What world does your character exist in? Real or imagined? Scientific? Fantastical? Write a scene where your character is shown in their world.

The parks are one of only a handful of places that are still decent. The beaches are overrun with trash and the decaying sea animal. The Amazon Rainforest has been whittled down to only one twelfth of its original size. Cities dominate just about every piece of land and open sea that the Planners can find.

There’s an old movie from the early twenty-first century that shows a planet that is pure city. All the space travelers could see from orbit were the lights of the cities. The fringe dwellers say we’ll become that society. That is potentially problematic in a way that I honestly don’t want to think about.

For the moment I’m happy curled up in the grass. I’m skipping out of class. High school is nothing more than a simple means of herding the masses so they can watch us. The system is designed to weed out any potential free-thinkers. In the beginning finding them happened pretty frequently. Nearly two hundred and fifty years later a free-thinker is rare. The discovery of a free-thinker tends to cause a bit of a buzz; everywhere.

That buzz is the exact reason I’m ditching. A senior was flagged and the rumors started making their rounds on the network. If they were smart they would skip school and run, on the off chance that they weren’t I was in the park. Safe from any bio-restraints that I might be used as a shield against. Of course Rys thought it was hilarious and declined to skip out with me when we left this morning.

Point of fact I was worried about him. I couldn’t log into the network for another two and half hours without pinging truant. Hopefully Rys stayed out of the way. I would know for sure when the Planner required voluntary blackout of all school age students ended. Either Rys will call immediately or he won’t.

Sighing I tilt my head to rest against the tree. I needed to fill my time. There was a reason I’d packed a couple books in my school bag. They were cleverly disguised as textbooks, but they were the latest and greatest in trashy novels by the Systems bestselling authors. A worthy distraction from what could possibly turn out to be the worst day of my life.