Sandy Season

The Red concrete feeling of dust wrapped around my feet, grazing the back of my ankles, I knew what season was approaching; it was the Sandy Season formally known as winter, before time stopped that is. It had been 9 years according to the last standing brick wall in Calico, California. Standing semi-strong engraved in the wall was tally markings, which indicated the days that had gone by created by my best friend; well an old friend, Taylor Shepherd aka Red.

It is the year 2079 time was told by “walking turns” this was when one to two being’s (people) would walk three miles (the circumference of the old mall establishment) which would be one hour. Once the two would return another two would repeat the three-mile walk and this would be on rotation twenty-four times to make up twenty-four hours. Some beings would go two to three times on the “walking turns” as there was not enough beings on rotation. This is how we would tell time but one thing is for sure, it had been a long time since light became darkness!

I was born a nameless entity in London, England from what I remember as giving birth was more for population reasons rather than what I would read in the old book from the year 2020 of families and happiness. During the evacuation due to Divoc67 entities where being born for curable reasons as there was not much being’s in the world left. With 82 countries still standing only a maximum of 1,000 beings per country remained. Beings are not humans but the living heartbeats that remain in the world. We all had ways of identifying who was who and what level of health beings maintained. A plastic heart-shaped locket would be our Identification tag, Green, Purple, Red and yellow. Green would be for clean-blooded beings, no signs of infections, Purple-no severity of infection, red- infection incurable, could be contagious depending on what their minority report would say. Once opening the locket an interface would pop up, the only working technology aside from our trackers, this would have the beings report for all to see. Then there was me, I was yellow a pure entity that had the rare blood to cure the beings that where infected or had the potential to be infected so the greens and purples would keep close visual on all yellows. I stayed away from beings and mainly kept to myself, as there where only known to be twenty beings per country with a yellow-hearted locket. The reds would be known to attack during their desperate plead for life when SS (sandy season) would be approaching.

Beings became the new name for society once humans became dependant on vaccinations to the point where the trial vaccines began the development of cotard’s syndrome; this would mainly in the beings with red lockets (RL’s). No one knew what to call each other and with not enough beings in the world we just went by our colours with occasional numbers if required but the death rate would be so high it would not be worth it.

Yellow lockets was not a being you came across and being a yellow also known as a “Yell,” meant I was always protected. When opening my locket, by saying “threat” I would release a single lazar blinding anyone who would try to abduct me for his or her own personal benefits. The more I would say it (threat) the worse off the outcome would be (threat 1 would be lazar, threat 2 would be fire blaze, threat 3 would be death by locket explosion).

Every sandy season beings would become likely to contract the virus (Divoc67) we the yells would have the unfortunate job of “clean up duty. Due to global warming and the scientist’s trying to solve it, the earth became still in rotation. The various industrial activity did not help the situation and now we only would receive daytime; everyday would be like the Sahara desert with no night.

It was easy to spot any beings; their lockets would be a dead giveaway, as the sun would beam down on each individual giving off the reflective colour and “threat!” we would have no choice during sandy season but to dispose of the reds indefinitely.

It had been 290 days since I had to “dispose” of my best friend red. I was the only Yell left in Calico, there was not much being’s to begin with. Rather than beings trying to keep me alive, there would be times where I would feel unwanted the reds would try to also physically attack with weapons as their lockets where not harmful. If the yellows did not act accordingly we would be hunted as we were all monitored via our implants when created.

I was not happy to be a yellow but I was not sad, this was the life I was born into and I accepted it. All the books I had found helped me to learn how things used to be which gave me hope that one day I would see that life. Deep down I known life wasn’t going to get better as the beings population would go down significantly every season and although new beings where being created they would be used for testing out of desperation.

It was just a matter of time before my yellow-hearted locket turned to green, purple then red.