1 - the neutral zone
WILLIAM
I never asked my parents why there were no children in our country. I didn't do it because I didn't have the courage, but because in winter we hardly ever spoke. We lived more like books, hot chocolate and a fireplace. I never went to school, my mother taught me and my brother Dylan to read, write and do the main mathematical operations. They taught us everything we wanted to learn, we cultivated passions. My parents were almost always absent, and when I was almost 12 and Dylan was 13, we spent our days in the garage building toy cars out of wood, as our father had taught us.
I remember the day when everything went down like it was yesterday: Mum had finished working earlier than usual and told us to go to our room and close the roller shutters taking care not to make noise. I didn't understand why, because with the blizzard, you wouldn't hear anything at all, so I didn't move an inch. But Dylan immediately did as we were told and two seconds later I found myself alone in the garage with a piece of wood in my hand. A few hours later, Dad arrived too. He was always calm, quiet and cheerful despite the tiredness, but that day as soon as he set foot in the house he started to put food, blankets and clothes in some bags with my mother, staring insistently at the door. They told us to take some bags from the wardrobe and to take the heaviest clothes we had. After twenty minutes, when we were supposed to be at dinner, we were out in the middle of the storm covered with balaclavas.
Walking over the snow was harder than I imagined, so although we had only run about a hundred metres, I was already exhausted. Despite the anxiety I looked around me, letting the snow fall on my cheeks giving me shivers and I looked up to the sky, hoping to see the stars, but it was covered by a thick blanket of clouds. We heard a gunshot behind us and immediately afterwards one on our right. Dad told us to keep running and not to stop for any reason.
My knees were stiffened by the cold and I started not to feel my fingertips anymore when in front of me, I saw that the snow was getting thinner and thinner until it completely stopped snowing.
Now I could clearly see a kind of borderline, separating the snow from a carpet of leaves. We heard a shot coming from our right, even closer than before and Dad took a bunch of keys from the sack. He didn't have time to get the right key and we heard laughter behind us, then someone started talking:
I had already heard that name during a discussion with my parents when I was a child. Mum wanted to take us away, take us to another Season, a Middle Season, she said. She said that they were poorly controlled and that with the government busy we would be able to escape without being too conspicuous. Dad was furious and said that we had to stay in Winter, where there were no controls at all at that time. He said that if we were discovered we would end up like Jesse and all the efforts they had made to keep us hidden would be in vain.
The man continued:
They took us back into the storm and Mum ran to hug me and Dylan, as tears began to flow down her cheeks.
A grin formed on his face and he turned to the two boys: I remember Mum screaming and squeezing us hard, Dad hugging us and suddenly someone put a wet handkerchief on my nose.
I heard Nuru behind us reloading two guns and I started to lose consciousness. Immediately I began to see blurred, I heard my mother's voice shouting: The last thing I remember are the screams of my parents silenced by a gunshot and a red stain spreading in their chests. Immediately afterwards I fainted.
When I woke up I was no longer in my house. I was wearing very light trousers, which surprised me, as I didn't think I had a pair in my wardrobe. I looked around and I almost missed them again. In front of me, there were two guys staring at me, and when they saw that I had opened my eyes, they started talking to each other. I looked for my brother's familiar look but didn't see him. I was about to ask where I was, when I heard a door open and a shrill voice say: After about ten seconds, I heard quick steps in the corridor that stopped right where the person who had spoken was standing.
I sat down calmly to avoid having dizziness due to my previous fainting spell. My head turned a bit dizzy, but after closing my eyes for a moment, I was able to sit down. I noticed that the people who had arrived in the room were two girls, one with brown hair and one blonde. When she saw me, the brunette smiled and approached my bed. She was wearing braces to her teeth and had her hair gathered in a very disheveled ponytail, with tufts falling on her forehead. She was wearing a green short-sleeved shirt and white shorts. she said to me always smiling, holding out one hand and alluding to the blonde with the other. I shook her hand and said looking into her green eyes: At that thought fear invaded me again and I stood up, but my head started turning again and I almost fell on the ground, if it hadn't been for a boy who seemed a few years older than me who took me by the wrist and lifted me without too much difficulty. Then he grabbed me by the shoulders and put me back on the bed. Sophie came closer to me and said to me, dishevelling my hair: A noise was heard in the corridor, like other footsteps approaching and Emma whispered: Twenty seconds passed and the door opened again, showing a boy in his thirties with red hair and freckles, wearing glasses and when he saw me, he noticed: said Dylan and immediately I felt calm: at least I still had someone I trusted.
