Article written by Ashleigh Lowry.
Here is a short story I've written for the Young Writer's Award.
'Ritual'
You get told when you’re little that you’ll be ready for it. Your parents tell you about their experiences, they help you prepare. To be honest, nothing really prepares you for your turn. You just have to remind yourself that you’re not the only one it happens to. Every kid goes through this, every fear, pain and doubt. You’d think they would stop this stupid ritual by now but no, still every kid has to do this. Every day, since the day you turn twelve, you wait for the day your ritual will start. Those lucky enough get theirs around sixteen or seventeen. The unlucky get theirs the day they turn twelve. It’s not totally barbaric. In the last century or so, the children are provided with utensils that can help their survival. The ritual kills thirty-seven percent of our population but everyone says it’s for the best. Our society will only continue if the population knows how to survive.
They say if you survive the ritual you can survive anything. That waiting to discover the results of the ritual is harder than the actual ritual itself. You’d think that if we have to go through the ritual they’d at least teach some survival skills in school, but you have to learn everything from your family. Your training becomes dependent on your family status. The more well off kids get the top notch trainers, so by the time their ritual comes around they can practically live wherever they are dumped. The poorer children have to depend on their families for all their training, from what the records show, most of them don’t make it. In the middle class they have these survival programs at local community centres. Most kids go through a couple of these with the other local kids, they give you the essentials but nothing specialised, so you just have to pray you get somewhere that isn’t an extremely harsh environment.
Both of my parents did their rituals when they were thirteen and had been sent into the desert together. My brother had his at fourteen. He got sent to the jungle and my sister, at fifteen, went to the desert like my parents. I am seventeen and four months, so I’m considered lucky. After my siblings had theirs early enough in my life, my parents could save enough to send me to survival classes constantly, while also being able to provide me with the occasional specialised training and reading when they could. I was practically teaching the classes at my centre. So I should have expected to be thrown into the hardest survival situation possible.
I have always hated winter. The snow, in my opinion, is the worst part. Statistically the highest amount of ritual deaths have been from the snow. I could feel the frostbite start to creep its way into my body. Quickly getting up, I ignored the sharp pain at the base of my neck and searched for something that would help me survive. Trying to run my fingers through my hair, I realised it was braided, something I know I didn’t do before I went to bed. It was early morning, as it was still extremely dark but I could see the beginning of the sun rise in the distance, which meant whatever happens, there was at least nine maybe ten hours to figure out the basics of food, water and shelter, hopefully. A weight against my foot had me scrounging for my backpack and checking its contents. Ice pick, jumper, thick blanket, water bottle, lighter and a hunting knife. It wasn’t a lot but, at that moment, it was enough. A small human moan had me jumping out of my skin and cursing. Flicking the light in that direction, I recognised the face as a girl from the centre I took and taught lessons at. Soon, a few others awoke and, in the end, we worked out there was seven of us. Riker and I were the oldest at seventeen, then Jasmine, sixteen, Marley and Liam were fifteen, Kelly, thirteen and the youngest of the team was Gordy, he had turned twelve two days ago. All a mix of training levels, with the best being Marley and Riker, both of whom were rich kids and had personal trainers from the age of five, the worst being Gordy with his only training coming from the books he read at his local library.
As the sun rose, we stated to hike trying to find shelter and maybe some food. It took two days and most of our collective pre-given food and water to find a cave big enough to keep us all safe and warm. Through the entire trip we tried to bond over songs and stories of our lives outside of the ritual. Though we were all together in this ritual of survival, we were strangers and, in a way that’s what made the first few days so hard. I tried to bring us all together having us share stories and play traveling games to try and get us all to bond. Most joined in and began to enjoy themselves sharing interests, likes and stories from their lives outside the ritual. The only one who didn’t was Riker. He seem to always be somewhat on the outside. I stubbornly tried to get him to join in but he would always just give a cold and cut response before pulling into himself and giving the silent treatment. When I did try to have a conversation with him, we would end up disagreeing on something and start fighting. It was hard to think about him without my head being clouded with conflicting thoughts of his stunning looks, the smell of raspberries & vanilla and how infuriating he was to deal with. By the end of the first week, I was barely talking to him, through pure stubbornness alone. Although, my mind drifted back to him and his scent often in both daydreams and sleep.
As we suffered through that first week, we found each of us had skills which, when utilised, made it easier to survive in the blasted snow. Marley was a brilliant hunter, while Gordy used his knowledge of botany to forage for root vegetables, herbs and berries. Liam was good at creating fires and cooking what was found into food that tasted palatable. Exploring the area, Riker had strategized the best places for resources and water collection. Kelly and Jasmine worked together to build hunting tools, gathering baskets and water purifiers. In their spare time, they had even made everyone a mattress out of weaved grass they had found near the river. I spent most of my days trying to keep up morale and supporting the others. I usually helped Gordy and Marely as I had half decent skills with foraging. Every once in a while I would organise full group meetings to check resources, progress on projects and the overall & personal moral. Making sure to address, problem-solve and fix any issues that arose.
