Sunset Rising (2 page)

Date
: May 15, 2307

Red.

I live
d in a dark world of rock and artificial light, surrounded by dark-haired people. My red hair shone like a beacon in the Pit. And I hated it.

I picked up a lock of hair and rubbed it between my thumb and finger in a
futile attempt to erase the color. Of course it didn’t work. It never did. So I ran a piece of coal along the strands just like my mother taught me. It didn’t completely hide the red, but it helped me blend in down there.

Even though my mother knew
the red drew attention, she loved my hair so much she’d named me for it: Sunset O’Donnell. I’m not sure why she went with “Sunset” because she never saw one for real. If the sun was still rising and setting, then it was doing it outside the Dome. I guess she must have seen a picture of a sunset in a book or maybe in one of the movies they showed in the common room. But whenever anyone asked my name, I always said it was Sunny.

Some
times I missed my mother so much I could hardly breathe. It had been two months since she was Culled, and I still felt as if nothing in my life would ever be right again. I knew my emotions were irrational because the Cull was something we’d lived with all our lives. My ancestors signed a treaty almost three hundred years ago that condemned us to it. Not that I blamed them. It was either agree to strict population control or take their chances in a world toxic with radiation. I guess they thought that having a short life was better than not having one at all.

W
hen they signed the treaty, they never could have envisioned how much it would change over the centuries. Under the original terms, a person living in the Pit wasn’t obligated to join the Cull until the age of fifty. But as our population grew, the bourgeoisie, or “bourge,” as we called them, lowered our death sentence to thirty-five. The Pit didn’t just readily accept the change, but the bourge had all the power, and we had none.

The
bourge reminded us daily that we were uninvited guests inside the Dome, and in order for us to remain welcome, we had to pull our weight. Ever since we first arrived in the Pit, we mined their coal, processed their sewage, cleaned the Dome, and did anything else they tasked us with. In exchange, they gave us credits, which we used to pay for our housing and basic needs. Without enough credits, we ended up homeless. And homeless people disappeared after the lights went out. The credit system was just another way the bourge ensured that every person in the Pit remained useful. Freeloaders were not tolerated.

The thought of losing my job urged me to move faster this morning.
I finished running the coal through my hair and reached up to put it away. As I did, there was a dull twinge of pain in my left side. I lifted my t-shirt and examined the bruise. Although it was still a bit tender, it was healing nicely. I blamed my own stupidity for the injury. My supervisor had warned me plenty of times about being slow at my job, but I was just so sad about losing my mom. Thankfully, my supervisor knew that, so instead of firing me, she ordered a guard to give me some incentive to move faster. The cracked ribs didn’t hurt nearly as much as the humiliation I felt at being beaten in front of my coworkers. My job performance was now greatly improved.

For my f
ather’s sake, I was grateful I hadn’t been fired. He had almost completely stopped eating, and his already skeletal frame grew thinner every day. I encouraged him to stay strong, but my attempts were halfhearted. Painting a bright future for him was difficult when all he had to look forward to was joining the Cull next spring.

Yesterday
, he lost his job because he was too weak to get out of bed. That made me the only one earning credits. I thought watching my mother leave us the morning of her Cull was the hardest thing I would ever endure. But watching my father die of grief was every bit as painful, only slower and more drawn out.

I was
supposed to marry Reyes Crowe in a month from now, but I told him last night that I couldn’t abandon my father. The law prevented a married couple from taking in their parents. It was just one more way the bourge identified those who had outlived their usefulness. I had assumed Reyes would be sympathetic to my dilemma, so his anger surprised me. It wasn’t as if I was calling off our union. I was only postponing it so I could support my father until the next Cull. Spring was only ten months away, which didn’t seem that long at all.

Peeking
into the bedroom at my father, I saw he was still asleep. Since I didn’t have time to take him to the common room for breakfast anyway, I decided it was best to leave him alone. I would just have to make sure he made it to supper tonight.

Leaving
our apartment, I joined the throng of people heading toward the stairs. Some people descended almost two miles down into the mines, and others, like me, climbed a mile up to the Dome. I worked in the kitchen on the main floor with my best friend, Summer Nazeem. Kitchen duty was a coveted job, and we were lucky to get such good positions. And if I didn’t get moving, I was going to be late. After my recent less-than-stellar performance, I didn’t need to add tardiness to the list.

I walked to where Summer and I always met to go to work together
but was surprised not to find her there. I took a step backward, preparing to wait for her, and accidently tromped on someone’s foot.

“
Get off!”
the woman yelled, and pushed me into the stone wall.

“Sorry,” I mumbled
and peered into the crowd.

Someone said,
“Sunny, what are you doing?”

I turned in the direction of the voice and saw Bron.

“
You’re going to be late,” she said.

B
ron was one of the guards in our sector. All the guards in the Pit wore white uniforms so they stood out in the darkness. Their stark presence was a constant reminder that our every move was being watched. Some guards were meaner than others. Bron was one of the good ones. She and my mother had been pretty good friends. Well, as good friends as two people could be when one was a bourge
from the Dome and the other an urchin from the Pit
.

“Have you seen Summer?” I asked.

Bron shook h
er head. She shifted her rifle onto her other shoulder and placed a comforting hand on my back. “Most likely on her way to work, which is exactly what you should be doing.”

