The car’s old motor died as we pulled up to the train station. The roar of the train rushing over the tracks drowned out all the other sounds. Mother and I opened our doors slowly.

“Thank you so much.” Mother thanked the driver, handing him a stack of coins. But as the driver drove off, I saw her slip the coins back into her pocket. Just a bit of her quick hand work.

People packed in every spot imaginable in the station. I saw multiple people standing on benches just for a bit of space. Mother stretched out her hand and I took it gratefully. It wouldn’t be hard to be separated from her here.

We were all here for the same reason. All of us were being sent off to Generate for the procedure. We didn’t know much about the procedure. All I knew was that it was supposed to make you immune to all the diseases so you’d never get sick. At the same time the Generators decided your future.

Mother pushed a few people out of her way and they frowned at her. I saw her lip circling into a small smile. This was her type of crowd. Finally we reached an empty spot. It was tiny, maybe a few feet of room, but she pulled me up close to her.

“Listen, Shay.” She pressed her mouth to my ear to speak. Her voice seemed to cut through all the sound. I felt her fit the handful of coins she kept from the driver into my hand. “These are only for an emergency… like if you want to come home early. I’ll be waiting.” She pulled away from my ear to look at me. Her eyes bore into mine. It was almost like she was trying to tell me something, a message, but I couldn’t figure out what.

She brushed a strand of my fiery red hair out of my face. “Just… don’t forget alright?” Through the heat of a thousand bodies crammed together and the burn of the sun beating down on me, I shivered. I’d heard those words before. But before I could think about it, the train whistled loudly and the wheels grinded on the tracks. It was time to go.

“I won’t forget. I promise.” I smiled at her.

“And don’t forget I love you, okay?” Mother buried her head in my hair, then pushed me towards the train. People bustled around me, pushing me farther towards the machine and away from Mother. I looked back. She smiled widely and blew me a kiss.

The door to the train clanked open loudly, and people surged backwards and forwards, out of the way of the heavy door but towards the entrance to the train. Before anyone could get on, a conductor leaned out. “Oh ho! Welcome all! Aboard if you want a straight trip to Generate!”

That was the cue to get on.The conductor jumped onto the ground and people poured into the train. Even as I neared the door, the crowd didn’t show any sign of thinning.

The conductor muttered a short welcome as I stepped inside.

The first few cars had already been filled. Young people who looked to be around my age laughed and talked loudly with their friends. As I approached the back of the train I saw an empty seat next to a girl with raven hair. She didn’t look familiar. Nobody here looked familiar. I hadn’t wanted to be homeschooled, but Mother had insisted on educating me herself.

“Hi, can I sit here?”

The girl looked up and smiled. “Yes, of course.” she said, pushing the few trinkets she’d gotten out of her bag out of the way. “I’m Lee.” She said, sticking out a hand. “Short for Amelia. You know, like, A- me-LEE-ah?” I smiled at the pronunciation and she blushed.

“I’m Shay. Short for Shaylor,” I told her.

“Shaylor? I’ve never heard a name like that before. But I like it.”

“Where are you from?” I asked her.

“Meredin. You?”

“Brines.” I thought of the green Brines fields and frowned. I was going to miss them. At least I had money to come home. But one of the many things we didn’t know about the procedure was how long we would be gone. Our parents had complete trust in Generate of course, they’d gone through the very same things when they were our age. But for some reason, no matter how much I’d begged, Mother hadn’t told me anything about it.

“Don’t you think it’s interesting how things work in Caporr?” Lee blurted out. “I mean, Utarra and Generate are the biggest cities yet they have the least people in them. Then smaller places, like Traiel or Opose have the most people. It doesn’t make any sense if you ask me.”

“Seems like you’ve put a lot of thought into the subject.” I commented.

“Well, yeah, I guess so. I did a project on population around Caporr in school, but nobody there really liked to listen to me talk about it.”

I nodded and glanced out the window. It had started raining while we’d been talking. Large rain drops splattered against the window, blurring everything.

“Your hair,” Lee said, changing the subject. “It’s so pretty. I’ve always wanted red hair like that.”

