Her life was perfect, actually everyone's lives were perfect. Everyone had the same nice houses with the same food and the same uniforms. Poverty did not exist. People were assigned jobs, which allowed for free food and housing. Baylen was a part of the medicine committee, where she organized medicine rations that everyone was required to take every day when announced. She never questioned why people had to or what was in them, she just knew they were vital for living healthily. Baylen never even second-guessed skipping out on taking her medicine, and then the unthinkable happened.
While students stayed in school all year long, their classes depended on years. Every year, they move up a level to the same curriculum as everyone else in the same year. Of course, these students spent a lot of time together and formed bonds over the years. For Baylen, she had her best friend Juliana, who lived in the house directly next to her house. They would bike to school together everyday and volunteered to do services together. Juliana worked with the food packaging committee, where they prepared the people's meals.
One morning, when Baylen and Juliana were biking to school, Juliana quietly explained to Baylen that when the nightly announcement told her and her family to take their nightly medicine, the medicine tube malfunctioned and their pill containers got stuck. She then continued on to say how her family decided that one night would not hurt them, so they just continued off to bed. Juliana told Baylen that during the night the weirdest thing happened, but right then they had arrived at school, so she would finish explaining tomorrow morning. When tomorrow morning came, Baylen had found herself waiting for Juliana to come out of her house so they could ride to school together. After waiting more than five minutes, she did not want to be late because she would have to stay after school as a punishment, so she decided to knock on the front door. Juliana's front door opened to a random lady she has never seen before. The lady began immediately introducing herself and explained that the only information she has on the past owners is that they were relocated for " disciplinary infractions". As weirded out as can be, Baylen realized the time and rushed off to school. Later that day, she contemplated what it could have been that her friend must have seen that was so bad that she had to move away.
The time came where the nightly medicine announcement had been made. Baylen made the swift decision to grab her hand full of pill rations and slip them under her tongue then quickly head to the bathroom to flush them down the toilet. She then had finished her nightly routine and headed to bed. Her eyes opened suddenly and she realized she had woken up before it was time to get ready for school, which she had never done before. The room was flooded with darkness, with a faint light coming from the window furthest from her bed. She got up to see what the light was coming from. She looked out the window and saw some sort of worker removing a tree and then replacing it with a new one. It did not make any sense. " Were the trees fake? What if the bushes were fake as well? What else could be fake?" she had thought to herself. Nothing was adding up when all of a sudden the worker abruptly turned to look at her and appeared to say something into a communication device. Baylen rushed back into her bed, when suddenly she heard the sound of her front door opening and multiple people rushing up the staircase. She squeezed her eyes shut and tightly grabbed onto her blanket when everything went black.
