The young child woke up with a jolt, like being tazered in a pool of water. His pillow immersed with sweat. The stench of the sweat could make a man throw up, but the reek did not bother Andri, since he was used to this smell. Gasping for air, Andri tried to get the sweet taste of cool air into his lungs. Taking a big gulp of this precious air, he began to feel dizzy. The blood rose to the top of his head; making him even more dizzy, Andri lay back down as little yellow lights filled his vision like fireflies on a dark night.
He had another one of his dreams, a dream that keeps him awake at night. It starts out with Andri playing with his toys in the corner; he appears to be at least 5 in the dream. His parents just had gone upstairs after playing Legos with him for the last hour and a half. Andri stacks a red piece on a blue piece when the lights begin to flash. He begins to feel pain go through his whole body, falling back dizzy, he sees his parents walking down the stairs. They appeared to be wearing black HAZMAT suits, with sleek black dress shoes. They walk toward Andri and pick him up, mom by the feet and dad by the hands. They swing him back and forth until they release; he flies into a body bag.
Andri tried to fall back asleep, wishing he wouldn’t wake up again.
The sounds of small red birds woke Andri up from his sleep, he smiled with relief realizing he was able to go back to sleep without waking up until morning. He turned his head slowly to get a glimpse of the alarm clock; it read 8:36 am. “Damn birds always wake me up around this time, I can never sleep in,” Andri said out loud rolling his eyes with frustration. Andri slowly got out of bed, sitting on the edge of his bed, his feet hanging over the edge barely touching the floor. The room felt a little colder than it typical does this morning, but this was a usual morning to him. He looked at the small calendar next to his bedpost; it read “January 21” with a huge red circle surrounding the date. He looked down, depressed, realizing this was the one-year anniversary of his parent’s death.
“I wish this day never came,” he whispered to himself.
One year ago from this date, Andri thought to himself, trying to remember the horrible tragedy. This same exact feeling came over him many times before. First goose bumps filled his whole body as a cold chill went down his spine like he was thrown into an ice-cold lake. The depressing lead weight hit him like a cannon ball right in his head, then his body, and then his legs. Thoughts of suicide and being alone began to float to his thoughts, it was a river of depression and he was falling down a waterfall. Andri lost connection with the world fast and zoned out for what felt like hours, heck maybe even days with the track of time being lost. Nothing could excite Andri ’s mood, only his parents being with him could. He tried to shake off the memory; it was so vivid that it felt like he was there when it happened. He starts to tear up as the memory fails to dissipate from his thoughts.
Andri hops in the shower to quickly wake himself up. After the quick hot shower, Andri dries himself off with a scruffy towel that felt like a cactus on a balloon, “stinking old towel, I thought I threw you away a long time ago.” He walks to the mirror slowly, looking on the counter for his razor. “I haven’t shaved in a while, better do it today, as I may not have tomorrow.” Gripping the razor in his left hand, he reaches for the shaving cream with his right hand. “Aha, I got you now!” Andri mutters in joy under his breath. “It’s the little things in life that matter sometimes,” he thinks to himself, “Especially when you are the smallest thing in your life.”
On his way down, he passes his parents room; the feeling started to bubble inside him. He stopped and pondered either to go in or just keep walking, he decided to open the door, “Heck it’s been a year since I was in here, why not?” Andri asked himself quietly. As the door creaked open, Andri sticks his head in and looks around, and then his hands and then his whole body meandered into the room. The room looked just like it did a year ago, still as if it was spellbound only more dust has accumulated on the dust protectors. Andri walked over to the light switch, turning on the light to cast the blackness of the room out. Light filled the room, no longer could the fear of darkness bother him. The old rusty bed that he often ran to when there was a thunderstorm was covered in a white sheet like they never where there in the first place. The antique cherry wood dressers also covered in a white sheet, with only the mirror sticking out where his mom often combed her hair and put on her make up for special occasions. Andri walks over to the mirror to look at himself. His eyes where red from crying since he stepped in to the room and his cheeks where more rosy then a red rose.
“I wish the government took me too that night,” Andri said to himself. The flash back now is being forced back from his secluded and locked away memory.
It was a foggy rainy day outside and the sun was starting to hide behind the horizon. Andri was sitting down to eat dinner with his mom and dad. It was my favorite meal, pork with teriyaki sauce and white rice. The family was all happy with great big smiles on their face, it was a long day for the whole family and now it was dinner. After working on the field all day, they were all tired and hungry. Andri was about to bite into the pork after savoring the smell of it when the alarm sounded. It sounded like an old submarine siren and then the house lights started to dim a little. This alarm broadcasts to everybody in the world; it took a lot of power to make sure it reached every inch of land. Everybody knew what the sound of the alarm meant: death. It is the scariest sound you could imagine. If death could have a sound, it would be the sound of this alarm. Loud and high pitched it did not stop until the event was over. When the alarm sounds, the amount of oxygen in the air decreases. The sound came from the sky or somewhere beyond it. No one knows where it comes from, only the government knows.
