The alarms blared out loud as I cowered into the back of my room. One gunshot, two gunshot, one...two...three. I breathed in and out shakily. One down, only a nine hundred and ninety-nine left. That brought the total of now 999 colour seers left worldwide.

Let me introduce myself, I am Nicholas Alexander Madden. It's the year 3070 and you're probably wondering what's happening. Well, as humans didn't take care of themselves or the Earth properly, colour drained from everyone, except the bloodlines of the coloured seers. Not many people have been gifted with the sight of colour and those who do get it, like me, are called crazy and are thrown away and locked up. At the ripe age of 5 I was plucked from my family and taken into detention camp 36. I was diagnosed as a colour seer by my parents at age three when I told my mother about all the pretty colours our house was.

They told me to never mention colours ever again. It scared the hell out of me, ever since then they had always been nervous around me. Their internal suffering ended when we were at the shops and I told my babysitter how pretty and colourful the toy on display was. The babysitter freaked and turned me over to authorities without a second thought. My parents were killed a month later when the court found out that they had knowingly kept me. I could never forgive myself as I saw my parents being shot in the head. There deep red blood splattering all over the grey cobblestone. I cried for weeks. There weren't many children in the centre at first but as I got older the more kids my age would turn up. The peak was age ten to fifteen for new colour seers.

Back to the present moment, the alarm was to signify another person had tried to escape. This was the second one this week. It scares me so much as so many colour seers have been killed off recently. I slowly slinked back to bunk. It was a rusty blue mattress on silver poles. Pings ran throughout the room signifying it was shower time. I walked into the bathroom and stared into the mirror for what seemed like the longest time. I had brown curls that split down my face and a tall lanky figure. Grabbing the mirror shard I had sharpened I slowly but steadily cut off the hair I didn't want. I looked back at my reflection, my piercing green orbs staring back at me.

"Nich," Damon called from the shower stall over to me. Damon... well, Damon had only been submitted to the camp last year. He looks older for his sixteen year old physique. He has gorgeous sun kissed skin compared to my pale skin due to not being in the sunlight often. His tousled brown locks with natural golden highlights, it is always so messy I could just run my hands through it continuously. His baby blue eyes meet mine. He smiles. Damon laughs, his blue eyes sparkling. "Get in here now so we can talk already!" A small smile graced my face as I replaced him in the shower.

Hot water beaded down my back as I stared at the turquoise tiles. I wondered what it would be like not to see colour, to only see black and white. My brain screamed thoughts at me, keeping me insanely occupied till I heard a quick rap on the door. "Hey bud you ok in there?" Jeremiah's voice floated through the floor, taking me out of my daze. Jeremiah was the second oldest CS in the camp only standing at age twenty five. The oldest was Ashley who just passed her twenty ninth birthday. When I first arrived Jeremiah was only 13 but he took me under his wing quite fast. I loved listening to his stories and he taught me all I should know about colour. He also knows everything about me. He is basically my older brother.

"Yeah, just a sec Jer!" I replied back quickly as I got dried and changed quickly. As I stepped out Jeremiah looked me up and down. Sighing he pulled me into a hug. "Just be careful ok kid, you don't want to be punished for using lots of water." I stared into his eyes. Jeremiah was wise beyond his years. He had grown up too quick for someone as kind hearted as him. "Ok thanks!" I said as I went back into the room. It wasn't worth being mean to anyone at camp since there were limited people and I was basically going to live with them my whole life.

"Nichy?" A little voice appeared in front of me. I smiled as I picked up the small fragile girl. "Hi Lilliana" I replied, peppering her face with kisses. Lilliana was the youngest person to ever be diagnosed as a CS at age two and had been locked up here earlier this year just a day after her second birthday. She was a little sister to all of us, but she especially favoured me most. "Hu-hu-hungwee" she sounded out while patting her stomach. I smiled. "That was really good speaking Lil, but food's in half an hour. Did Malia shower yet?" Malia was Lilliana's 14 year old sister. Lilliana nodded her head vigorously. I sighed. "Wanna join me and Damon then?" She squealed and clung tighter to me. Oh well, so much for a private conversation.

As we went to my bunk I spotted Julia and Malia holding hands, hidden from everyone. I've had my suspicions about the two, but it isn't my place to force them into admitting anything. As we approached the bottom bunk, Damon's bunk, the golden boy looked up at me. "Lilliana!" Damon cheered looking at the girl in my arms as she jumped off me and onto him. "Damon!" She giggled as she pecked his cheek softly. I slinked into the bunk next to Damon and put my head on his shoulder. "A penny for your thoughts?" he whispered into my ear. What were my thoughts? My mind was blank. Quiet. Then it came to me. "Why did the alarms go off earlier?" I asked curiously, turning to face my best friend.

"Well from what I heard from the guards Cecil tried to escape but as you would have heard, from the gunshots, they were shot obviously." He murmured, leaning away from the innocent ears of Lilliana. I sniffled as a tear gently rolled down my cheek. Cecil always was really quiet and they were only 13. They had only been in here for a week, and even then they had always tried to escape, but I guess it was their last strike. "Oh, I wonder what the next person is going to be like?" I whispered. Out of the 12 years I had been here I came to see that they easily replaced the colour seers in the camp. It's like we knew when to appear.

Damon sighed and put his head on the wall behind us. Just as we both started to relax the bell for dinner went so we stood up quickly and made our way to the dining hall. At the head of the table sat Ashley and Jeremiah. On Ash's side was Lilliana, Malia and Julia. On Jeremiah's side sat Damon, Cameron, Nathan and me. Cecil used to sit on Ashley's side but they're gone now. Today we had lasagne for dinner and Ashley had fish instead due to her being a pescetarian. Dinner was quiet as we had the mandatory speech given out whenever a CS tries to escape or dies.

After finishing the meal, the head of the camp, Mr Marcus Booshwater, talked about how we shouldn't try to escape and gave people what warnings they were on. Out of the 12 years I was there I had seen many people come and go. I had only tried to escape once and I still had a scar running down my torso from that one painful day. After Booshwater was done, Ashley walked up onto the stage, to say a speech about Cecil. Her curly red hair was damp and her eyes full of tears. Ash felt responsible for all the seers in the camp. She was a mother figure to all of us, even Jeremiah.

After we all shed a few tears we were dismissed to go to bed. The camp was small but secured tightly. Once changed, we threw our mattresses on the floor and huddled together, a tradition after scary days. Jeremiah and Ashley sat together and told us stories and Nathan told us about all his experiences with different colours. I snuggled into Damon as he embraced me and stroked my hair. Me sleeping in the same bed as Damon was a regular occurrence. When Damon was taken he was stolen from his bed as he slept. It scared the crap out of him and without someone to hold, he often woke up screaming or crying.

I didn't mind it cause it was nice to be held especially on these scary nights. When the lights turned off automatically at 9:30pm everyone whispered quietly to each other.

BANG! Screams ran throughout the room including mine as I saw Mr Booshwater walking in with a smirk on his face. "Someone used extra water today did they not?" Booshwater snared. I went cold and I felt Damon's arms tighten around me. Someone moved in the shadow and I could see Jeremiah going to stand up. My breath caught in my throat. Jeremiah always took as many punishments for people as he could. But I was quicker. I moved Damon's arm off me watching his terrified face as I stood up. "I'm sorry Sir, I didn't mean to," I whispered. Gasps scattered throughout the room as I saw everyone's worried eyes on me including Jer's angry ones.

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Hi guys, this is the first chapter. Don't be a silent reader. Comment, vote and share. Thanks

6/08/22