~Dead Plants

"Eden come on get up! We can't afford to get there late!!" Elsa says, kicking me out of bed at the same time.

I get up lazily and head to the bathroom. When I finish my business, she is already dressed up in her Forager uniform shifting her weight from one foot to another impatiently waiting for me.

"Elsa, why are you in such a hurry? We still have like an hour before the exams start." I say, smirking at her.

"Yes, I know that, but we need to be there early so we can already be on the captain's good side." She pushes me into the room playfully, "dress up already, we can continue talking about this on the way."

"Fine mother," I say, with sarcasm lacing my voice.

"I HEARD THAT!" she shouts back at me from somewhere in the house.

I quickly put on the same kind of uniform as Elsa; which comprised of a dirty brown leather sleeveless top, matching pants that fit her slim body quite well and boots.

We live in a lovely City, if you like a messy landscape with old rusty machines scattered about the whole place. Well not entirely the whole place just our side of the city, then it is lovely indeed.

You see, our city has two residential areas, the Lower district and the Higher district. The Higher district has pretty houses, properly planned and laid out roads that we can only admire from afar because we are not allowed to just go in there when ever we want. Our own district which is the Lower one, isn't as pretty, the houses were just patched up from older buildings that existed long before the Great War.

One thing the two districts have in common despite the aesthetic differences, is our lack of food and drinkable water.

After the Great War that happened about fifty years before I was born, humanity has been struggling to rebuild itself.

The nuclear bombs destroyed most of the world's vegetation and good clear water became a constant problem.

The survivors set up little communities and cities in which people worked together for their survival, some people engaged in rebuilding old houses, plumbing, weaponry, medicine and most importantly farming.

Farming became the most important occupation in major cities because of the rapid rate at which we were loosing good soil to plant in, this also brought clashes among cities, people who got good soil had to be very strong to protect it or another city will take it by force and burn the entire settlement.

Most settlements were destroyed this way as my grandmother told me, leaving only three large cities in the entire world, the Hawks which is around Asia, Haven Point in Africa and A****n in America; which is where I and Elsa stay.

The rest of the world is dead, more like a forgotten desert with little or no presence of plant life or water.

In A****n, we are all expected to belong to a particular group from age eighteen.

Elsa and I turned eighteen a few weeks ago and we have to take the final test that will earn us spots in the Foraging group among the Farmers.

We have been attending lessons all our lives and today we will no longer be students but working adults.

We walk confidently to the Training grounds, maneuvering through the poorly planned streets of our district, passing dusty looking stone houses and other reclaimed buildings.

Elsa was usually silent every time we journeyed to the training grounds and today is no exception, only the sounds of her brown boots hitting the dusty grounds with precise rhythm can be heard as she walks with her head held high and shoulders tense.

I can tell she is angry or worried about something, given how she is looking at the few children who are playing behind the store area we were currently at, I guess her anger was directed at the city.

Who will blame her though? The children appearance says it all. Their thin shrivelled bodies move with such slow pace as one throws a pebble into a little hole the others must have made, the movement is almost painful. Another goes to inspect the throw, rubbing his flat chest that holds his ribs which are almost bulging out of his skin, as he moves with the same slow space as the others. As he advances, I steal my eyes away not wanting to feed my sight with the pain.

"The sooner we make the team, the faster the hunger ends." I think to myself.

Soon enough we reach the strong cattle gates that guards the farm area and training grounds. We move to the training grounds making our way to the metal seats circling the little square clearing, were demonstrations are made.

Elsa picks a seat that gives her a good view of Bellman's office which is on the other side of the Grounds, leaving me with no choice than to take a seat beside her.

Just as I expected, we are among the first to arrive and there is plenty of time before the examination even begins, so we have no other choice than to wait.

And we had to wait for a long, long time.

I told this girl we were too early. I reason, face palming myself.

After about 40mins, the seats were almost filled with grinning teenagers who were mostly from our district.

Most of the higher kids get jobs in other departments of A****n, because none of the big men high up want to put their children's life in danger by sending them out to do impossible missions.

To everyone's surprise, our leader's son, Samuel applied. His father is in charge of our entire compound, which means he can get any job he wants but he chose foraging.

