March 5, 2990 AD

Staring out the window of the private military jet, my community got smaller and smaller until it was gone. I sobbed and finally accepted defeat. That might have been the last time I saw the familiar shore that I call home. My family, my friends, my life had disappeared. Looking around the plane, I could see about sixteen other kids my age, sitting and staring out the window without purpose. It’s funny to think that only an hour ago I thought this was going to be an ordinary day. Instead, my life has changed forever.

When I was young, my class at school took a field trip to a museum. There were lots of ancient artifacts there, including frying pans, microwaves, and a mysterious religious item called a "toilet". But the thing that caught my eye from the start was a collection of sheets bound together called a "book". The tour guide leader told us that they were obsolete and obscure, but they told stories. Ancient civilizations wrote stories down so they wouldn't have to remember them by heart. They were also used to hold information about history, science, technology, medicine, and other things. There were books about almost any topic you could think of, then. Now, there were under 600 whole books in the entire world and they are usually only kept in museums. I don't know what it was, but that book held me in a trance that day. There was something magical about books, and I was determined to seek more and more knowledge through them throughout my life.

Earlier, I trudged through my tiny, desolate, pathetic village and looked around and see little children playing in the dust and their parents sowing the fields, praying for a harvest. The last one was fifteen years ago - the day I was born. That was the happiest day of my mother’s life, she said. Two miracles in one day, she told me. We had more food than we knew what to do with, and it kept coming for years afterward. The Western Union was winning the war, until the year that I turned eleven. That year all of the rain stopped, and our economy plummeted. Since then, we’ve been losing and practically starving, due to the fact that 50% of all of our food has to go to the military to feed the soldiers. The government does this by taking you away when you turn seventeen years old.

I didn’t understand why they took me at only fifteen, but I decided not to argue. With a gun to my head, I was forcefully pushed onto a private jet, alone, without the chance to even say goodbye to my mother or little brothers, Silas and Wade.

My mother was smart, she knew this day would come. The day I would be drafted as a soldier into the Western Union. So she named me Athena, after the Ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and battle strategy, and also because of my light grey eyes and golden hair. She was a sort of sentimental person, who thought your name had anything to do with who you were as a person.  

Now I’m on a plane full of soldiers headed for my imminent death, and I can see that my name is getting me nowhere.  

What are they thinking? Look at me! I’m under 100 pounds! I’m vulnerable and undernourished! Are they really this desperate?

I can’t be a soldier. I wouldn't even make it past boot camp.

My train of thought vanishes as I see a girl, about my age I would guess, sit down next to me. Her fiery orange hair was hastily braided down her back and her eyes were red and puffy, probably from crying, crystal blue and clouded. I could tell there were many secrets hiding behind them. We said nothing for awhile, but were silently glad for some company.  

After awhile, I decide to make some conversation. After all, it wouldn’t hurt to have a friend or two, I suppose.

“I’m Athena.”

“Faye.”
Her thick accent said she was probably from one of the outer colonies.

“Where are you from?”

“Why do you care?” she snapped, stood up, and stormed away.

That went well, I thought. I guess friends just aren’t my thing. Sighing, I stood up and looked around.

Well, I thought. Time to explore.

There were three sections to the plane; the main cockpit where the pilot flew the plane, the main seating area, and the back, where all of the beds we would be sleeping on were. I got to the end of the row of bunk beds and saw a door that had a sign that read:

NO ENTRY

PRIVATE PROPERTY OF THE WESTERN AMERICAN ARMY
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PUNISHED

Hm...

I stood on tiptoe and looked inside the round window on the door. I couldn’t see inside, either because it was too dark in the room or because it was tinted.

Expecting for the door to be locked, I tried the handle. It turned and the door swung open.
Now, at this point, you might be thinking that I would be a good little girl, close the door, and report the security mistake to one of the guards. After all, it IS private property, and it would be awful to get punished!

Well, let me tell you something. You are DEAD WRONG.

Slipping inside the dusty room, I quietly closed the enormous iron door. I gasped. This wasn’t a room full of secret high-tech weapons, or explosives, or even extra food for the captain to get fat off of while we starved off of our daily rations, or anything you would expect to find on an ordinary war ship. This was a room full of books. I couldn't believe my eyes. Not tablets. Not iPads or Kindles or Nooks. Actual paper books!

There were novels, non-fictions, history books, huge atlases, and even a couple of  cookbooks.

The rejuvinating feeling came back.

As I scanned the shelves, there was one book which caught my eye: Legendary War Heroes and how to become one: by R.H. Providence.

I took it off the shelf and dusted the cover off with the palm of my hand. I opened it to find more dust. The lighting was dim, so it was hard to read, but I could make out the copyright date to be 3650 AD, the year the war started.

Looking around for a button, I realized that I would have to turn the page manually. I laughed at myself for being such an idiot. A cumulonimbus dust cloud billowed out of the ancient artifact. I coughed and squinted, trying to make out the letters in the dim lighting.

Thump, thump, thump.

