《Running to Willow》Chapter 7: A Lone World of Loneliness
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The week started with government officials traveling to every town in Pauper, Esuriit, Fragili, and Infirmi giving all the residents in each city a number to match another's. The person with your matching number would be your spouse and who you would have kids with. If that does not happen in three years, you are put into jail in the Dictator’s house. Automatically there were protests. The poorer regions of Quinque were already doing hard working jobs so the citizens of Melior could thrive; many thought this was outrageous. However, anyone who objected was put in jail. Faith had her worries about this and didn’t like the idea of it, but she kept convincing herself her dad was trying to get the population back in order. So, as fewer people objected because there was a consequence the plague disappeared, school resumed and the community within five years regained to its original amount from before the disease, yet the same code of conduct remained. Dictator Pollock claimed it would be too risky to not continue the rule just in case another disaster came. Faith was 17 and lonely with her drawings getting better and better, but her boredom worse and worse. Now because of her dad’s use of power, everyone ignored her. She felt sheltered in another world now that she was almost out of high school with more kids to ignore her. The world felt cold as her dad remained drunk now starting at two in the afternoon. At times she wished days would be cut shorter and nights longer to sleep her way out of her need for social interaction. Her want for comfort ate away at her and her will to stay happy was slipping from her. Her teachers started to worry about her, trying to schedule a meeting her dad would never come to talk about her depression. One day when the hours took longer than Faith wanted she yanked her bedroom door open in frustration and fought her way through what seemed to be forever hallways, trying to find somewhere where she could stress about her lonely life in peace, away from her drunk dad and what she thought were his butt kissing servants. It never occurred to her that because of her father many others were suffering far worse than Faith and that what she thought was an act of goodness to save the population was causing terror of all kinds for all kinds of people.
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