Remember the Past

Chapter 1

I don't mean to complain, but life in at Eagle Bay Preparatory school is hard, or at least for me anyway. Without friends things get tough. Although I can't blame anyone for those things. I decided not to be on social networks and to keep to myself. Not that I didn't want friends I just decided not to be outgoing. I'm not a timid person. I just thought that there are better ways to spend my time than to gossip in a click.

I sit and draw a picture, though I don't know what of. It's not an assignment in fact they band art of any kind. "They" being whoever oversees the Frosjax district school systems. I can't help it. I love drawing it lets my mind wander. It allows it to escape past the walls of Confine 17.

My drawing has make believe things like tulips and grassy hills. It has rain and stormy nights, yet with the promise of better, sunny days ahead. I am so engrossed into my drawing with my head bent down so that I'm absorbed that it takes two tries to get my attention. I only heard the second time my name was called on the specker. "Nova Rae!"

I jump as I fall out of my fantasy world and back into reality. "Nova Rae, this is the second debit you are receiving today." The voice spoke in a flat tone. "Three debits in one week means a night on the detention level."

I swallowed hard. Getting in trouble wasn't my intent. It never is yet without fail trouble seems to always find me. I sit up straight in my chair, set my pencil down, and slip my drawing under my notebook.

The android at the front of the class has begun to teach again, but I'm still not paying attention. I'm to busy studying the video cameras that are located in each corner of the room. They are all fixed on me.

The last thing I want is to spend another night in the detention level. I have had many close calls to be sent there, but I only once had to suffer a night on that floor. On floor eleven, the detention level, is where they keep the "insane" kids. They appear like the rest of us, but something is off about them. All that we know is that they earned their place on that floor and rumor has it that they don't have souls. Not that I believe that of course, but all I could hear when I was locked in a detention cell all night were their screams. I can never forget that bloodcurdling sound. I'm pretty content staying on the eighth floor, right here.

Moat kids get debits for asking question. At least I do. You think I would learn my lesson, but I'm simply to curious for my own good. I've only been at Confine 17 for two months, but some girls on this floor know me from previous confines. They bully me and my curiosity got me the nickname "dead cat" from the saying "curiosity killed the cat." It's fine, though. I can deal with them and ny deal with them I mean either ignore or avoid them.

The bell soon rings and I make my way to lunch. I wait in the long usual line to be handed a plate with a well balanced lunch on it. I sit in my assigned sit and quietly eat. Why does everyone here have brown hair and brown eyes. I think to myself. Whoops, there I go again making trouble and asking questions.

I hadn't even noticed that I was sketching in my notebook until a girl named Brindle said something. "What are you drawing, Nova?" She was sitting across the table from. She leaned forward to get a better look and I instantly start to flip to a different page in my notebook, but she already saw it. "More accurately, who are you drawing?"

Who? I thought. Why was I drawing a person. Who did I draw? "I guess... I drew Cora." Aww, indeed I did draw my nemesis. Every year when they move all the kids to the next confine, you have a chance to spend that year with different people depending on who is assigned to your floor, but Cora and I have been stuck with each other since Confine 11. Yes, going on six years. Don't blame me for not getting along. I don't want to point fingers, but I was not the one who began this rivalry.

Cora was a popular girl and I was not. She is quite pretty, but to be honest it can be difficult telling people apart when we all have brown hair and eyes and european heritage. I don't exactly know what "European" means, but that's just what we were told. There are rumors about people looking different, but I don't know if I believe that.

It takes a little while to get off of the subject of my drawings with Brindle, but I finally end it by saying, "Brin, you have to stop asking questions. You could get in trouble for it and I'm already in trouble for drawing. Look around. You'll be able to trace every cameras' gaze back to us."

Brin, a generally happy soul, looses her smile and doesn't say another word to me during lunch. I feel kinda bad.

Thankfully the bell rings soon after and I walk to class. Calculus. I might have an "A", but I don't enjoy it. I sit next to a blacked out window at the far wall. I don't even see the point of the windows when they're blacked out on the inside so you can't see out. It's supposedly so that the students don't get distracted by looking out it, but I have my own theory. I think that it's because there's something that they don't want us to see out there. We never go outside. The only time that we leave the confine is to travel to the next one. The busses are always pulled right up to the schools under the the extended roof jutting out from the front door.

I wonder what it will be like after I graduate. Our district has 18 confines. We're lucky because some districts have 21 and I've heard that the kids there are really smart and they're the ones that get assigned to the hard jobs.