71

Chapter 1

Bang. Bang. Bang. My feet swing restlessly against the spotless steel sides of the exam table I'm sitting on. Bang. Bang. Bang. My eyes dart about the room. It's of ingenious design.
A plain square box with one locked, heavily guarded door, and no windows. The exam table is built into the wall opposite the door, which swings outward, resulting in no places to hide. There is a single air vent, which is smack in the middle of the ceiling, and it's barely big enough to fit my hand through. In other words, I'm trapped.
I still can't believe I turned myself in. Then I remind myself I had no choice. I was driven to the safety of the First City, finally scared out of the Wold, the outsides, where I had lived my entire fourteen years. The Beast's had found my cave, my home, so I had been forced to flee, or be devoured.
Bang. Bang. Bang. What had the Examiner said? "Just a couple minutes, and we'll know." A couple minutes. If I wanted to try and escape, now was the time. I tense, glaring at the door, then look away. No, no, where will I go then? No, I have to see this through.
My mind is reeling a thousand miles a minute. Bang. Bang. Bang. I need to know. I know I'm not Pure. That's obvious, what with my slightly elongated canines, the claws that retract under my fingernails, and of course the tail...
Stupid, stupid First Generations... Bang. Bang. Bang. After the apocalypse, the thirty seven surviving people, the First Generation, they made out to recreate the world. That would have been easier, if the Beasts, the once average animals turned into monsters, hadn't come along.
Bang. Bang. For some reason, the survivors had decided, well, some of them, to fight fire with fire, Beasts with Beasts. I can understand that, but why couldn't they just have tamed some? Instead, eleven of the survivors injected animal DNA into their own bloodstream. Five of them, all the experiments with DNA that was not from a mammal, went horribly wrong. The other seven, however, succeeded in becoming stronger, faster, better. At least for the time being.
However, over time, the original survivors had to, you know, repopulate. Over the years, there was some inbreeding, including the First Gen. with animal DNA. Plus, the radiation left over from the apocalypse got to some of them, twisting them both mentally and physically. So, by the time I'm born (I'm Sixth Gen.) there're a large variety of Beasts roaming the earth (or what's left of it after the apocalypse) and almost every mostly human life form has some percentage of animal DNA in their blood, because the original survivors who had injected themselves had more children, since they lived longer than the pure humans, with their heightened survival instincts.
Bang. So here I am, sitting in the Exam room right outside the City, waiting for my blood results. 98% human, or higher is considered Pure. Those are the people who get to live the spoiled City life. The bar used to be 100% human, but people like that have grown increasingly rare. No, I wouldn't get to live in the First City,
90-97% range, is the Worker unit. Those are the people who are permitted to live in the Underworld, the underground town below the pristine City, in exchange for their labor in the underground artificial orchards. I was hoping I could at least get in there. The living conditions weren't great, but at least they were safe from the Beasts of the Wold.
The Predators are the souls who land in the 80-89% area. They're paid by the City to go out and hunt down Beasts and other, unpolluted animals, for fresh meat and pelts. In exchange, they get to live in the small community bordering the Wold, the Shelter. Creative name, I know, but though it's a pretty ramshackle place, there's safety in numbers. There is a wall separating the Predators from the Workers and the Pure. They're treated borderline Beasts themselves, and are considered untrustworthy.
Any lower than that, and you were more animal than human, except in some rare cases. Lower than 80%, and you were brought straight to the slaughterhouse. Your body was sold as meat for the Predators to use as bate on their hunting trips. Not a happy ending. But that was how it ended for most people.
At the Testing, you're blood number is branded on your neck. That makes sure no one in the lower townships will sneak into the City, and so when Impurities corpses are sold as dog food, the prices are higher when the percentage of human is higher. It's a sick world I live in, but it's the only one I've got.
I know I'm not Pure. But if I'm lucky, I might get to be a Worker, live the rest of my days in the safety of the underground orchards... Most likely, I'll be a Predator. That might not be so bad, at least I won't be trapped underground, and I would be outside in the open, getting to live with more people like me...
"Ash, your blood number is ready. Please follow me." I wince as I hear my hated name. Ash. What kind of name is that? I'd heard worse, though. Much worse. Once I'd bargained with a Predator named Toenail. In this day, year 163 a.a (After apocalypse) Everyone is named after objects and things.
My expressionless, plain Examiner opens the door, staring at me with pale eyes. As I hop lightly off the exam table, I entertain myself by wondering if all personality is beaten out of the Examiners, and how this would be done.
I pause a moment before stepping out of the door. If my number is lower than 80, I'm dog food. If I just... No, I brush away thoughts of escape yet again. I'm dog food if I try to get back to the Wold. So I suspiciously step out of the room, a decision I feel like I'll regret.