“Oh.” I looked at the frayed ends of my auburn hair and smiled softly. “Thanks.”

Lee frowned. “Hmmm. Do you know what this ceremony is that we’re going to? Because my family wouldn’t tell me.”

“Ceremony?”

“Yeah, you know, where they’re going to choose your job, and make sure you can’t get sick anymore…”

Mother had always called it the procedure. I’d just assumed that was what it was called, but Lee called it a ceremony. I wondered what it was actually called.

“My mother didn’t tell me either. You know as much as I do.” I assured her.

“You know, my sister actually went there. To Generate, I mean. To do the ceremony. And we haven’t heard from her since. It was three years ago.” Her lips pursed and she looked down.

Just as she finished talking, the door to our car opened. It was a boy. He looked at the last empty seat in our car and smiled. “I’ve been all over the train searching for an empty seat. Can I sit here?”

“Of course!” Lee said before I did. She waved her arm at the empty seat.

He nodded his thanks and sat down.

I listened as soft rain pattered on the window. Lee and the boy were talking, but I just stared at the view through the glass. I heard Lee ask the boy’s name. He said his name was Nathan. I just paid attention to the rain. Somewhere, miles away, Mother might be staring at the same thing. Whenever it rained at home in Brines we would sit on our porch and watch the rain for hours. As many times as I explained how rain fell from the sky, she never understood. She thought it was magic.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I pressed both my hands to the cold pane of glass. It was all just green farmland where they attempted to grow food. Of course, before the food ever grew the smoke got to it. But in a few hours, the scenery would change from green plants to Generate’s never ending white buildings.

Slowly, I turned my gaze from the window down to my bag. There was a tiny bulge in one of the pockets where I’d shoved the coins Mother had given me. I pulled them out, counting them. There were three heits, nine coppers, and four ports. It was a lot of money. Where had she gotten it all? And why did she give it all to me?

“Hey, what’s that on your wrist?” Lee squinted from across the table.

I turned my wrist over, revealing five long crooked lines stretching across my arm. They were scars. “I don’t know. I’ve had them for as long as I can remember.”

Lee grabbed my hand and turned it this way and that, examining my wrist. All the while Nathan watched silently. Lee shrugged. “That’s interesting. I wonder what it’s from.”

“I’ve seen a scar like that before.” Nathan said. I raised my eyebrows. “My… friend had one just like it. His name was Anthony Morgan. I don’t know where he is now though. He just kind of disappeared.”

I frowned. “Do you know how he got it?”

“Got what?”

“The scar.”

“Oh. I don’t know. He never told me. It was interesting though. He actually left for a few months, then he came back with the scars, and he was different. He wouldn’t tell me what was going on, but I knew something was wrong. And he only stayed a few days before he disappeared again.”

I raised my eyebrows and Lee swallowed. Then she pointed at the window. “Look!”

Though it was blurred by the rain, I could make out a tall white building. That was where we were going. There was no doubt about it. It was the Nova Tower.

The Nova Tower was the Capitol building in Generate, but it was used to host the procedures as it did every year. Another little thing we knew about the procedure. Where it was. It sat on the farthest border of Generate, seperated from all other buildings. The building stuck out like a sore thumb among gray clouds and soggy green plants.

The train rolled to a stop, wheels screeching against the tracks. I hastily got up, ready to leave, but as soon as I stepped out of our lone car, I tripped over someone’s bag.

My bag split open, spilling stuff all over the ground. I shoveled stuff back in, but it took me a moment before I realized I wasn’t the only one who had been putting my stuff back.

I looked up. A pair of bright green eyes met my gaze. I froze. I’d seen those eyes before. Where? But before I could even ask the person, they had suddenly disappeared into the crowd.

Lee grabbed my hand next to me and bounced up and down impatiently. “Come on! We don’t want to be last in line, let’s go!” I shoved the last few things in my bag with my other hand, and we weaved in and out through the crowd towards the Nova Tower.

Lee pulled us into the line of people gathering in front of the Tower. At the doors an old man with wispy white hair checked people in and gave directions. A steady stream of people entered the doors, but they all turned different directions inside the building.