Keeping everyone in high spirits was the hardest thing. Most nights, Gordy cried from homesickness, he was silent but you could see it on his face every morning when we all woke up. Every day, I would try and get him to teach me about a different plant and it began to work. Slowly we became friends and he told me about lilacs and lavender, how much the smell reminded him of the paddocks next to his house and all of their medicinal properties. The following day, he told me about sunflowers and their properties, mentioning that they were Kelly’s favourite flower as well. I asked how he knew, shrugging, he shyly stated that she said he smelt like them.
The situation with Riker kept playing out the same. I would try to get him to participate in activities to boost spirits but he would refuse or only stand and watch before retreating to his corner of the cave and drawing on the wall. Once or twice every few days we would have an argument about something and would not talk to each other the following day unless it was absolutely necessary. After the second week passed, I finally had enough of the dreams and sat next to him for a full hour, stubbornly trying to get him to talk to me without us ending up in an argument. Finally, he opened up. He hated the ritual and wanted to try and survive on his own but he kept having these dreams of me holding an apple pie. I brought up my own concerns with the ritual and how it felt almost as if someone got to choose who lived and died. Riker finally started sharing stories of his family and friends, saying that he missed them. I pointed out he had an opportunity to make friends here that could in fact last him a lifetime. At that moment, he tried to kiss me. I pulled back, annoyed and slightly flustered. After a long lecture of immature behaviour, I left to go for a walk. After that day, Riker joined in, slowly becoming happier and more open. Though, he now called me Apples whenever he could, we talked at least once a day, alone, getting to know one each other and slowly becoming friends. At the end of one month, the seven of us had created a habitable long term living place and had a pretty great routine going. We all sat together and had a large feast, playing games we had created and joking around. The next morning, I woke up in a hospital bed. My family smiling at me, saying I had passed the ritual. Kelly sitting up right in the bed across the room and waving. It felt almost surreal, as if it was a dream. A small sense of sadness creeped over to me as I realised it was over.
I barely saw most of kids I did my ritual with in the five years following. Kelly, now dating Gordy, was the only one I talked to on a semi regular basis. Though, my dreams kept creeping back to Riker and raspberries and vanilla, making it difficult to move on from what we went through together. I went on with my life, went to college and got a job at a political office. A couple days after my twenty second birthday, I bumped into Riker. He was finishing a strategy meeting at a café which I regularly got lunch. We sat down over vanilla lattes and apple pie, and talked for a few hours about our lives and what had changed since we left the ritual. He smiled and asked me on a date, to my shock I accepted. As we walked home, he took an opportunity at a red light to kiss me on the lips.
I swore he tasted like raspberries.
Matchmaking Survival Simulations Experiment - Codename: Ritual
Survival Simulations conducted by Elevation Incorporated are fabricated and incorporated into the public’s subconscious and everyday life as a way to disguise the companies’ true intentions to breed the perfect population of human begins via the skills and attributes that are passed from ancestors chosen when the first simulations begun. Slowly, the experiment became part of everyday life and Elevation was able to use the entire world’s populations as subjects. Firstly, culling the unneeded stock. Using the subjects that exhibited an abundance of undesired traits (Red Traits) were selected to take part in ‘impossible survival situations’ which disposed of them. As the desired skills and traits (Green Traits) were bred into the populations, less of the ‘impossible survival situations’ were required but the death total was needed to keep the population placid. Numbers of the dead were faked and fed into public record to keep the control.
Each subject is injected with a small behaviour control node at the base of the neck, which reads and transmits thoughts and emotional responses to the Lab for study and response. Each subject’s positive reward is personalised after scent and taste tests given shortly before the subjects are placed in the simulation during which they are trained to respond to the smell and associate it with positive people and behaviour. Once all subjects in the ‘survival situations’ are properly reacting to the behaviour mode, they are released back into the population and agents create situations where they met their chosen ‘mate’. Triggering the release of the large dose of positive reward pheromones to attract them together and create offspring, providing the next group of subjects.
Subject 23345E Leia Harrow (Green Traits: Compassionate, strong empathic abilities, natural leadership. Red Traits: stubborn, short temper) and Subject 23349J Riker Jameswood (Green Traits: Unmatched strategist, high academic intelligence. Red Traits: low emotional intelligence, heavily introverted, defiant) are to be matched for the breeding of a leader type human.
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