[PROLOGUE]
In the year 2064, things sucked. America's newly elected president had some problems with other countries all over the world which lead to him starting WW4. Countries used nuclear and chemical weapons because they were the only thing effective; Russia had many "Tsar Bomba" which made places impossible to live in because the Radioactivity was so high. So the only solution was to move which led to cities becoming over-populated and that led to diseases spreading at rapid rates.
The whole "Global Warming"phenomenon turned out to be true, but it was too late, the temperature had risen to high. Countries like Italy and southern parts of the United States started to turn unbearable. Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador Venezuela and the other countries in that area became deserts. The countries placed right on the equator or under it were inhabitable.
The amount of animals that existed started to deplete. Only wealthy people were able to afford meat, while the poor people were stuck eating plants and insects.
Antarctica started to thaw out which lead to ocean levels rising, parts of Europe and South America ceased to exist.
The entire world was falling to pieces and it was all humanities fault.
But 40 years earlier, scientists foresaw all of this so they started making Vaults, underground shelters. These Vaults were all over the world, most of them being in the United States, and they were labeled with numbers, 001 to 100. These underground shelters were massive! They had an artificial Sun built in, sectors with different purposes, Sector A was for the people (one of them could hold up to 15,000 people, at the time), Sector B was for the plants and the agriculture, Sector C was for the animals were they would be bred, taken care of and then killed for resources, Sector D was for the factories where machines built things for us (we didn't use robots, AI was too dangerous, we couldn't risk an uprising), Sector E was for the plumbing supply, it had water purifiers and much more.
But the downside was that not everyone could enter, only the family members of important or rich people could enter.
The year 2067 was when people started to enter the Vaults, everyone else on top was left to suffer and die.
[Chapter 1]
My name is Sterling Ford, and this is my story
I woke up and looked up at the rock ceiling, I turned over and looked at the rock walls surrounding me, everything surrounding was made out of rock and I was sick and tired of it. I mean hey, at least I'm alive down here. Luckily one of my ancestors was important, so he got a free pass down here, but that was long ago, 317 years ago to be exact, the year was 2381. I couldn't wait to get out of here, and I knew I would get out because it was the day, the day of the test.
Every year each Vault held an annual exam that would determine if you were allowed to leave, if you failed this exam you were never able to re-take it and you were never able to leave. You had to be 17 or 18 to take the exam; every 17 and 18 year old competed to get the top score, and 30 people got chosen, 15 out of the boys bracket and 15 out of the girls bracket, who ever had top score was the captain out of all 30 of us.
It was also a way to keep the population down even though there were 30,000 of us (the population grew because we started to expand underground while we were down here). The exam had three phases: Physical, Mental and Intelligence.
The Physical phase tested your strength, your agility, your combat skills and more.
The Mental phase tested how sane you were, if you knew how to react in diverse situations.
The intelligence phase tested your smarts, if you knew the human anatomy, how to survive up top, math, grammar and more.
I was going to pass.
I sat up and called my best friend, Harold Smith, he had black hair, dark brown eyes and was a bit taller than me.
We grew up going being in the same classes and we also lived close to each other. We had been studying our butts off this entire year and occasionally would ask each other questions.
"Hello? Sterling is that you?" he said with a scratchy voice as if he had just woken up.
"Hey, Harold. Yeah it's me, you ready for today? We've got to do the First Phase today!"
"Yeah Yeah, I know...why'd you call so early the exam starts in...hold up let me see what time it is...it starts in 2 hours! What is wrong with you I could've slept more..." He replied with a serious yet goofy tone.
"You're right, it's just that I can't sleep... I'm so excited, I know for a fact both of us will pass The Exam, I can feel it in my gut!"
"Mhm whatever, dude I'm gonna go back to bed. See you in later-"
He hung up.
I went and started lifting some weights hoping it would help my chances with today. I then hopped on the treadmill and started to run 3 miles, I did in 7 minutes and 26 seconds, a new personal record. I knew I was going to pass this Phase with ease.
I took a shower and put on my Vault jump suit, the number 041 was printed on the fabric over the left side on my chest, that was the Vault I was living in. I stared in the looked in the mirror, I had brown hair, brown eyes and I was pale, technically everyone down here should be pale but some people prefered having fake tans. I didn't.
