Elevated

So guys, I just realized I haven’t posted in like a month! I got caught in my YouTube channel, my book, school, work, and writing my second book. I do have a short story to share though, something fresh. If you’d like a copy of my book, RED FIST, there is a link to my Amazon (should be on the side of this webpage somewhere). Highly recommend, if you like thriller, suspense, and action. Would love the support, too. I’m going to try to post once a week again since I have room to breathe a bit now! Enjoy the story, Elevated.

So, we get up, and we crash into the wake of the day, the pulling strings of the horizon yanking us into existence, into our daily, dull routine of living for the Man. We fill our stomach with cheap, processed food, you know, something quick so we can get to work and do our jobs. Wages too little, appreciation non-existent. Seems like everyone’s a zombie out there.

What’s it take for someone like myself to come up, be up, and smile. I only smile when I’m home. There’s nothing to smile about out in the streets of our Bottom City. Nothing but poverty, sickness, death, and despair. My siblings and I all still stay with our parents because no one can afford to move out. We all work. We have to. Rent’s too high. Some weeks we starve because food, depending on the quarter, is not plentiful. Can you believe that? The cheap shit ain’t abundant! My momma is forty-five years old, my pops is fifty-eight, and both are sticks, their faces are barren wastelands, devoid of happiness. I make them laugh sometimes at dinner when we have it, but even those dry chuckles are forced. It really hurts, to be so useless, so much of nothing that you can’t even make your parents smile. It pisses me off.

I always promise them that someday soon, I’m going to make sure they are living comfy in some big house. I’ll get them servants and Holoscreens like the people in the sky, the people who are the Man. They are kings and queens, princes and princesses, and they own us. We are the Dregs in this world, the ones who might as well be dirt. We work for them. We starve for them. We do everything for them, and we don’t even know them. It’s bullshit, and me thinking these thoughts are dangerous, but my momma got lucky and got educated by one of the sky people who felt guilty. My momma kept that knowledge, and she taught us things. Things that the sky people know and refuse to share with us. She told us a long time ago about the sky cities, clean water, and natural food. She said up there, people don’t die from having pneumonia, that’s like a terrible cold she told us. Up there they watch people fight and play Flyball for sport. They live in big estates, with lush gardens, they zoom around in the sky on the rail highways with their gravity-defying vehicles. Momma said her mentor is dead now. Momma said her mentor was being foolish, but for her foolishness, she is grateful. Momma said me, and my sister and brother can make it to the sky if we’re smart and strong.

So even after work, even after our clothes were sodden with sweat and our bones ached, momma drilled us for four hours each night. She taught us history, science, language, and maths. She taught us about human psychology, said we would need to know when somebody is being shady. She taught us all she learned from her mentor for years and years, now we’re all ready. My momma said she could teach us to be smart, but being strong was something we would have to learn on our own.

Pops is crying tonight. I can’t make him smile. Momma has always been the sturdy one. He’s shedding his shit out because he doesn’t want us to take the test. I’m twenty, my sister, Nadia, and brother, Raden, are both twenty-one. They’re fraternal twins, and I’m the baby.

There’s only one way us Dregs can get to the sky.

And that’s being smart. Or strong; the sky people will take anybody that’s capable of fighting or playing Flyball. Any Dreg between the age of sixteen and twenty-five can take the test that will gain them access to the sky. Once a year, every year. The Sky people need to know how smart and strong we are so that they can place us where they want us.

Us Dregs have always called the ones that make it Elevated, but me and my siblings know the scrutiny they face. We’ve prepared for it.

Momma always said after we’re smart, we’re going to have to be strong, because the sky people are cruel.

The sky people don’t care about Dregs. They care about money and power.

And the sky people, they discriminate against the Dregs that do make it up. They hate us.

But I don’t care about any of that because I’m going to crush them. I’m going to become an Elevated, and I’m going to make them see me, make them fear me.

I’m going to make sure my family and friends never know hunger or sickness again.

I’ll make every sky city plummet to the ground if that’s what I have to do.