Candidate

S: Aly and her older sister are orphans in Hunger City, a city run by a gang called the Poisonous People a deceitful group of demented of young adults. Every year the Poisonous People call out Candidates to run the city with them and Aly’s sister is chosen.

Chapter one:

I stared at the blood red sky of Hunger City and thought pitifully to myself, ‘how ironic, the air tastes like blood, smells like blood and now the sky even looks like it.’ The Poisonous people were on a rampage again.

Somebody had crossed them again and in spite many members of the group had scoured the city streets in search for their double crosser. There was going to be a revolt, everyone knew it but no one wanted to say anything.

“Aly,” My sister interrupted my thoughts.

“Yeah,” I said turning to her powerful eyes that were carefully focused on me.

“I think that we had better go,” she said then slowly glancing behind me.

We were in an alley way off a main street. There was a lot of seedy activities that went on in the alley way. The alley way was home to some of the most mischievous citizens (aside the Poisonous People) of Hunger City. Aly was trying to find a way out of the city and had come to the alley way in search of someone who could help us.

I nodded my head in response to what my sister had said. For a split second I thought I saw fear in her violet eyes as we started briskly walking out of the alley way. Her steps grew more forceful and faster with every step. I knew she wasn’t telling me something but I couldn’t understand what.

I wanted to ask her what was going on but I knew that if I said anything that I most likely wouldn’t get an answer, she was cold like that sometimes. Besides, she would probably tell me that because I was thirteen that I didn’t need to know anything anyways.

At that moment I realized what was wrong.

“Don’t tell me it’s true!” I said with more melancholy emotion than I had anticipated. My body wanted to collapse from disbelief but, in Hunger City the second you showed weakness was the second you signed your death warrant.

Liz looked at me as she turned onto the main street, “look, it doesn’t mean anything.”

I grabbed Liz’s arm, “Yes it does! You know it does!”

Liz shook me off, “Look Aly, it’s nothing you have to worry about. I’m not a renegade so the Interview means nothing okay!” Liz kept walking and didn’t look back at me.

I sighed and walked to catch up to her. “So where are we going?” Liz never answered me.

Within the hour we were in a bare part of the city where the smell of death lurked in the air. I saw a large piece of scrap metal and lifted it to see what was underneath, I was shocked to see a large rodent of some sort, I screamed in response.

Liz didn’t scream or anything and simply told me, “This used to be a nuclear power plant back when the city was . . . well not what it is today. This place is the reason why the sky is red and everywhere you go you smell death and blood. The fusion reactor tried to combine two elements that were never meant to be fused and when they fused it literally destroyed Hunger City but this area most.” I could see the tears in Liz’s eyes, “This happened almost eighty years ago and nothing has changed.