I looked down at my watch it was 7:41 AM, 1 hour and 19 minutes until the First Phase. It was the only thing on my mind, I couldn't think of anything else.
Finally 15 minutes until it started I walked outside of my home, and I noticed how weird it look underground. "Thank goodness I won't see ever again, after I pass The Exam." I joked to myself.
I ran over to Harold's house and to my surprise he was already waiting for me at the entrance, he had a big grin spread across his face.
"What're you smiling about?" I said
"Oh nothing, I just can't wait to leave this cave." He said, still grinning.
"Don't get too cocky we might not pass." I said half joking, half serious.
"Oh yeah, look who's talking. Mr I'm gonna pass with so much ease." He said and his grin suddenly vanished. "Let's go"
We started walking and we didn't say a word to each on the way to the gym, maybe he was actually pissed off at me, or maybe he was concentrated on getting his head in the game, either way it felt awkward.
We got to the school and there were so many people, a couple of faces I recognized others I had no clue they even existed, but everyone was wearing the same jumpsuit. It looked like you used "Copy and Paste" like on those old computer machines.
We walked in and we all had to sit down in the chairs assigned to our names. I was near the back and Harold was right in the middle. I'm not sure how many people were there but all of the other boys went to the other massive gyms holding the First Phase.
The first test was endurance, who could run the longest.
The announcer announced that there were 457 boys in this gym attending the exam and that in total there were 3,000 young men attending the First Phase.
Everyone went and walked into the enormous track room, we got five minutes to stretch and warm up. The longer you ran, the more points you got, and the more points you got the higher chance you did on passing The Exam.
The five minutes were up so everyone was given a bracelet to put on our ankles, it could tell if we were running or not so if we stopped it would turn red and your name would be deleted off the huge TV placed on the wall. I put my bracelet on, it was cold but not heavy, I soon forgot I had it on.
Everyone started getting on the Running Track and all of the sudden the clocked started counting down from 10.
3...2...1...GO!
Everyone started running. Some kids who didn't want to leave immediately stopped running. Names started disappearing at a fast rate but it soon ended, the people who were left were serious about leaving.
In the year 2064, things sucked. America's newly elected president had some problems with other countries all over the world which lead to him starting WW4. Countries used nuclear and chemical weapons because they were the only thing effective; Russia had many "Tsar Bomba" which made places impossible to live in because the Radioactivity was so high. So the only solution was to move which led to cities becoming over-populated and that led to diseases spreading at rapid rates.
The whole "Global Warming"phenomenon turned out to be true, but it was too late, the temperature had risen to high. Countries like Italy and southern parts of the United States started to turn unbearable. Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador Venezuela and the other countries in that area became deserts. The countries placed right on the equator or under it were inhabitable.
The amount of animals that existed started to deplete. Only wealthy people were able to afford meat, while the poor people were stuck eating plants and insects.
Antarctica started to thaw out which lead to ocean levels rising, parts of Europe and South America ceased to exist.
The entire world was falling to pieces and it was all humanities fault.
But 40 years earlier, scientists foresaw all of this so they started making Vaults, underground shelters. These Vaults were all over the world, most of them being in the United States, and they were labeled with numbers, 001 to 100. These underground shelters were massive! They had an artificial Sun built in, sectors with different purposes, Sector A was for the people (one of them could hold up to 15,000 people, at the time), Sector B was for the plants and the agriculture, Sector C was for the animals were they would be bred, taken care of and then killed for resources, Sector D was for the factories where machines built things for us (we didn't use robots, AI was too dangerous, we couldn't risk an uprising), Sector E was for the plumbing supply, it had water purifiers and much more.
But the downside was that not everyone could enter, only the family members of important or rich people could enter.
The year 2067 was when people started to enter the Vaults, everyone else on top was left to suffer and die.
[Chapter 1]
My name is Sterling Ford, and this is my story
I woke up and looked up at the rock ceiling, I turned over and looked at the rock walls surrounding me, everything surrounding was made out of rock and I was sick and tired of it. I mean hey, at least I'm alive down here. Luckily one of my ancestors was important, so he got a free pass down here, but that was long ago, 317 years ago to be exact, the year was 2381. I couldn't wait to get out of here, and I knew I would get out because it was the day, the day of the test.