We neared the man and I ran my fingers through my hair. Not long now.

The man’s eyes seemed unfocus as we finally drew to the doors. His glasses magnified his eyes, so when his eyes fixated on me it was almost like I was staring at a human dragonfly.

“Name?” The man barked.

“Shaylor Taryn.”

He shuffled around a few papers. “Room 414. Take the 3rd hallway then the first left.”

I thanked him and waited for Lee to finish.

“What’s your room?” She asked. “I’m in Room 412.”

“Room 414.” I told her. “Sounds like we’re neighbors.”

I gasped as we stepped inside the building. Everything was white. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. White staircases spiraled around above us, and eight white hallways led in different directions like an eight pointed star. Above each hallway white wooden plaques numbered the hallways.

“3rd hallway, and first left.” I recited. Lee nodded and led the way.

Different colored doors filled every inch of the hallway. It was the first bit of color I’d seen in the whole place. Each door was painted differently, from blue, to silver, to orange. Just like the hallways, above each door white plaques told us the room number.

Room 414 was bright yellow. Right next to it, Lee’s room was a dusty purple color. She smiled encouragingly at me, then stepped inside her room. At the same time, I stepped into mine.

The room was huge. Well, rooms. A huge foyer opened up into a large bedroom and on the other side, a kitchen. The walls here were too white, but everything else in the room was the bright yellow color that had been on the door. In the bedroom, plush lemon carpets covered the floor and two large beds with yellow comforters sat comfortably opposite each other. Behind the beds, a pair of clear french doors opened up onto a balcony.

I ran my fingers through my hair. “Wow.” It was a lot to take in. I hadn’t expected Generate to be like this. I didn’t know what to think.

There was a humming sound in the apartment. At first I thought it was one of the appliances, but as I neared the bedroom it got louder. The sound came from a body beneath the blankets on the bed farthest from the door. Someone was already in here.

From my bed I spied a girl laying on the bed farther from the door. Her face was buried in the pillow, but a mane of curly brown hair surrounded her face like a halo on top of the bright yellow pillow.

Then, the snoring stopped suddenly and the girl sat straight up. Her brown eyes landed on me. Confusion and shock filled her features. She was speechless for a minute as she looked me up and down. “Shay?”

“How do you… how do you know who I am? Do I know you?” I swallowed and looked at her. I’d never seen the girl in my life. How did she know me?

She got up and wrapped her arms around my neck, astonished. “You're alive.” she said quietly. “We all thought you were dead- oh Anthony will be so-” Then she stopped and stiffened suddenly. I pulled her arms away and stared at her. The girl’s eyes were blank.

Her head dropped and lifted back up almost immediately. But the recognition she’d showed before was gone. “Wow, I lost my train of thought. What were you saying?”

I frowned and ran a hand through my hair. “You were saying that I was alive, and that I wasn’t dead, and you thought I was dead…”

The girl looked at me like I’d just said the most obvious thing in the world. “Well, duh, you're alive. Guess what?” She stuck her hands on her hips as if she were a model. “So am I!”

Then she smiled. “Just kidding. I’m Omega.”

I warily took her outstretched hand and shook it. Something was going on here. How did this girl know me? And now suddenly she was acting like she didn’t know me. It didn't make sense.

“Well, are you going to introduce yourself?” Omega asked in a playful way.

“Don’t you already know my name? You seemed to recognize me a minute ago.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve never seen you before in my life. Are you going to tell me your name or not?”

“Shay.”

“Shay. That short for anything?”

“Shaylor.”

She scrunched up her face. “Mmm, I don’t like it. What’s your last name?”

“It’s Taryn.”

Omega looked me up and down again before settling on my face. “Taryn. Yeah, that works.” She sat down on the edge of her bed and bounced up and down. “So Taryn, want to go grab some dinner? I’m starved.”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

I followed Omega down to the cafeteria, but my thoughts were straying far from the thought of food. Omega really didn’t remember me, though she had a moment before. Something was odd here. And I planned to find out what was going on.