Because natural selection didn’t take out the genetically flawed, we will.

There was more security out today than usual, more fear in peoples’ eyes, as if we were all aware there was a problem-but no one wanted to point it out. The town projector, along with everyone’s personal monitors all lit up, and up popped a live image of our Director.

“Good afternoon everyone. I regret having to remind you all that our population is still far too large, as well as, there are still many left with negative genetic traits that we cannot let spread onto the future offspring. With this in mind, the board and I have decided to eliminate another group. This time anyone with 20/60 vision or worse will be sacrificed for the greater good of our future children.”

Cries and screams of fearful women and children began erupting from the crowd; men in this society were expected to never show that they too can be scared. Fearful men were looked down upon in this society.
“You can't do this to us, we have already sacrificed too much!”

“Take down the borders so we have more room!”

“You can't hold us in here any longer!”

The Director continues, “Silence please everyone, hear us out. We realize you must all be confused and a little angry with us, as we have just recently taken out those of the Special Needs class. But you must remember we are doing this to better the community, to make sure future generations will not have to struggle like we did, and we do. The board and I have put lots of time into considering who must be eliminated. All of your brave sacrifices will result in a perfected offspring in just a few years to come, as well as much better living conditions.”

“This is bulls**t!” another man from the crowd yells up at the monitor.

“In exactly seventeen minutes our forces will begin going through everyone's records to see who is in the newly fashioned Unhealthy Eye Sight Class. When we find someone with 20/60 vision or worse, we will arrive at your home and retrieve you. You will be brought to the extermination camp and be put down in a safe, humane way. We recommend you all go home now and say goodbye to your loved ones. We will retrieve you soon.”

The projector flashed and the live image of our Director was gone. The crowd began pushing and shoving one another out of the way. People dropped their belongings in order to be able to run out of the town square faster and return home as our Director had suggested. One man in a full sprint had accidentally trampled on a pregnant woman and her son. Just a few feet away from me a group of kids were consoling their friend with a pair of tiny pink and purple glasses, the girl must have only been six or seven. The child's eyes were soaked with tears and she screamed out to the crowd for help.

“Please don't be sad, we will find your mommy” one of her friends insisted. However, even at their age they knew there is nothing they could do for her.

As I scanned the surrounding chaos I noticed The Boards’ troopers  began closing in on the civilians and pushing them towards the housing units. This is how Noah and I knew it was time to escape. When you knowingly possess an undesirable trait you either give up and let The Board exterminate you, or you try to escape. We have only heard of one man ever being able to successfully escape before.When role was taken and the man was found missing, The Board as i'm sure you can imagine, was furious. For weeks they sent troops outside of the border to find him. With no luck however, the troops returned home empty handed with the knowledge that they would soon be punished by The Board. Because no one is allowed to leave the borders, when the troops returned, they were exterminated. No one knew exactly why, but we assume it is to keep what is beyond the border a secret. The Board claims that the other side is a dry barren land where only criminals roam. Recently these claims have been questioned and those who are caught questioning The Board are killed.

Someone grabbed my arm, and as I turned to pull away I looked up and saw Noah. “Are you ready?” Noah asked. “We need to leave now if we want a chance to make it out”.

We both took our glasses off and shoved them into our backpacks, which we carried at all times, in preparation for an elimination day. We took out from our bags homemade knives- made of sharpened scrap metal with a stick fastened to the end of it serving as handle. No one in the community was allowed to have real weapons except for The Board’s troopers. Being caught with a weapon would result in imminent death.
We began running in the westward direction towards the community reserve which was mainly untouched by man, and was only entered when a hungry family tried to trap a small animal to eat or sell. We ran past the crowd of people whom were all headed in different directions than us, minus a few other people we barely knew, who were set to be eliminated today as well. They too must have been headed to the reserve in hopes of escaping.

The troopers began pushing Noah and I backwards. 

“We recommend you two get home now” a trooper demanded. As he flashed his gun at us as a threat to what he could do. “ I saw you two take off your glass-”

Without another word Noah stabbed the trooper in the chest and laid him down carefully onto the ground to try to avoid as scene. He ripped the knife from the troopers chest and pushed me forward to tell me to continue running to the forest.

“Don’t look back” he told me. “Just keep running no matter what”.

We held each others hands as we ran. The reserve was another five blocks away but we were making decent time. From previous elimination days we discovered that every time someone was sacrificed a light would blink on our personal monitors. I looked down at the monitor on my wrist and noticed the first flash went off. Then I counted another and another after that. Three blocks to go. More flashing lights from my wrist. I let go of Noah’s hand for a second to rip the monitor off, which was partially embedded into the skin. I cringed and let out a shriek from the pain. The Board purposefully designed the monitor to contain spiked edges to make removal more painful. My wrist began bleeding and a stream of blood began flowing down my wrist. Noah dug his monitor out of his wrist and threw it behind his head while still running. He held in the pain he felt when he took his monitor out but I could see in his facial expressions it was hurting him more than it did for me. He had recently sprained his wrist which caused his monitor to shift inside of him.

Every spike on the monitor scraped against his bones and nerves causing his whole hand to turn purple. Taking the monitor out would finally give his wrist a chance to heal properly, but I knew it hurt like a b****. I went to grab Noah’s hand again but when I reached out and felt nothing I looked behind my shoulder and instead saw him on the ground with a trooper on top of him. He was being dragged behind a building. Noah’s face was being slammed into the concrete.

“Get the f*** off of me” Noah tried to scream through the pebbles in his mouth. “Run” he screamed to me, as if i would leave him like that.

“Get off of him!!” I yelled while taking my knife out.

The trooper reached onto the side of his belt and pulled out his baton. He smacked Noah on the side of his stomach with it twice. I watched Noah squirm and twitch underneath the trooper. I pulled my arm back and flung my knife at the trooper. The blade went straight into his left eye and pierced the back of his skull. His heavy body slowly fell off of Noah and collapsed beside him. Noah squeezed out between the troopers legs. He ripped the knife out of his eye, stole the baton which was just used on him, and took the troopers bulletproof vest and gear.

I helped Noah up onto his feet. “I can't believe you thought I would leave you like that.”

“Eh , he shrugged, “I knew you wouldn't leave me, and nice aim by the way.”