Every year each Vault held an annual exam that would determine if you were allowed to leave, if you failed this exam you were never able to re-take it and you were never able to leave. You had to be 17 or 18 to take the exam; every 17 and 18 year old competed to get the top score, and 30 people got chosen, 15 out of the boys bracket and 15 out of the girls bracket, who ever had top score was the captain out of all 30 of us.
It was also a way to keep the population down even though there were 30,000 of us (the population grew because we started to expand underground while we were down here). The exam had three phases: Physical, Mental and Intelligence.
The Physical phase tested your strength, your agility, your combat skills and more.
The Mental phase tested how sane you were, if you knew how to react in diverse situations.
The intelligence phase tested your smarts, if you knew the human anatomy, how to survive up top, math, grammar and more.
I was going to pass.
I sat up and called my best friend, Harold Smith, he had black hair, dark brown eyes and was a bit taller than me.
We grew up going being in the same classes and we also lived close to each other. We had been studying our butts off this entire year and occasionally would ask each other questions.
"Hello? Sterling is that you?" he said with a scratchy voice as if he had just woken up.
"Hey, Harold. Yeah it's me, you ready for today? We've got to do the First Phase today!"
"Yeah Yeah, I know...why'd you call so early the exam starts in...hold up let me see what time it is...it starts in 2 hours! What is wrong with you I could've slept more..." He replied with a serious yet goofy tone.
"You're right, it's just that I can't sleep... I'm so excited, I know for a fact both of us will pass The Exam, I can feel it in my gut!"
"Mhm whatever, dude I'm gonna go back to bed. See you in later-"
He hung up.
I went and started lifting some weights hoping it would help my chances with today. I then hopped on the treadmill and started to run 3 miles, I did in 7 minutes and 26 seconds, a new personal record. I knew I was going to pass this Phase with ease.
I took a shower and put on my Vault jump suit, the number 041 was printed on the fabric over the left side on my chest, that was the Vault I was living in. I stared in the looked in the mirror, I had brown hair, brown eyes and I was pale, technically everyone down here should be pale but some people prefered having fake tans. I didn't.
I looked down at my watch it was 7:41 AM, 1 hour and 19 minutes until the First Phase. It was the only thing on my mind, I couldn't think of anything else.
Finally 15 minutes until it started I walked outside of my home, and I noticed how weird it look underground. "Thank goodness I won't see ever again, after I pass The Exam." I joked to myself.
I ran over to Harold's house and to my surprise he was already waiting for me at the entrance, he had a big grin spread across his face.
"What're you smiling about?" I said
"Oh nothing, I just can't wait to leave this cave." He said, still grinning.
"Don't get too cocky we might not pass." I said half joking, half serious.
"Oh yeah, look who's talking. Mr I'm gonna pass with so much ease." He said and his grin suddenly vanished. "Let's go"
We started walking and we didn't say a word to each on the way to the gym, maybe he was actually pissed off at me, or maybe he was concentrated on getting his head in the game, either way it felt awkward.
We got to the school and there were so many people, a couple of faces I recognized others I had no clue they even existed, but everyone was wearing the same jumpsuit. It looked like you used "Copy and Paste" like on those old computer machines.
We walked in and we all had to sit down in the chairs assigned to our names. I was near the back and Harold was right in the middle. I'm not sure how many people were there but all of the other boys went to the other massive gyms holding the First Phase.
The first test was endurance, who could run the longest.
The announcer announced that there were 457 boys in this gym attending the exam and that in total there were 3,000 young men attending the First Phase.
Everyone went and walked into the enormous track room, we got five minutes to stretch and warm up. The longer you ran, the more points you got, and the more points you got the higher chance you did on passing The Exam.
The five minutes were up so everyone was given a bracelet to put on our ankles, it could tell if we were running or not so if we stopped it would turn red and your name would be deleted off the huge TV placed on the wall. I put my bracelet on, it was cold but not heavy, I soon forgot I had it on.
Everyone started getting on the Running Track and all of the sudden the clocked started counting down from 10.
3...2...1...GO!
Everyone started running. Some kids who didn't want to leave immediately stopped running. Names started disappearing at a fast rate but it soon ended, the people who were left were serious about leaving.