Chapter 10 (post one)

Pre-note: This is chapter ten (or nine in my books). I'm trying to keep the society a dystopia without making it seem crazy. I was trying to convey some of this in this chapter. Let me know if I succeed.

Chapter ten, section one:

Dinner was at six, if you felt like eating something.

As Amy, Chantel and Cara headed for the cafeteria at ten to, I headed back to my dorm room to change out of my uniform, not feeling like eating anything. Jake, not knowing I would never attempt sports, had ordered me dark gray sweatpants with the school initials printed on the left hip, and they turned out to be really soft and perfect for lounging around my room. Not that I did too much of that, since soon after I was dressed, my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey, New Wings,” came Jake’s voice through the speaker, “How was your first day?”

“Ok.”

“Make lots of friends?”

“Yeah, a few.”

“That’s good.” There was a pause here. “Did you want to meet up tonight?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Pick you up in ten in front of the school?”

“Ok, see you then,” I said.

“Bye.”

I hung up and gathered my things together. I didn’t bother changing out of my sweats, as it was only Jake, but I did stop and fix my hair.

When Jake pulled up in his sleek black car, I jumped in the passenger seat and we were off again. It felt like weeks had passed since that first time he’d driven me through the city, although it had only been days.

“Where are we going?” I asked finally, after we’d turned onto a highway and were zipping along at fast speed.

“My favourite place,” he said.

It took me a second, and then I guessed, “The beach?”

“Correct.”

We fell into a comfortable silence, the kind where no words are more meaningful than anything you could say. I smiled as we pulled up to the sandy dunes, the ocean just in view beyond.

“It takes my breath away every time I see it,” Jake admitted as he turned the car off.

“Me, too.”

We followed the path down to the same empty sand and sea. Jake carried a blanket, which he set down far from the water.

“We’re not tempting another underwear dive from you by getting right up near the water,” he joked as we sat down.

I smiled. We watched the waves slap at the shore as the sun settled low in the sky, a seagull flying lazily past it all.

“It’s so beautiful,” I said slowly, “Why are we the only ones here?”

“The city mostly works like clockwork,” Jake explained, “People work during the day, rest at night. They only go out on weekends, and even then it’s rare that they would do more than errands.”

“Wouldn’t they want to spend their weekends at the beach?”

“They are creatures of habit and repetition. They do what they do every weekend, and they probably always will.”

“What makes us different, then?”

“You are new here, and my job allows me to do what I want. What I want is to sit on this beach and explain this world to you.”

“Sounds good to me,” I smiled.

We chatted about school and jobs, but after a while I wasn’t really listening, because the sun started to set. It sank lower and lower in the sky, until it touched the water’s horizon. Then it started to disappear, sinking into the abyss. The sky danced pinks and reds in goodbye.

“New Wings? Did you hear me?”

“Oh,” I said, pulling my eyes away for a moment to meet Jake’s, “Sorry, I was watching the sun set.”

“It’s ok,” he said, looking at it himself. “It’s really spectacular. I like to come about this time every night.”

“Yeah...” I sighed, and then I turned back to him, “What was it that you were saying?”

“Just that we should do this more often.”

“I just got to this world,” I said, smiling.

“Well, we’ll have to do it from now on.”