One

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I hear the trucks and for a moment nothing else matters.
The ground vibrates beneath my shoes, and I can feel my heart beating in my skull. In an instant my back is pressed against the wall underneath the bridge, shadows brushing over my features. Beaneath my fingers I can feel mould intertwined with the damp brick and I squeeze my eyes shut and hold my breath.
I become nothing.
The bridge shakes as the convy travel overhead, and I stand hidden until the sounds of the vehicles are long gone.
I alow myself to let out a sigh and open my eyes. My hand lifts to touch the scarf around my neck. I get comfort from the fabric and my eyes close in relief. It's been two hundred and seventy years of this life. Hiding from the Guardians and dreaming of what the world used to be like. I step away from the wall running a hand through my hair, tattered from years of homelessness. My eyes gaze towards the glow of a distant city.
I feel an unfathomable wave of anger and despair. I can never go there, to Sanctuary. That's the reality of my existence, I'm doomed to live all eternity staring at a home that exiled me and thousands of others. A home I won't ever be apart of. If I was worth something, sure I'd be welcome. But I'm not.
The thing about Sanctuary is that they will only open their doors to those who they think have potential to help save the human race and the planet, scientists, doctors, people of worth. The problem with me, is I have no talents that can help enough for Sanctuary to waste resources on me. I imagine I would just be an eternal drain for them to through resources down, the reason for this being I cannot die. Well, I guess I have died, just not completely.
When I was eighteen, I was declared dead.
Its been four hundred years since that night, and it's nothing but a black slate of a memory. I haven't aged physically, I feel just as strong and I remember nothing. Yet, somehow I know that somebody did this to me. I feel in it my core.
In the year 4000, humans had destroyed the earth so badly that there was nothing left. Nothing but Sanctuary.
Everyone said the founders were crazy. They said the world would be fine, that their God would protect them. But when the food ran out and resources depleted, they ran to the gates for help. Sanctuary accepted four million people, saving them from the world falling apart around them. Yet, they couldnt help everybody, leaving eighty million more to be doomed outside the walls. Including me. Sure, we fought back and tried to get in, but the walls were too high and too strong. All of us were bitter, angry that our lives weren't important enough.
Eventually, Sanctuary got tired of us banging on their front door and sent out the Guardians. A group of soldiers who lived within the walls before the world fell apart around them. They killed so many of us. Even Hailey.
With the small group of people I had left and could trust, we ran and hid away. We were smart, we ran far from the walls, stayed low, lived off the land and watched out for each other. We were family, but unlike me they couldnt live forever. I watched the people I loved the most die. Those who weren't killed got sick, old and faded away like they were never there in the first place. I've been alone since then.
With over three hundred years of being shut out and slowly picked away by Guardians, I'm sure everyone outside the walls except me are long dead. I haven't seen anybody else for seventy years, and frankly im surprised Sanctuary still has Guardians on patrol.
Everyone who I've ever loved has died, and I that alone gives me a good reason to be mad. I hate Sanctuary, and I hate that I can't die. Forced to be alone for all eternity.
They can't afford to have people like me.
I step out of the sunlight and back into the shade of the bridge.
As the moon rises over the hill I gaze at the only other light I have, those from behind the walls of a place I want to destroy.
●●●●●●
I wake up to rain, coldness clinging to me like a web. I stretch and climb to my feet, stepping out from underneath the bridge. The dirt and grass are cold on my bare feet as I walk the hundred meters to the forest. Mother nature has reclaimed a lot of the land, vines creeping up buildings, trees growing through walls. In a way it's beautiful, I know Gale would have loved to see it, but he didn't live that long.
Birds chirp in the trees above my head as I walk and I wish I was like them. Just able to fly away.
Looking at the birds distracts me and suddenly I'm lifted into the air, hanging upside down suspended in the air by a rope around my ankle. I swear and swing around, sliding the knife out of the sheathe on my waist and trying to cut the rope. The weapon slips from my hands and lands on the ground, sliding just out of my reach. I try to swing my body closer to it, fingertips just brushing the hilt as desperation flows into my core.
"Please..." I beg to nobody. I'm so close. A force jolts the rope and my swing is thrown off. I'm pulled backwards and upwards, and I stare at somebody's legs. I notice a gun hanging over their back, and the nozzle of the weapon juts out behind his hip. Only Guardians have weapons like that.
The person kneels to my height and I look into the face of a nineteen year old boy. His face is hard and cool, and he looks at me like I'm a math problem he can't quite understand. I let out a low growl, staring at him with angry eyes.
"Do you have a name?" He asks, not taking his eyes from mine.
"You're just going to slit my throat, so what does it matter?" My words come out smooth, despite my heart beating like a drum inside my ribcage.
"You're right. It doesn't." He picks up my knife and examines the blade in his palm, still crouching in front of me. "What does matter though, is how you managed to live this long."
"Not important."
"There you're wrong. That's the only thing that is." His eyes flash silver and I clench my jaw.
"Guardians killed my family."
"We've killed a lot of people to save a few."
"We weren't hurting anyone."
"How are you alive." It didn't sound like a question.
"I'm resourceful."
"Are you going to make me hurt you? With your own knife?" This time I don't say a word. Instead, I spit into his face. He doesn't flinch, and lifts the bottom of his shirt to wipe it away.
"Collin!" Yells a very angry female from behind me. "What the fuck is this?" He stands up, talking to the other person.
"I'm just getting information."
"This is not our orders. We catch them and bring them in. She is a person, not a pawn in your fucked up game."
"Whatever. Do you have the sedatives?"
"Of course. God, I don't how much longer I can work with you." I feel something cold stab into my neck and flinch,letting out a sharp cry.
I hear half hearted comfort before my vision fades into darkness.

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