I looked instinctively at Dylan, who, as if he had read my mind, said: I nodded.
I heard all the other boys walking towards their beds and one of them turned off the light.
It was almost an hour before I could fall asleep again, I was too afraid to dream everything, to find myself in my house again in front of my parents' lifeless bodies, I was afraid to have nightmares, to wake up and discover that I was dead.
It was among these thoughts that I fell asleep for the first time without feeling cold.
The next day I woke up with the sunlight filtering through the shutters. My father had told me that in winter, the last time they had seen the sun, it had been fifteen years earlier, after which it had always snowed, drizzled or the sky had always been overcast. I felt my eyes filling with tears thinking of him, but I threw back my tears and said I would calmly discuss it with the officers and have them explain everything to me. I got up and found the boy with glasses awake reading a book by the light of a lamp. When he saw me standing, he approached my bed and whispered, pointing to a wardrobe in the corner of the room: The room was huge: the floor was made of water green marble tiles, while the wall was made of white and blue mosaic bricks. There were five sinks, each of which had a glass of the colour of the floor marked with a name with a toothbrush, toothpaste and a box of dental floss inside. Next to each sink were stools with a stack of towels of all sizes. Still amazed, I noticed that there were two more doors, one glass door and one light wood door. I opened the glass one and saw that it led to the showers and dressing rooms, which were five, then I opened the wooden one that led to the toilets, which were also five. I went back to the washbasin room and noticed that there was a big clock on the wall that marked half past seven. Since it was early I changed in that room, sure that no one would enter. When I got dressed, I went to the sinks, underneath which there was a cupboard. I opened mine and saw that it contained a brush, a metal razor blade, shaving foam, shampoo, bath foam and other items for personal hygiene. I combed my hair and went through the locker and found a bottle of perfume. I sprayed some and went back to my room just as my brother was getting up complaining about the light. Chase whispered to me: The room was very spacious, with lots of tables throughout. There weren't many people there at that time and among those few faces I recognized a familiar one, so I walked towards her.
Sophie was sitting at a table on the side and eating breakfast while reading a book.
I realised that the night before I hadn't noticed a lot of things: she had freckles, they weren't as marked as my blond roommate's, but they were so bright and her hair was reddish. I was probably still dizzy from fainting, but I hadn't noticed.
I'm sure I'm bleached and I couldn't feel my legs. I was reminded of the last images I remembered of my house, the wet handkerchief on my face and it seemed to me that the shot was even stronger in my mind. I finally continued in a hoarse voice.
She left without saying anything else and I finished eating breakfast among my thoughts.
After I finished I went back to my room, when a boy in uniform stopped me in front of the door and in a deep voice asked me: I made my bed and lay on it and started reading without stopping until 9:30, when I told my brother to get ready to go to the administration room. A quarter of an hour later we were out of the room wearing a light shirt and jeans shorts. It took us more than ten minutes to find our way and finally at ten o'clock we appeared in front of a small glass door.
We knocked and after about five seconds a woman with black almond-shaped eyes opened the door. She was wearing an office suit and her hair was also black, gathered in a tidy bun on the back of her neck. She signalled us to follow her and after walking down a small corridor, we entered a room furnished only by an office desk and three swivel chairs. The man sitting inside smiled at us and said: He did to continue but Dylan said: The man became dark in the face. he stopped and lowered himself and then opened a drawer and took something, then continued:< these were the main rules, I recommend you to read this>. He handed us some stapled sheets of paper and then smiled and said to us leaning on the back of his swivel chair and spreading his arms as if to indicate everything around him: I told her when I was behind her. She raised her head and turned towards me. When she saw me she smiled and said: ; < with pleasure> I answered her by placing the tray on the table and sitting on the bench next to her.