Someone was coming!

I swore under my breath. In that moment, panic was useless, so I turned and looked around the tiny room for a place to hide.

In a last minute attempt, I dove under a small table in the corner of the room just before the guard opened the door. The beam of his flashlight just barely missed my face. I cuddled up in a ball in the corner and silently prayed I wouldn’t be seen.

It seemed like an eternity before the guard closed the door and bolted the lock from the outside. I exhaled in relief and counted to 50 slowly. Turning the handle to the hefty door, I popped my head out and looked down the hallway. There were no people around, so I casually slipped out in between the bunk beds, locking the door behind me.

Wiping a bead of sweat off of my forehead, I slipped into the main aircraft cabin and sat back down where I was before. My heart was still beating fast and I was a bit uneasy.

“Hello!” I heard someone sit down next to me again and I flinched.

“Who are--oh. Hello.” I breathed.

“Are you okay? You seem a bit...jumpy.” Faye frowned.

“No no no, I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“Well, okay. Sorry I snapped at you earlier. I was just frustrated.”

“That’s alright, so was I.”

“Friends?”

“Okay.”

“So what’s that book you’re holding?”

I froze in terror as I realized I was still holding the book Legendary War Heroes and How to Become One on my lap.

“Um...a gift. From my mom. It’s been in the family for many years...and she thought...I could use it.” My face turned pink. I was an awful liar and I knew it. Faye didn’t seem to notice, though.

“Didcha smuggle it on? Ooh, you're a bad girl!” she teased

Mmmhm…

I handed her the book and she flipped the pages, mesmerized. Then she gasped and pointed to a picture of a tall man with fiery red hair like hers.

“That’s my grandfather!”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not! My mother always told me stories about him! He was a general who won many battles. Never met him, though. I didn’t know he made it into a book!”

“That’s amazing.”

We sat and flipped through the antique book for the rest of the afternoon.

That evening, an alarm blared throughout the jet. Everyone jumped. Then a booming voice said;

“Recruits!!” I quickly stood and put my hand up to my forehead in a formal salute, as my mother had taught me.

“My name is Colonel Bryson. I will be your commander and trainer for the next 10 weeks. We will reach bootcamp ETA 13 hours!” he continued. His voice sort of gravelly sounding. “Until then, make yourselves...comfortable.” I could hear a twinge of sarcasm in that last word. He hated every single one of us already, I could tell. “At ease.” He clomped back down the stairs and we all relaxed. I could hear some faint chatter scattering about the vessel.

We were all assinged a bunk at the back of the plane and were told that there would be a uniform we were to change into. They were all the same size, I discovered, and the sleeves on mine reached well past my wrists. I don’t think the government cares about how clothes fit anymore, though. Just money, and winning the war. And I suppose that’s all I’m here to do.

That night, there was no sleep for any of us. We were too nervous to even speak. I was lost in my own thoughts and fears of the war, then I remembered the book.

It looked like nobody had been there in centuries. They wouldn’t notice one book missing, right?

Just to be sure, I grabbed the book, and quietly tiptoed back to the door. It was unlocked again! This was the poorest security I had ever seen! I suspected some sort of scam but brushed the idea to the back of my head. Putting the book back on the shelf exactly where I found it, another caught my eye:

Wilderness Tactics by V.R. Richmond.

It was a tiny paperback, a bit bigger than my hand, and the pages were filled with diagrams and pictures of basic animal traps out of leaves and sticks, poisonous versus non-poisonous plants, fish nets, water purification, hostile areas...

This would probably be useful at camp in some way...

Slipping the tiny book into my uniform pocket, I scurried out of the room, locking the door behind me.

The next morning, we were all awoken by the same blaring alarm from the main deck.

When we finally landed on a runway that was on the bottom of a small mountain, everyone was relieved to get off the plane and stretch their  aching limbs. As we stepped off the jet, we were each handed a hefty backpack. Faye turned to me and groaned.

“Geez, what do they put in here, bricks?”

We trudged through a densely wooded forest path up the winding hill. Almost everyone was groaning. A few said they needed to pee. I tried to shut them out, but to no avail.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we arrived on a plateau with huge dark green tents (the same color as our uniforms) set up in a circle, with a giant firepit in the middle, and a small building just to the left of the circle. We were at the top of the mountain, because I could see everything as far as the eye could see, without any trees blocking the view. Empty clotheslines hung on the trees, and down a small hill, there was a river, whose source started right next to the campsite, running down the mountain the opposite direction, and it ended in a small lake at the bottom of the mountain that was surrounded by trees on one side and rocky terrain on the opposite. This is where I guessed we would get water and wash our clothes. This was going to be our home for the next 10 weeks.

“Attention!” Oh no, here comes Moustache again.

Everyone turned, fell into a line, and faced the brawny, stocky man. Bryson assigned everyone’s tents and told everyone the rules as he paced back and forth in front of the row of cowering children. I expected something like 70,000 pushups or drills at 4:00AM, but instead;

“Inside your pack are a tin cup, a plate, and a fork. You will obtain and cook your own food.” I heard groans all around, but I just laughed internally, since I had learned how to make a fish net and a squirrel trap yesterday from Wilderness Tactics.

