Culling

Part I • Chapter I

I live in district six because there's totally nothing special about me or my family except for the fact that we have enough magic needed for basic survival.

If the Cataclysm happened over a hundred years ago, why do I need to use the word survival?

Because, despite the official end of the outbreak, the virus is still at large. The attack changed the entire nature of our environment, and only those who are strong enough, and magically inclined, survive past infancy. Women especially have been hit hard by the virus, and are more prone to being stillborn or early childhood death.

That's why women are so outnumbered, and generally are pampered and taken care of in today's world. 

Even in district six, where the men work in physically demanding fields to provide for the rest of the districts, a woman's only responsibility is to take care of her husbands and have children.

Except for me, because I'm different.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a different life. To be someone different.

I'm nobody special, my mother has reminded me of that often enough. She has been sick a long time, as I keep reminding myself when she is in a mood. I feel bad for her, most of the time. All she does every day is sleep in bed, take her medication and, when she remembers that I exist, takes out her frustration on me.

But that's also because I'm a burden.

She has warned me that the world is a terrible, cruel place. People, men especially, aren't to be trusted and that it would be in my best interest to remain hidden.

My mother also told me that I was lucky to have made it to adolescence, because even for a resident of district six my magical ability is almost nonexist.

Because of my lack of, I depend entirely on my mother and brother. Without them I wouldn't be able to survive in this world.
She and my brother are literally all that I have, and even now I feel bad about being a burden on them.

It's lonely, but at least I have my books.

Books aren't commonplace here in district six. After all, it is not a priority of the district government to educate the citizens. We had the basics at least. Well, some of us do. My brother goes to school.

On the other hand, most girls are home schooled until a certain age. My mother wasn't thrilled with the idea of me learning, but my father, who was the smartest man in the world, in my opinion, taught me in secret anyway.

He never had a large library, and it was uncommon that he even had the meager collection that he owned. However, he collected what he could from his earnings while supporting the rest of the family. It was difficult. My mother only had one surviving husband for as long as I can remember, so the responsibility of supporting a wife and two children alone fell on him.

After all, women generally had two or more husbands these days. This is done mostly in order to repopulate, but also because of the imbalance in population between the men and women. Therefore, no man usually had to take care of a household with children alone.

However, my father had done a decent job of it, that is until he died in a mining accident three years ago. Afterwards my mother, brother and I became dependent on the state and their monthly allowance of funds in order to survive. Even so, it was never enough. However, at least we had a roof over our heads.

I shifted impatiently.

As always when in this spot with nothing to do, I thought of my father and my life, and the life that I always dreamed of having.