The Stolen

Chapter 5

Swoosh.

The knife flies through the air and hits the middle of the target.

It's been seven years since Opportunity left the Earth, and now I'm 16. It's been seven long, long years, trapped in this ship.

Now I work for the Army, I'm a Knife Thrower. I don't really understand why we need an Army, since we are the only people alive in the whole universe. The Leaders say the Army is meant to protect us, but from what?

"Nice." a girl next to me says. She's a Knife Thrower too; I can see it in her badge. We all have badges, to help us know each other. Mine says Chrix, 367, K-T, in other words, my name, my compartment and my job.

Her badge reads Emma, 238, K-T. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't even know her name.

"Thanks, Emma." I say. "Your turn."

She smiles, takes a big knife and twists it in her hand, then turns around and throws the knife. It misses the middle of the target for an inch.

"Pretty good" I say, surprised.

"Yeah, I know." She says. "I've been working on that for a while. It's still not perfect, though."

I smile. Perfection. These guys are all about perfection. I honestly don't care. But if you miss for just an inch, like Emma just did, it is not right, it has to hit the middle perfectly.

"So, you want to go have some breakfast?" she asks, taking her water bottle.

I was going to have breakfast with Jade, but who cares? We don't hang out much anymore. She is now a Scientist, and Knife Throwers are not friends with Scientists. At least that's what everyone says.

"Sure" I say, and she drinks some water.

"Awesome." She says. "Let's go."

We walk through the hallways, which are now shattered. Opportunity is falling to pieces. The brand-new, modern, up-to-date place we found when we came here is now gone. I don't know what happened with it. I guess the people who built it didn't bother to teach us how we should take care of it.

Emma frowns. "That wall is falling apart. We have to send someone to fix it."

"We?" I smirk. "Don't worry about that, it's not our business. Free your mind, let the Leaders think about that."

"You're probably right." She shrugs. "Let's just get something to eat."

As we walk, I realise how serious our problem is. It's not just the walls. Soon there will be holes in the ground; we'll be able to see through the floor. We are supposed to have high tech here, and we can't even fix our ship. The floor is made out of steel, and there isn't steel in space.

I decide not to worry about it. It's not my business or my problem anyway.

We arrive at the Lunch Room.

"Hi, girls" the woman who welcomed me seven years ago says. She has changed, a lot. She doesn't smile anymore, she looks bored. "Names?"

"Emma, 238 and Chrix, 367." Emma says.

"We don't have anyone named..." she starts.

"Christine." I interrupt her, rolling my eyes. "It's Christine."

You would expect that, after seven years, she would have learned the name of a girl she sees three times a day. I know her name is Yvonne, I saw it in her badge one time.

"All right, pass." She shrugs.

I don't understand why we need to check in every time we come to the Lunch Room. It's not like a person from out of the ship is going to come in and try to steal food from us, because, well, there isn't people outside the ship.

Besides, when we take the food from the buffet, we have to say our names and pay with our cards. Every month, they give us a certain number of points. We can save our points to use them to buy something, but if you're out of points before they give you more, you have to survive like you can. Of course, people can help you with their points, but they can't help you unless they have a lot of points, because if they run out of points, they can't help you anymore and they can't even feed themselves.

Madison, my roommate, has spent all her points more than one, more than two, more than three times, and she always got away with it, because her aunt is one of the Leaders. If I, for example, ran out of points, I think I'd probably die, because I don't have friends with many points, actually, I don't think I have friends who would be willing to help me.

Do I even have friends at all? I have no idea.

We grab two trays, and put some food on them. A young boy waves his hand to get our attention.

"You have to pay for those!" he says with a high-pitched voice. "Come here."

I smile and Emma tries not to laugh.

"We were about to. Don't worry, we'll pay right now." Emma says. "Anyway, you're a little young to be working here, aren't you? Where's Grace?"

Grace is a seventeen-year-old girl who used to be in the Army, but she got injured during training and had to retire. She got a job in the Lunch Room and that way, we see her every day.

"Didn't you hear about Grace?" he asks. "She got fired. She didn't do her job right."

Our smile disappears.

"What do you mean she didn't do her job right? Grace always does her job right! She's a people person, she's always nice." I say.

"I guess being nice doesn't work when you're being robbed." The boy shrugs.

A/N: I told you this was going to be a longer chapter!

By the way, Merry Christmas! Sorry if you don't celebrate Christmas... But yeah, Merry Christmas if you do! The media for this chapter is a picture of Chrix wishing you a Merry Christmas!