“There will be no fighting, screeching or screaming unless in imminent danger, roughhousing, leaving the camp without permission at night, back-talking, being a rude, conceited smart-ass, smoking, or alcohol intake. If you find anything that might encourage these rules to be broken, report them to my office immediately. Wake up call is at 0600 every morning and 2230 every night. And the ultimate, number one rule you must always follow…stay alive.” he stopped in front of me and towered over like the Empire State Building. Well, the old one that I had read about in the history books. When America was one whole country and it was split the other way and the Northern part was called Canada.

“Any questions?!”

A pale, scrawny boy raised his hand.

“Yes?!” Bryson sighed, sounding impatient, even though he had asked for questions.

“Where’s the bathroom?” the kid squeaked.

“Piss in your cup, dummy!” another kid, almost twice his size guffawed loudly from the other side of the line.

Bryson marched over to where he was standing in line and gave him a punch across the cheek. It looked forceful enough to easily dislocate someone’s jaw.

“Next time, you’re cleaning ALL the dishes. Understood?!”

Still wincing, the kid nodded, spitting out a mouthful of saliva, blood, and teeth.  

Wandering around the campsite, I looked for the tent that had been assigned to me, marked number 5. I unzipped the flap, and crawled in. There were 3 girls, including Faye, quietly talking. The other two looked like twins, but I didn’t ask. I found an empty spot next to the opposite wall of the tent and rolled my sleeping bag out there. I turned to the other two girls. “What are your names?”

They said nothing, eyeing me suspiciously.

“It’s okay, this is my friend.” Faye explained.

They still looked suspicious.

A bit strange...but ok… I thought.

“I’m Kelsey and this is Hannah.” the taller one said, without smiling.

I rolled out my sleeping bag and started taking inventory of my backpack.

A water bottle, a tin cup, plate, and fork, a cheap-looking pocket knife (like Faye said, budget cuts...), a roll of bandages, a small, strange looking bottle (some sort of ointment, I thought), a compass, a flashlight, a few packs of emergency food, a coil of thin rope, a coil of thick rope, and a small towel. I got the small book out of my pocket, constructed a basic net trap and decided to set it up down by the lake.

Gathering a few sticks and leaves, I picked a spot where an innocent squirrel would probably come for a sip of water. I pulled it open, and arranged some twigs and leaves over the net I had constructed out of the rope in my bag. I thought it could double as a fish net. I decided to check back a couple hours later, around dinnertime.

Watching a silver fish circle around, I wonder what it would feel like to be like that, with no purpose and no worries. I almost envied that little fish.  

The rest of the afternoon was assigned to preparing our dinner, so while I was waiting to trap something, I pored over the handbook and learned everything I could about the wilderness and how to survive in it. I still had a lot of rope left, so I wove a fish net together. I followed the river down the current and found that it emptied into a small pond. The water was clear and there were many aquatic plants and small silver fish.

“Come on, fishy!”

“Why isn’t he biting?!”

I saw two girls, to my amusement, with long sticks that had strings crudely tied onto the end, dangling down into the water.

“Hey, you!” one of them said.

“Will you help us, please?!” the other pleaded.

Why not?

“Alright, what do you need help with?”

“We want to catch a fish, but they aren’t biting!” she complained.

“Here, let me see your pole.” She handed the stick to me and I laughed.

“Well, first of all, you forgot your bait. That’s the most important part.” I told them.

“Oh, where do we get bait?”

I crouched down onto the muddy soil by the water, stuck my fingers in and pulled out a wriggling, slimy worm and handed it to her. She immediately threw it back into the water.

“EW! I don’t want to touch that!”

“You’re going to have to attach a hook to the bottom of the string and hook the worm onto it. Good luck!” I scurried off back in the direction of the camp, laughing. "Wonder what potential the government saw in them?" I mumbled under my breat. They were from one of the wealthy communities, I could tell, overlooking communities and villages like mine, poor and dirty and educated about useful things, like fishing.

Suddenly, I heard a blood-curdling scream come from down the river.

Some idiot probably walked into my trap. I thought frustratedly.

Sure enough, I stumble across a kid, hanging upside down by my rope around his ankle and crying out for someone to get him down.

“Did you step on something?” I called up to him.

“You set this, didn’t you, you bitch!” He called down to me.

I laughed. “Here, I’ll help you down!”

Pulling the rope down, he plummeted to the ground and probably got another bruise.

“Sorry, trying to catch a squirrel.”

“Hey, not your fault. I’m Max.” he flashed a keen smile.

“Wait, you’re the one who was mean to that kid!”

“Wait...I-”

"Just stop, I don't even want to talk to you anymore." I stormed off in the direction of the camp and felt a twinge of guilt, that was almost at once wiped away with a metaphorical paper towel dripping with satisfaction of setting the bastard in his place.