Lauren Hammond - Famished

Even though the room was asked to remain silent, after that last comment, people began shouting. My father took command of the room. “Quiet down! The truth is, we need more gatherers, to go above ground and search for supplies! The council has decided to randomly select two teens, a boy and a girl. All of the kids between ages fourteen and eighteen will be entered into the lottery and at the end of the week two will be selected at random!”

I stole a glance at my mother. The look on her face, pure outrage. “Damn it Doug!” she yelled. “How could you? These are our children!”

Then one by one, the protests started flying.

“They are too young!”

“You men, are the ones that are supposed to be doing the gathering!”

“Have you lost your minds?”

“What about the cannibals? You expect us to just send our children to their death’s!”

Me, I was so baffled that I didn’t know how to react. I glanced over at Colin who mouthed, “I told you.” Then I peaked at my mother, whose eyes looked like they were about to shoot lasers into my father’s flesh.

The room started spinning. I winced, getting nauseous. Gatherers. The lottery. The news hit me all at once. I started falling forward, my eyes rolling back into my skull. But before I could hit the ground my mother caught me by the arm. “Honey, are you okay?”

I shook off the dizzy feeling. “Yeah.”

Mr. Martin, who lingered behind my father and Mr. Baker, strolled forward confidently, his tall, lanky limbs looming over the crowd in front of him. “This decision is final!”

“Come on!” my mother shouted. She grabbed me and Frankie by our hands, pulling us toward the doorway.

As we passed my father, my mother gave him a look of pure hatred. She was right to be angry. If she would have kept something like this from him, steam would have blown out of his ears. It was probably best for my father’s sake if he stayed in the council room for a another couple of hours. Because if he came back to talk to my mother now, I’m pretty sure she would have killed him.

Later on, I sat in the mess hall with Grace and the usual crowd. Colin sat across from us and he was joined by Molly Edwards. Molly was one of those girls that had to wear a bra at the age of ten. Because of that, she got a lot of attention from the guys.

I watched on in horror as she slid her hand along Colin’s thigh. “Ugh,” I whispered into Grace’s ear. “I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.”

Grace laughed. “What’s wrong?”

“Molly makes me sick.”

Grace looked over at Colin and Molly, observing their public display of affection. “Some girls have no self-respect.”

I wondered if Grace would think of me in that same way if she knew what went on between Colin and myself. Normally, I told her everything but, this was one secret I couldn’t tell anyone. Not because I cared about what everyone thought. It was just because I didn’t feel like having my business aired out around the colony.

My eyes wandered over to the opposite side of the mess hall. Geez, my mother was still pissed off at my father. They weren’t even sitting at the same table.

When my father finally did come home from the council meeting, It was like there was an explosion in our room. Their shouting and carrying on lasted for hours. In the past, they had always been so loving toward each other. But in my mother’s eyes, my father had betrayed her. And unfortunately for my dad, my mother was one of those people that held grudges.

There was an instance a year back where my mother and Mrs. Martin couldn’t agree on some topic of conversation. I couldn’t remember what the topic was exactly, but I remembered my mother’s words afterwards. “Annie Martin, the nerve of that woman!”

My mother didn’t speak to Mrs. Martin for three whole months. And what my father had done was way worse than a simple difference of opinions.

The truth was, I felt the same way my mother did. Normally, I felt life was too short and precious for a person to spend most of it angry. But what my father had done shook me to the core. I felt like a slave being tossed into an arena full of lions. I knew he was aware of what the new earth was like. He and the other council members had provided us with plenty of terrifying stories. So why would he agree to this?

Grace spoke up, pulling me from my thoughts, “Who do you think they’ll pick first?”

The bowls of food started coming around. I shrugged, pretending not to care. “They said we’ll be selected at random.”

“Aren’t you scared?”

“No,” I lied. I hoped that she couldn’t tell I was lying. I wasn’t just scared, I was petrified. The uncertainty of what the earth was like now made me shudder just thinking about it. And not to mention, the cannibals.

I had seen a ton of horror flicks of the walking dead that needed to survive by consuming human flesh. But these people weren’t dead. They were very much alive, so ravaged and ransacked by hunger that they resorted to eating their own kind. I winced at the thought of human teeth biting into my thigh.

“Georgie!” Colin shouted.

I snapped out of my trance, looking up to see Colin holding out a bowl of food. I snatched the bowl from his hand. “Thanks,” I said sneering.

“Whoa. Easy killer. You don’t have to bite my head off.”

Ignoring his comment, I spooned out my serving of food and put it on my plate. I passed the bowl over to Grace. “What I really want to know is how long they are going to leave us out there for?”

Grace picked up the spoon. “Who knows? Maybe a few hours.” She took her serving and passed the bowl down. “I just hope they don’t pick my name.”

“It seems inevitable that one way or another everyone is going to be picked at some point.”

“Maybe I should rephrase that then.” Grace shoveled a helping of food into her mouth. “I hope they don’t pick me first.”

“Me too, Grace. Me too.”

Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Friday’s we had school. On earth I had to go for five days, here it was only three. When the colony was formed it was decided that since the adults needed a lot of help around the colony to keep things running smoothly, that’d the school week would be lessened by two days. I was thankful for that. Even though I was a good student, I hated school.

The kids that went to school were divided into two age groups. Ages fourteen through eighteen were held in one room and ages six through twelve were held in another. There wasn’t enough room to split up each child according to grade, so splitting them according to age seemed like a much better idea.

Walking in to the tiny, condensed classroom, I stole a glance around the room. Eight wooden tables with detached benches faced a small dry erase board in the front of the room. The first four tables were already filled up so I meandered to the one in the back corner and took a seat.

Seconds later, after I had pulled out my supplies, Colin pulled out the chair next to me. “Is this seat taken?”

Before I could open my mouth to protest, he plopped in the chair. Grace walked in and eyed me. I shrugged, mouthing silently,

“Sorry.” She waved at me nonchalantly and sat down at the table in front of me.

My eyes shot daggers at Colin. “Shouldn’t you be sitting with your new fun bag?”

He looked up, puzzled. “Who, Molly?”

“It was Molly who was feeling up your thigh yesterday, wasn’t it?”

Colin let out a sharp laugh. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy.”

I opened my mouth, baffled. “Jealous, hardly.” I threw my shoulders back, staring straight ahead at the dry erase board. “Why should I care who you spend your time with?”