Grace's world

Back cover: This war didn't turn out the way they expected. Grace is now living in a divided and destroyed society where hope has disappeared. The love of her life went to war but didn't come back. Did he die for his country or is he trapped in a miserable ghetto just like her? Grace has to find this out, during her adventure full of secrets and lies she will discover things that she couldn't even have imagined.

The light of our second to last candle isn't really sparkling but it's better this way, it feels like we are safe and in a pleasant place thanks to the nearly darkness of the room and the heat of the wood stove, but we aren't. My sister and I are sitting on the couch, she fell asleep on my shoulder a couple of minutes ago. I'm still awake, watching our mother knitting. Even if she's 52 she still looks stunning and beautiful I love watching her and appreciating everything in her. She's tall, skinny and got two big and green eyes that match perfectly her dark short hair. My sister and I look approximately the same, we're tall, have long and wavy brown hair, a turned-up nose and our eyes are green just like our mother, I think it's a thing in our family. My dad? There's no more "dad", in fact there's no more "dad" at all, every men went to war or mysteriously disappeared two years ago.

I feel really tired but I don't want to fall asleep because I'm afraid at night and of what I could dream of. I still do that dream in which I say goodbye to the man who ever loved me, it was only 3 months after our wedding, when the war was at its hardest time. This picture of him leaving us by going into the train that took him into hell isn't that awful, it's what comes next. After saying goodbye I see the train leaving but instead of going away it stops a few miles further and explodes in a big patch of dark clouds which comes to me, surrounds me, spins around me, I don't know where I am, I'm suffocating and I'm screaming as loud as I can. I wake up to my sister trying to calm me down and my mother bringing me some water in a little glass with my name on it "Grace" it's one of the only things we could take with us here.

We all sleep in the same little and dark room, my sister and I in the only bed of the house and my mother on the floor – we change everyday – there's only one window from which you can see the main avenue of what I call our "Caveam". They told us it was to keep us safe during the war, my foot! I'm sure there's something wrong it's been two years now that we are in this ghetto, they took us here a week after my husband left. The war started in 2036 which means that it lasted for 6 years, but I think it didn't last that long, there are less noises of explosions and no more alert of a supposed bomb attack.

At first it was hard to deal with our new everyday life because we didn't keep the same job as before, but now we're used to it. We wake up everyday – except on sundays – to the voice of someone always saying the same thing " It's 6:30 A.M ! You have to be ready in about a half an hour for the daily census and then you'll go to work" and this sentence we all know it by heart now. Our day is always the same : after the census we go in the fields, in one of the factories or we stay in town to clean the streets and the abandoned houses. We stop at noon to eat and at 1:30 P.M we go back to work until the end of the day. A huge wall made of bricks provided with 4 doors – one on each cardinal point – surrounds the whole city to keep us from fleeing. We're still not allowed not to work because the ones who tried disappeared the day after.

Today is a special day I guess because the voice doesn't say anything at 6:30 A.M but I'm awake anyway, I don't know why it's mute and nobody knows either. We took advantage of the opportunity to meet some old friends of my mother's, it's not like we haven't seen them in a while, we pass each other everyday but we're too busy to have a real conversation and we're afraid of what could happen to us. For lunch they prepared some peas with chicken breasts without any seasoning, believe it or not but it's a really great meal nowadays because everything we have comes from the fields we grow. I still miss those huge lunch we used to have on sundays with the whole family, only the thought of this makes me want to cry, I'm a grown up I know but I'm still a human and I miss my former life. The taste of grilled chicken with some potatoes and a big glass of iced-tea surfaces and seems to slide into my throat.

We were strolling down the streets when the alarm started to scream another announcement unknown for everybody "Every 25-year-old woman has to go to the South door of the city for a test". I look at my mother with a feeling of stupefaction and a little bit of horror which I can see in her eyes too. While I'm walking toward this "South door" I can feel the eyes of the other women behind me making suppositions on what this test could be. Now I'm waiting in front of this door with four other girls, I'm asking myself too many questions to stay calm and steady, suddenly the door opens and two soldiers appear to take us with them.