The air slowly decreases, like a balloon being pierced; the feeling of hyperventilation starts as the flow of oxygen to the brain decreases. The heart starts to feel like it wants to be out of your chest, trying to disperse the blood evenly through the body, causing massive chest pain, like being burned alive. The body now decides to increase blood flow to more important parts of the body, shutting down the blood flow to the hands and feet. This results in you falling down not being able to feel or control your legs. As you lay there, you pray for it to stop, but the government does not until a certain number of people are dead. It does not matter whom, just when a certain amount die, the oxygen in the air goes back to normal. That’s how it goes Andri thought in his mind. I have survived this eleven times now, my parents have survived it twenty-nine times, their thirtieth time they passed away, they were too old and fragile to keep fighting for their last breath. Andri saw a couple of dress shoes and HAZMAT suits close in on him. He was about to die he thought.
Andri blacked out.
Andri wakes up and stumbles to try to sit down on the bottom stair, feeling angry and lightheaded, he did not understand why their lives where taken from him. It was unfair. Tears rolled down his face, one at first, then many like a rainstorm. Andri only knew that the population was so big, earths atmosphere was being disintegrated from our carbon dioxide. The earth could not handle all soon to be twenty billion people at once; Andri had a feeling it was the end of the world in the next couple of years. Andri was happy being on his small, a one-third of an acre farm growing what he needed to survive on: corn, potatoes, broccoli and even raising chickens. I take care of the house, as it is all mine; small, lonely and empty. Andri did not care about the house at all; he only cared about the things inside. Andri ’s most valuable possession was the picture of his tenth birthday. Andri ’s mom made him a chocolate cake, plain, as icing was expensive for his poor family. He had 2 candles lit, one was red and one was white; each candle represented 5 years. He loved this picture because his mom and dad both where hugging him, it was like a hug that he could mentally have whenever he looked at the picture.
Andri realized, “It has been a year since they used the alarm. Maybe they are done killing people… or worse they know that soon everyone is going to die.”
No one knew anything about the government, or Reaper is what people called it. The government agency got their nickname by the way they dressed when they came for you. Dressed in an all black HAZMAT suit, a tinted black visor and a yellow nuclear path on their right shoulder and to finish off the outfit, they wore black leather shoes. They are the global government, global law and global court. This was all started when we reached a global population of more then fifteen billion people, which was the earth’s capacity due to shortness of resources. So twenty billion people can live, some have to die, the common people had no say in this at all. They where defenseless and helpless, the reapers are the eagle and you are the baby born sparrow.
Andri gets up from the bottom stair and walks toward the front door. The outside view looked so inviting, so peaceful with a few birds eating the grass seed he threw down yesterday. Andri opens the chalky colored door, creaking every inch as it open. The hinges were old and rusty, they needed to be lubricated but that did not concern him. Andri closes the door behind him, creaking and screaming until it finally shut up. He looks to the right to see his rusty old bucket sitting where it always sits, next to the little tree he planted two years ago. On his way to the bucket, he picks up the cup that has acquired rainwater and waters the tree.
“If everyone plants a tree, then maybe so many people wont have to die due to the crappy air quality and limited space,” Andri said out loud as he walks back to the bucket. Looking around and breathing in the cold, heavy air; Andri sits down on the bucket. The water on top of the bucket quickly soaks into Andri ’s shorts and he jolts up, like a rocket blasting off into the sky for its last mission.
“Crap, I need new shorts now, maybe sweat pants would be better,” he turns around and heads back to the house. He opens the door and heads immediately upstairs to change into his black sweatpants. Running up the stairs to fast, Andri stumbles on the middle stair, almost falling back but regains his balance by grabbing onto the railing.
Finding the sweatpants, Andri quickly puts them on feeling much better and more comfy.
“Even though I slept “great” last night, I am super tired, Ill take a quick nap,” and before even finishing his thought, he jumps under the covers feeling comfy and a wave of sleepiness passes over him. He did not care about the world or what happened next. He was tired; no thoughts could be processed or be put together. It was his only escape out of this world: this or death. His eyes become heavy like sandbags, every minute the bags got heavier and heavier, before they shut completely, he was in total peace and content now.
The alarm sounded.