Infectious

Part One; Chapter 1: Jax

What if?

What if one day we woke in the dark.
To find everything gone.
The world in complete disarray.

People screaming for loved ones.
Waiting anxiously for a reply.
Forgetting the obvious.

Sun beating their forgotten world.
Dry as the Sahara.
Water vanished into thin air.

Houses collapsing around us.
Not noticing our world crashing to the ground.
Always you will be in a fog.

What if we woke in the dark.
To find everything gone.
The world in complete disarray.

Jax

"Hey! Would you wait up?" I glance over my shoulder to see Kai running up behind me. "Jax!" Her dark brown hair flows loosely behind her as she weaves through the crowded street. Over the past fifty years the population has almost more than tripled, and now we pay the price. If you know what New York City or Tokyo looked like in the year 2018, imagine them now with triple the amount of people they would have had back then. That's what our world looks like now. Pollution levels skyrocketed of course. Making New York City and Los Angeles into a ghost town as it became unlivable without an oxygen mask. Apparently no one listened to the global warming warnings given to them.

Soon after Mother Nature began raging war, our government fell to shambles. Restrictions were forced upon the everyday living amongst the communities as they tried to remain in control. Not just ones like keeping us from driving cars for joy rides or long distances, but restrictions were placed on reproduction. Family restrictions have been labeled as the strongest implicated. Homes began to be made in a way that could hold three families. Two adults per family with the allowance of two children max. Any children that are conceived after your allotted two children must be removed. I will let you assume what removed could mean in a world that is grossly overpopulated.

After a removal the parents must then be punished. My parents were amongst those to have punishment brought down on them. Two options are presented to the guilty party. First choice, they can choose which adult returns to their family. Both are not allowed to return as fear of repeating the crime is quite prevalent. Second choice, neither parent returns to their initial children as they are replaced with two approved government guardians. My parents chose the latter of the options.

I remember as if it was just yesterday when Mavek and Nova walked through our front door. I stood there, nine years old, holding my younger brother's hand. Drake was only three at the time. We had empty eyes as they introduced themselves. Where was mom? Where was my dad? Only a few hours prior to the rather large man and frail woman entered our home, mom and dad told us goodbyes. I thought they were going to work like any other day.

My mother, Jackie, was a strong woman. She had been through so much in her twenty-eight years. When she was eighteen she met our father Kenneth walking through a rare sunny tree filled park. It had been a cliché love-at-first-sight kind of thing. By the end of their first year together they were married. Nine short months later I came along. Six more years and a bright blue eyed, dark haired boy named Drake was born. They knew the law. Two kids max per family, but accidents happen. Another nine months went by and a beautiful porcelain little girl came into the world. Annabelle. For the nine months my mother was pregnant she managed to hide it with baggy clothes, and when the time came to give birth she was lucky to have the ability to take a leave from work in the laboratories. No one seemed to notice, but not more than two weeks after the birth of sweet Annabelle I found my parents quietly crying in the nursery.