I saw
the concern on her face. She was trying to speak with my mother’s voice, and it wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate it, but so much had changed over the past two months and Summer had been my only source of strength. I didn’t want to go to work without her. I didn’t want anything else in my life to change.

I moved further
along, away from Bron, and flattened myself against the cold stone wall to let people pass. When I went to school, my history teacher taught me that life in the Pit hadn’t always been so crowded. Our ancestors only numbered around two hundred when they took up residence in the Pit, and almost three hundred years later our population was almost five thousand. In the past, we accommodated our growing numbers by constantly mining farther down into the earth. Now, at almost three miles deep, the mine could stand no more, or so the bourge engineers told us. We were on the verge of collapse. A few of the mines had already closed, resulting in miners getting fired. And the ones who continued to work in the mines were scared.

As people brushed past
me in the crowded hall, I caught snippets of excited chatter about the upcoming royal wedding. In two days the president’s daughter, Leisel Holt, would marry Jack Kenner. The wedding was going to be televised, and rumour had it that a big table of food would be set up by each television in the common rooms. And from what I overheard, people were already making plans to stake out a good spot.

Maybe Summer and I would
try to get a good spot too. If there really was going to be a feast, the food would go fast. I just hated the thought of having to sit through the wedding. All presidential events began with President Holt giving a speech, reminding us of all we had to be thankful for. He’d remind everyone in the Pit how generous the bourge were when they gave us shelter from the bombs, maybe even flash some pictures of our ancestors signing the treaty, and then give a quick rundown of how we have all thrived living in the safety of the Dome. But like most people living in the Pit, I couldn’t care less about the wedding or about giving thanks. I was only interested in the food.

“Sunny!
” Summer called.

I turned to look for her.
“Summer! I’m by the stairs!”

“I know.” Suddenly
, she was right beside me. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw you standing here. Why didn’t you go ahead without me?”

“We always go to work together.
Where were you? We’ll be lucky if we’re not late.”

“Oh, we’re going
to be late. We’ll be lucky if we don’t get
caught
.”

“We’
ll get caught when we scan in.” I thought hard for a solution but only came up with a weak one. “Unless we take our alternate route.” We hadn’t used the old mine shaft in months, because the last time we did we got in trouble for showing up to work dirty. But it only cost us half a day’s credits, and we didn’t even get a beating.

Summer thought about it for a second
and then nodded. She knew as well as I did that losing a few credits was better than losing our jobs. We ducked around the stairs and headed for the end of the hallway, which meant we were moving against traffic instead of with it. That slowed us down, but once we reached the shaft, it would be a lot faster. I mumbled apologies as I squeezed past people and endured their rude looks and even ruder comments.

“Have you come looking for me
to break my heart some more?” Reyes whispered in my ear. From behind me, his arms slid around my waist, and I turned within the circle of his embrace to face him. Even though I was taller than most girls, I still needed to tilt my head back to meet his gaze.

“You t
wo really do make a nice couple,” Summer said.

“She’s right.
” Reyes said, ignoring my attempts to loosen his grip. He wound his finger around a lock of hair that had escaped my ponytail. “So when are you going to marry me, Sunset?”

“Can we talk about this some
other time?” I hated it when he used my full name, and he knew it. He was saying it deliberately to provoke an argument.

“We talked about it last night.
I was hoping you’d have changed your mind this morning. I told you I don’t want to wait ten more months.”

“And I was hoping you would understand my situation, but you don’t.
We need to talk about this later, Reyes. Summer and I are late.” I tried again to squirm out of his embrace.

“Don’t put me off
, Sunny. I barely got any sleep last night.”

“I’m really late
, Reyes.” Panic rose in my voice.

I tried to pry his arms off me, but he
spun me around and lifted me up off the floor. As our eyes became level, he kissed me roughly on the lips.

“Tonight we talk again.
Promise me.”

“I promise.” A
lthough I knew I wouldn’t change my mind.

He kissed me again and then passed me along to his friend
, Raine, who was standing next to him. Raine passed me to Mica, and Mica passed me to the next boy. They all knew we were headed to the old mineshaft. Lots of people took the shaft as a shortcut when they were desperate to get to work on time. I looked back and saw Summer being passed along behind me. In no time, we were deposited in front of the door to the shaft.

“Thank you!
” I called to Reyes, but I wasn’t sure he heard me. He was probably already descending the stairs to go work in the mines.

I opened the door
, and we slipped inside. The shaft was almost pitch black, but my eyes quickly adjusted. We had come that way so many times before that our hands and feet had memories of their own anyway. The climb up to the main level was one mile, and without thousands of people crowding our way, taking the shaft was faster than the stairs.

“So you
haven’t told me why you’re late,” I said.

“I stopped to talk
to Adam.” Summer was breathing hard with the exertion of the climb, and it took her a minute to continue. “I think he might ask me to marry him.”

“Are you kidding me?” I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or yell at her.
“We’re late because you were flirting? I mean, do you even like him? You just met him a week ago.”

“What does that
have to do with anything? It’s fine for you, Sunny. You already have Reyes, but when my parents are Culled next year, I’ll have no one. I need to find a partner, and most boys our age are already married.”

She was right.
Partnerships in the Pit were every bit as important as having a job. A single person wasn’t eligible to be assigned an apartment because that was considered a waste of space. The need for housing was the driving force behind most marriages in the Pit. Although, in my case, it was the reason I couldn’t leave my father.