Chapter One

Thursday

09:00am

Narrator's POV

"Geneva, Geneva!!! Wake up, he gave his consent."

That alone was able to wake me up, "He what?" I asked and immediately sat up on my bed as my mother walked into my room with a smile.

"He finally agreed for you to go to the summer camp." She said coming to sit on my bed next to me and wrapping her arms around me.

Please pardon me for being so rude, my name is Geneva Stanford and I'm the only child of my parents Mr and Mrs Stanford. We live in the peaceful town of Starshine, well at least it used to be peaceful, now our beautiful and once peaceful town is torn apart by war.

Eight years ago, a group came into existence, they called themselves the revolutionary, their sole motive; to bring about equality. They believed that the law makers and more privileged people or the upper-class of society were hoarding all the wealth and living good lives while them, the not-so-privileged were suffering on a daily basis.

They claimed that their various communities were not doing very well while those from the upper-class were living like royalty and so they petitioned for the equal distribution of resources, however, when they got no response from the council for about three years, they became more antagonistic, so to speak. They held riots, destroyed public property, robbed the rich and even went as far as to harass council members. In order to protect themselves from this hostile group, the council officially split our town into two parts; the upper-class and the lower class. Unfortunately, this didn't sit well with the revolutionary and recently they got even more hostile, lynching countless members of the upper-class. It was evident that they were getting bolder and more ruthless and so therefore the council took some security measures and even issued out a curfew for the lower-class, anyone fond outside after the said time would be taken into custody and the person wold be labelled as a member of the revolutionary.

Now how does my family come into this equation, my father-Mr Anderson Stanford is a very important member of the council and as a result of this he and his family-my mother and I- are targets of the revolutionary and this puts me in a very uncomfortable position as his one and only daughter.

I attend Starshine community high school. Starshine community high school is open to people from both divisions of our society so it doesn't really get extra security guards from the government as it's not exclusive to upper-class children. My dad being his very paranoid self, pulled me out of the school when the revolutionary started destroying public property and arranged for me to be home-schooled and that was just the beginning.

He also issued out a curfew for everyone in our hose including the servants and instructed that no one ever goes out alone. He rarely allowed me to leave the house and whenever I did it was either with him to his council meeting or with the caretaker to visit my only friend Amelie, I wasn't allowed to go anywhere else.

On one of my visit to Amelie's house, she informed me that there was going to be an all-girls summer camp coming up soon and that it was going to be really fun. While I wasn't a big fan of camps or the great outdoors, I figured that I needed to get out of the house even though it was to go for a camping trip so immediately I got home that day I told my father about it, I think the conversation went like this...

*****

Tuesday

7:43pm

"Dad, I'm back!!" I said walking to his study with a glass of milk in my hands.

He looked up from the mountain of documents on his desk and gave me a weak smile, he looked really tired.

"You shouldn't over work yourself." I said, shifting his documents to one side and placing the glass of milk in front of him.

He gave his usual reply of "I'm okay." and downed the glass of milk. "How is Amelie and her family?" He asked putting the now empty glass aside and going back to his documents.

I leisurely walked around his study and said monotonously, "They're fine." He replied with a grunt and then I continued. "Amelie told me something interesting today." Another grunt and I snuck a peak at him and then continued, "She said that there's an all-girls summer camp coming up."

I looked at him again and saw his expression go from tired to irritated and that didn't look like a good sign. "It's going to be really fun and educational....."

"No." He said without letting me finish.

"But dad it's going to be really educational, I'll get to associate with my peers." I said and walked over to his table.

"No, you already know why you can't go, it isn't safe!"

"But..."

"No!" He said in a tone that left no room for argument and started coughing intensely.

"Dad are you okay?" I asked gently patting his back but that didn't seem to work as he started coughing blood.

I ran out of the study and all the way to the kitchen, screaming for my mum, when I found her I hurriedly blurted out what happened and dragged her all the way to the study. When we got back my dad was on the floor holding his chest in anguish. My mother gasped and ran to his side. "Geneva go call the doctor." She instructed me but I just stood there transfixed, unable to move a muscle in my body as I watched my father spit out more blood. She called for me again and I didn't still hear her, her voice seemed so far away and then I slumped, the last thing I remember was hearing my mother shout my name and the maids rushing over and then I was enveloped in nothingness.