.: Glade [Preview] :.

       Four years, three months, three weeks, one day, eight hours, sixteen minutes, and fifty three seconds into the Witch Hunt.

       My name is Glade. I was born six thousand two hundred and ninety seven days ago, meaning that I am approximately seventeen. I am living in the era where mental energies, such as telekinesis and telepathy, are used as power. Now-a-days, people who inherited the ability to see into the future, or move an object, or read someone’s mind are dragged off to be drained of their energy. Once, we were at a population of one third of the entire population of earth (en entirety of almost three billion people). Now we are just a few digits above two hundred. I say ‘we’, because I am an Adapter—the highest form of psychic. I am able to change my abilities to any of the other seven types. Out of all of us left, I am one of four Adapters remaining and I am going insane. To keep my sanity for as long as possible, I have begun writing letters. Starting today—September eighteenth, year 2867—I now have a remainder of two hundred forty six days before I too become just another psychic used for powering the rest of the remaining human population.

       I fold the paper in my hands and seal it into my satchel, shoving my last pen into the pocket of my coat. I peek outside from my haven within a very old, very broken building that once had been white, but is now an ugly yellow-gray. The dust storm that had made it a necessary decision to revert into an enclosed area has now passed, leaving only small, knee-high whirlwinds. I step out from the minimal safety of the decrepit building, pulling up my bulky scarf to cover my mouth from the raw smell of the air, which smells rotten, even as air cannot rot.
       I am glad for the hefty coat I wear. Almost three hundred and a half years ago, the moon had pulled in closer to the earth, leaving it colder than it had been before World War End. I shiver to myself and remember what we had learned in grade school of the last recorded war in history, before the SafeWall was built to protect everyone from the disaster said war had caused. Not only had the battles left most of the landscape uninhabitable, but the air had still not recovered from the Nuclear warfare, leaving remaining chemicals to slither about in the heavy fog that canopied what is now known as The Waste.
       The Waste, I think, looking around me at the expanse of it. ‘The Waste’ is a fitting name for it in the sense that it is made of sand, dust, and debris, and littered with broken remnants of cities. In truth, The Waste is nothing but a shattered past and a dying future. A fitting place to survive, too, at least for people like me, is my considering thought. I feel the numb urge of hate growing at the base of my stomach, and I push it away. They’re desperate, I remind myself, knowing that this excuse has been repeated for every psychic life wasted on powering cars, TVs, and flashlights. I won’t be like them. I’m the one desperate here; desperate to believe that I’ll survive, where almost two billion others had failed, even while I know there is a more than likely chance I won’t. I already know that I have a chance of ending up in a tube, with wires sticking out of me every which way, my psychic energy being drained from me right before my life would be drained away as well. I’ve dreamed of my future, taking on the ability of a Seer while unconscious. It’s as clear as the empty space before me, vivid in my mind even though I am wide away. The cage is much too small. I am curled into myself, and the bars press firmly against my legs and back and the sides of my arms. I cannot move. A hand reaches into the cage, holding a syringe filled with a high potency tranquilizer. The needle slides into my skin, and the thumb of the hand pushes down, sending every drop into my system. I am too tightly packed in to make much of a protest. Soon the chemical turns through my body, and I feel my eyelids drooping slowly down. My heartbeat quickens; I’m scared. I lose feeling in my legs and slowly, my mind numbs and I am no longer— I stop thinking about it. If I were to go on from there, I would panic. Panicking is no longer an opinion.
I have to get moving; staying in one spot means risking an unwelcome encounter with the Lynchers. I shudder. They would be the worst thing to happen across my path right now.
       So I start to run. Running is task-less to me; I ran even before I was hunted. I ran for fun, because I could and it freed me of the problems around me or concerning me--I even ran when there weren’t any problems. Before it was survival, it was merely enjoyable. It’s sad to think that if I didn’t run now, I would be as good as dead anyway.
       So now I run because I do not want to die just yet. To keep myself sane, I remember the life I had before this; the life inside the Safe Wall, the life where The Dictrice were the good guys, and the life where I wore dresses. Dresses? I laugh to myself. I remember the last day I wore a dress. I run and I remember. I was living in Reverend’s hand, where the Sanctuary—the place where The Dictrice ruled from—stood tall in the middle of the square in broad daylight, the white stones of the building sending sparkles into the clean air. I had been wearing a green dress with white frills sticking out from the hems and ruffles spiraling down the front. I had also been running, earlier in the day when the sun was almost to the highest point in the sky. I was caught looking up at the sky when a hand touched mine. I had grown accustomed to my abilities by then, and I had sense the mind of the person strolling closer to me. All the same, I had sharply looked at the face drawn up next to me. It was a boy with colorless eyes and black hair with blonde stripes--or was it blonde hair with black stripes? Regardless of personal space, his hand engulfed mine, his palms broad for a boy only two or so years older than I was at the time. Slowly, he raised his other hand to his lips, making a commanding shush motion as he tightened his hold on hers. Harder and harder he pressed, until his nails had made crescent marks on my knuckles, all the while holding his finger over his lips. I didn’t scream, just as his eyes directed me not to. Within the next few seconds, he released my hand and smiled a weird smile at me, blowing a kiss at me before he disappearing from wherever he had come. I never got his name or even the most remote idea of who he was. I don’t know why that had happened. I never got to worry about it for more than a day. Eighteen hours, fifty two minutes, and twenty nine seconds later, anyone who was Psychic was being hauled from their homes and families. My father ran me somewhere underground, where other psychics were fleeing to get out of the SafeWall, using ancient “subways” to evacuate. I held my father’s hand for fifteen minutes and nineteen seconds before a gate separated us, me outside with those who could get away and him on the other, where Lynchers began shocking people to their feet. I followed people I didn’t know and my green dress was torn to shreds around my twelve year and nine month old thighs.  I forgot who wasn’t a stranger. Everyone blurred together, and then I was alone.
       When I decide to leave this memory, I find that I am deep in the middle of the Waste. I pull down my goggles to keep my eyes safe, and I make sure to secure my scarf tighter. The openness of the area is concerning-- I could easily be found and picked off like a mouse to a scavenger. I quicken my pace, moving faster to the horizon, where I can see the outline of a bog.
       It is then that I hear them. It’s the sound of an all-terrain massive tank-like vehicle, gobbling up the ground like it was starving. I know this vehicle. It’s a Lyncher Excursion, meant for the long journey into the waste to pluck psychics out from the barren land. Knowing I wouldn’t hope to outrun it, and yet clinging to the hope that I can, I bolt. It is this type of moment where I loathe the weight of my baggage and clothes. They slowly reign me back, even as my feet dash over the sand-dust.
       My heart slows down, my body slows down; everything slows down. In the seconds it took to reach me, the Excursion ripped my pieces of hope into nothing.
       I am caught.