Red Eyes

Chapter One - Rosalie

First the eyes, then the figure. That's normally how I do things. Not that I normally see other humans, when I do it's always from afar and I never get to see them properly, never get take in their features. I haven't seen another human close up for about 4 years, I've forgotten what people look like, what I look like. It gets hard for me sometimes, to live where I live, with only 2 pairs of clothes, a blanket and some cooking tools to survive in a big tall tree. The reason I'm living like this is because I have red eyes. Most of whats left of humanity has either blue, green or brown eyes, only %1 of the world has red eyes and they are considered very very dangerous. There is only about 50 million people left in the world after the hydrogen nuclear bomb got dropped just off the coast of Ireland which killed almost everyone in the world. The countries that got the least wrecked were Australia, New Zealand and some of the islands like Fiji, which still got pretty destroyed. It moved the countries closer together and now you can travel on a 1 hour boat to get from one to the other. It happened well before I was alive, about 200 years ago now and no one is still alive that was alive when it happened.

The Brown eyed people are the leaders and they live in Fiji, the Blue eyed people live in New Zealand and the Green eyed people live in Australia. I and whoever else is still alive and has red eyes lives in the shadows of either of those countries. I have lived by myself since I was 7, I don't remember much about my parents because it was 10 years ago but if two people have a baby and they have red eyes the child has to be killed on sight. My mum gave birth to me by herself so she raised me for as long as she could before it became way to dangerous for me to even be in my locked room. She told me to run, run for as long as I could until I couldn't run anymore and never come back otherwise I wouldn't survive. She gave me a bag with this very blanket and cooking tools and left me to live by myself. Obviously I've had to get more clothes as I got older and bigger, I have basically visited some abandoned houses that have anything that I could wear and I took it. I normally move from place to place every few years before anyone finds me, I've been in this tree for 2 years now with I think year number 3 coming up. The only way I know its a new year is because everyone left in the world goes on some sort of walk singing a song about happiness and they stop as soon as it hits the next year.

I get so lonely sometimes, by myself every hour of every day for 10 years. When I was younger I used to spend all day just crying because I didn't know what to do to survive but after a while I learnt that if I ever wanted to see my mum or dad again I would have to live. I found a sketch pad and a pencil in a house about 1 year ago and have kind of self taught myself how to draw. I tend to draw what I have found in the day, 2 days ago I finished drawing a chicken that I saw walking past my tree. I only have a red pencil so I don't really get to draw the colors but I still enjoy it.

I jump down from my tree and walk - always with my knife, just in case - to the pond near the tree to wash up and get some breakfast. The air is so fresh in the mornings, it makes me feel like I am breathing my first breath. I undress and step in the rather cold pond with my clothes in hand to wash as well. Sometimes I feel like if I lie here for long enough in the water, that all my worries will disappear and I will be happy forever. I've tried once, about 4 years ago I lied there for a whole day to only get disturbed by a brown solider group on there missions to find every last red. I had to go underwater and hold my breath the whole time they were searching around the pond. They took my clothes that were left on the land so I had to go find new clothes whilst I was naked. That was the most recent time I saw someone else and I was underwater so I didn't get to look at their beauty. I finished cleaning myself and my clothes, I grab my knife to get some berries because I don't see any fish. I put on my other pair of clothes that are dry and cut a stalk that have a group of raspberries on the end of it. I start walking back when 2 loud bang type noises go off. I immediately grab my knife and sprint to the tree to hid, then again, another bang and this time a scream comes after it. I get to the tree and start climbing it as fast as I can and I try to get as high as possible. I don't know what I would do if someone else found me and I don't know what I would do if I found someone else with red eyes. I got to the top of the tree, I grab my blanket and hide under it for a long time.

After a while I had heard nothing so I took the blanket off my head just a little bit to see if anyone was still there and I saw the brown soldiers carrying a middle aged woman on a stretcher with blood coming out of her stomach. I guess she was a red otherwise they wouldn't have killed her, what I didn't know was that she was living near me. I wonder if she saw me any of the days I was in my tree, or in the pond or even just walking along the grass. I wish I got to talk to her or even just get a good look at her beauty.