She whispers to herself:
"I have to get out of here." Then slowly lays back down and falls asleep.