Samuel has always been a very strange boy in class, his attention is always divided, always distracted.

I wonder if he will pass today's test. One had to be very observant, which he isn't, to be able to pass today's test. His father probably vouched for him already, whether he passed or not. I sadly conclude in my head.

"He really had to sit here." Elsa groans out loud enough for me to hear, making me realise I have been staring at the boy ever since he took a seat to our left.

Elsa has never really liked Samuel, even if he hardly came for training. The few times he came, they had exchanged words and those words were never pleasant.

"Don't worry you won't be stuck with him for much longer, the captain is here, look over there." I point towards the entrance where I had spotted the captain talking to the few older foragers that remained.

Before long the captain, who is a very tall man with quite a lean structure opposing his very huge head. Well not exactly abnormal but I have always found his head quite bigger than the rest of his body.

He walks to the center and starts addressing us with a voice that sends chills at the back of my neck.

"As we all know, the farming group depends on what we foragers gather around, your job is to bring back seeds, plants or anything that could help them keep the plants here alive. Your assignment today is to go out there and get me plants. Remember to keep an eye out for a good water spot that isn't contaminated. Those who come back with plants will graduate and become standard Foragers but those of you that come back empty handed would- well you will help the community in other ways."

He pauses to stare at each and everyone of us and continues.

"You all know your partners, you have till the end of the day to submit your plants. You may all go."

We all rise and head to the big gates which separates A****n from the world outside. Others stay behind to locate their partners, thankfully for me, Elsa is my partner. We head straight out into the woods.

When I say woods I mean continuous rows of withered trees that seem to go on forever. You can imagine how hard it's going to be finding two plants alive in this muddy and dead forest.

***

We have been walking for about an hour with our mates scattered around heading towards different directions. Elsa keeps going on and on about how intimidating the captain looked and she keeps reminding me that we were all going to fail this test, that according to her was going to be fruitless.

How did I end up with this girl? I say to myself.

"E, what if we don't find anything? Oh my God! Do you- have you seen how people are treated in the community? Oh God!" she says while rubbing her hands together, something she did whenever she was anxious.

"Yes, I have," I say, replying to her question.

"No, I don't mean normal people. I mean people without jobs or services, we would be thrown out. Oh my God! What would we do then? Where would we go? Wh--"

"Calm down Elsa, we would find something, who said we wouldn't anyway?" I turn her towards me and look at her straight in the eyes. "I promise you El, we will find it," she nods, "just promise to not freak out, okay?" She nods as reply and we continue our search.

**

"Look around you E, we have been walking around for hours and w-" Her voice trails off as she starts complaining again.

"Yes we have been walking for hours El, and we will find something just relax and concentrate, if you keep talking this much, we are going to pass it, please relax. We got this." I say trying to calm her.

Elsa and I are more than friends. We are more like sisters, we both stand at a height of 5'9 with golden hair, the only difference is our eye color. Hers are a light brown shade while mine are a very deep shade of green. Most people think we are sisters but we are both just two orphans that met one faithful day, fell in love with one another and became inseparable ever since.

My mind is brought back with a mocking laugh behind us, I turn around and find Samuel.

"Mind telling us what's so funny?" I ask while glaring at him.

"Quit giving her hopes Eden," he says, with a smirk plastered on his face.

"I am not giving out hopes, I am telling her the truth," I say to him, my anger also surfacing.

"Nice then, let's see if you both get anything out of this dead place," he says daring Elsa to retaliate but for some reasons she refuses to give in to his attacks today.

"Why is he always so weird? First he is timid and shy, then he is going around and acting like an ass. What's with him?" Elsa asks confused, as soon as he walks far enough from us.

I shrug my shoulders still staring at the direction he took. "I don't know El, I don't know. But I am glad you didn't get into another fight with him," I tell her.

"So back to the job at hand, you should really concentrate and stop giving yourself negative ideas okay?" I say to her but she doesn't reply and I notice that she is staring at something beneath some giant dead tree on the ground.

Its leave-less branches is bent in a way that provides some kind of shade on a big hole in the ground.

I squint my eyes to help clear my vision and move slowly towards the hole and that's when I see it too.

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