The walls are so tall around us. They’re made of pure, shiny granite; impossible to move. If anyone tries to climb it, they’d be arrested immediately. None of us really know what lies outside of these walls. For all we know, they’ve been there since the beginning of time. There are myths, of course.They may be facts; no one knows for sure; that there may be “others” that live on the outside of the walls. They are different than us. The government is scared of the unknown, I know they are. Why else would they have every inch of the wall surveyed with video cameras? They’re scared of an attack. If it was anything like “the last attack”, we definitely have something to be worried about.

The attack supposedly happened before I was born. No one I know was alive when it happened, so I don’t even know if what the government says is true. There has been a lot of corruption in the government for the past few decades. A few politicians got caught in their lies, but I mean, what politician hasn’t lied? Thats what my mom told me. They say that the “others” attacked us viciously and we weren’t able to defend ourselves, and that’s why the population of this town is so small. Nobody really knows what the “others” look like, but there are stories that have been passed down to say that they are more like animals than like humans. There are so many vacant houses on one side of town because the people who once filled them are now buried in the large graveyard in that side of the town.The vacant houses are now the residencies of the teenage runaways; The rebels, they call them. I had a few friends that lived in the houses, and they told me the craziest things about tunnels that lead to the other side of the wall, and about the others. No one believes a word any of them say because they’re on so many drugs, but I am starting to consider that they’re onto something. Some of the teens in this town walk through this graveyard when Halloween comes around each year. I went once with a few other kids. There seems to always be a cloud of fog covering the ground. And when you see the mist, it almost takes away your breath. The whole area of the cemetery is so eerie and spooky. It’s like you’re just waiting for something to pop out of nowhere and scare the living daylights out of you, or a skeleton hand to reach up, from the dirt, out of a grave to grab your ankle while you’re walking.


What if the government is just feeding us lies to make us believe something that isn’t true? My mother always says that everyone deserves a chance to express their opinions and share what they know. My mom doesn’t know what she believes and neither do I, so I figured that I should stay away from the matter. My mother has been my best friend ever since I was born. I haven’t had a lot of friends, and my mom is always there for me. When I was little, we went to the pool that everyone in this town shares, and she taught me how to swim. She told me that I needed to swim like a mermaid. And once I got the hang of it, she called me her little mermaid. She still calls me by that nickname sometimes. It gets annoying sometimes, but it reminds me of how close we really are. It still bothers me, though, that we don’t know what is real and what is not. Although, there have been many angry citizens trying to change how this town works. They have started these riots all over town. There have been riots at the Town Hall, the mayor’s house, and a lot of the most popular places in the center of town. A few of my friends (the ones who live in the vacant houses) decided to take part in a riot near the walls; so that the government could see them, and they couldn’t do anything about it. Oh, they tried to, of course. But they couldn’t keep them under control. They convinced a good portion of the town to come and riot with them. Now, almost everyone believes in the stories that they tell. The government has been arresting people like crazy for the stupidest things. Like mentioning the “others”, on the other side of the wall.



Newscasters have taken advantage of what is happening because they usually don’t get many stories here in this town. Every single channel on the television is different newscasters talking about what they think is happening. I think some of them may be over exaggerating, saying that the teens who started the movement are drugging people to get them to riot alongside them. I don’t even know what kind of drug they could use to do that. Then again, I really have no idea what type of drugs these people have access to. There have been a lot of deaths due to the riots in the town, including some of my friends who lived in the vacant houses. I’m beginning to feel very alone lately because of these stupid riots. They are tearing this town apart and my mother has become so distant because she’s having a hard time understanding why all of this is going on. I have no one to talk to. Thats why I am writing this. I really wonder if people in the world outside of ours know about us.

Things are even worse now. My friend who used to live in one of the abandoned houses talked to me about this yesterday.

“You have to get out of here,” she said.”The police busted into the house yesterday and threatened to burn it down if we don’t convince people that we were lying about the tunnels. I swear to God it’s true. Escape with me. Please!”
At the time, my mother was at work. I couldn’t just leave her alone here, where it might become dangerous. I just couldn’t abandon her like that.

“I need to stay. I’m sorry,” I said.

“You’re making a big mistake. This may be your only chance to live.”

“It would be a bigger mistake to leave my mother. Goodbye.”
After she left, I went into deep thought about what could happen, and what couldn’t. The government was getting so territorial over the wall, and they were going nuts about the “Others”. I didn’t know what to do.
On the news, about an hour after my friend left, I heard one of the broadcasters say that the police may or may not have put bugs into people’s houses to listen to their conversations.
I am now sitting on the couch listening to my neighbors yelling. Why would they be shouting like that? Oh my God. The police. They must have heard my neighbors talking about the tunnels. Gunshots. Silence. My mother walks in, frightened.

“Honey, do you know what’s going on?”
I need to tell her to hide, to run. The police. They heard me talking about escaping with my friend. I hear footsteps coming to the front door.
I can’t move.