[Day 273] Eugenia updates

Since it’s been a while since I updated you lovely people on the progress of Eugenia, I thought I’d insert one now. School’s over, so I’ve been trying to catch up on my creative processes. Thus, there have been some changes to the first draft of this epic story.Change #1: “I knew what that meant. The words had been reverberating around my head for years. “When you turn thirteen, you will take a test. If you pass it, you will live happily ever after. If you don’t…” but he never finished that sentence. It always just hung there, an unnamed, silent threat. But as I grew, I filled in the blank for myself.

“You’re gonna fail!” was the schoolyard sneer. “And when you do, they’ll send you away!”

“Where to?” I sniffed.

“To a place where they’ll teach you to clean poop out of toilets!” Childish maniacal laughter often ensued next.

I gulped.”

This used to be where schoolkids would claim she’d be killed, but the change is that now society only thinks the kids are sent away to be manual laborers.

Change #2: “My history classes had been particularly vague when describing what happened to the children under the 160 IQ mark. Although it was common knowledge that they were sent to a camp to learn how to do manual labor and reemerged into society years later with practical yet menial education under their wings, adolescents often referred to it as the “Death March.”

Of course, it probably wasn’t much of a “march”, but it sounded ominous and pushed younger students to study hard. Now that I was in the small room, however, I renamed it. “The Death Wait.””

In case you didn’t catch that, I’ve changed it so that society just thinks these kids are trained to clean toilets and stuff. My friend Morgan and I decided that society wouldn’t take too kindly to a system of government that kills kids who aren’t smart enough. So this gives us a new thing for miss Meg Carroway to strive for: not only does she want to live in society once again and prove that you don’t have to be IQ smart to be useful, but she also has to reveal the atrocities of the system. Woo, social commentary!

Change #3: “No one talked to us. There were only about twenty other people in the facility altogether, including the wardens and the cooks. I guessed that not many children tried to get away; this was just a sad fact of life.

Before we were allowed to enjoy some much needed rest, a grave looking man and woman visited our rooms. Zia and I were poked, prodded, measured, and put to several physical tests. I could tell from the increasingly morose looks on our examiners faces that we weren’t performing very well. My best friend and I were not the strongest of our age group. After about an hour of near-silence, they two adults convened briefly and then marked the back of our hands with purple “X”s. I didn’t know what this meant, but there was an inkling in the back of my mind that whispered conspiratorially about work camp not being the only option for “disposal” of the less intelligent.

Zia and I didn’t talk before climbing into bed.”

This is where Zia and Meg are put through a secondary test, to see if they’re strong enough to withstand the work camp. Society is unaware that this test exists, taking for granted that the children are safe.

Change #4: “Somehow, I knew this would be our last meal. The looks on the faces of the workers were grave as they shoveled more and more food onto more and more trays. I clenched my hands together to stay calm. As I observed my fellow thirteen-year-olds, I noticed that my hunch the night before was correct. There were two colors of “X”s, purple like my own, and red. The children with red looked much stronger than the others. So what would happen to the purple kids?

Finally, after an extended three hour stay in the dining hall, the wardens lined the purple children up by the date we were “taken” and marched us deeper into the building. Two priests stood on either side of us, reading our last rites. I glanced back at the red children being marched in the other direction, outside and presumably to the work camp. Disgusted that our government had been lying to us for years, I shook visibly as we walked. Some of the children began crying, understanding what was going on. Others continued on stone-faced, and others still just stared at the cement floor as they shuffled forward. I was in a group of my own, taking in my surroundings warily. It didn’t seem like we were going too far below floor level, and there were many windows dotting the walls on either side of us.”

The only difference here is the Xs. Purple marks the kids who are deemed too weak to work, and red marks the kids who the government wasn’t lying about. Already, Meg knows that this isn’t right, but it’s clear that the rest of her age-mates accept their fate.

Change #5: “Gruber grabbed my arm and all but dragged my short legs alongside of his long ones. Everyone was yelling, but eventually my heavy breathing drowned out everything else. We ducked around corners, finally making our way onto a crowded street. People stared at us like we were crazy, and I didn’t blame them. We hadn’t been allowed to bathe since our newest bout of captivity.

Shouting from behind us lit the adrenaline in our veins again, and we resumed running. After a while, I stopped apologizing to the people I ran into, saving my breath for what I knew would be a long run. Only one more shot was fired, and Gruber stumbled a bit, but we didn’t stop.”

I just expanded this bit, since the first draft of this particular escape was about two sentences. I know it’s not that much longer, but there wasn’t that much to say.

I hope to start updating you all with more sections of this story soon. Maybe you’ll even have another bit this Thursday. I’ll be leaving for France then, but we’ll be in airports for most of the day. Who knows.

By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed… I’M DONE WITH HIGH SCHOOL!