The Culling

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I’ve been chasing sleep for hours and finally accept the fact that I’m never going to catch it. Even if I could afford black-market meds and was willing to risk Cole’s life, as well as my own, no amount of anti-anxiety drugs will quell the unease poisoning my blood.

Not on the eve of the Recruitment.

My palm presses against the cold windowpane of the box-like tenement we call home, wiping away a swatch of condensation. A spark of orange stains the dark sky, silhouetting the smokestacks from the Industrial Borough, hissing puffs of black death into the stars. That same lethal smoke birthed the cancers that devoured both of my parents’ dignity before leaving two brothers with only each other.

And before this day is through, maybe not even that.

The floorboards creak. Probably another damn rat. That’s three this week. I grope for the oil lamp on the nightstand, careful not to turn the flame too high, so as not to wake up Cole, asleep on the cot beside mine.

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