Day 30 of Month 5 of Year 3040

Hello. I am Flame, and, I'm dying. Everyone on this planet is. We are slowly dying off, and no one can do a thing about it. Well, humans can't. We caused this mess. A long story short, a scientist was experimenting -to make something to allow us to live forever- and it went horribly wrong. The animals that the scientist had experimented on had become extremely intelligent. And if that doesn't sound too bad, the chemical that they used, was toxic to humans. Once the animals escaped, the chemical escaped with them. It is slowly killing us. We can do nothing about it, as then scientists with the knowledge of how this chemical was made were among the first to die.

 President Johnson died too. He is one of the few deaths I'm glad about. Even though he called himself president, he was a dictator, pure and simple. He forced the orphans and old people to work right alongside us and if you couldn't work, you died. We were slaves, we had to work or die. 

If you were younger than five, some teachers, older people who had pleased the dictator, taught you during the working day, from six am to six pm. We were alone. The sleeping houses were separated, about half the houses were for women and girls, and the other half of the houses belonged to the men and boys. Mixing was not allowed unless permitted. 

After the workday was over, we had an hour to eat in one of the communal cafes, one of the only places where males and females could get together and chat. After dinner was over, there was one more hour to "socialize and wind down" as they put it, which meant we were allowed to stay in the cafes if we liked, or we could go to one of the parks. The parks were beautiful. The grass was mowed on a daily basis, and the benches were scrubbed once a week. The slides and swings for the children were washed often too. 

By eight, we had to be in our "houses" and by nine-thirty had to be in bed. We were allowed to shower at night and in the morning, but, because there were about one hundred people per house, not everyone could shower at night. Despite this, we had to undergo hygienic examinations once we got to work. 

Anyway, I'm getting off track. like I said before, I am dying, so I need to complete this journal. The only thing is, I don't feel, or look like I'm dying. While others have bruise-like splotches beneath their eyes, and around the hands and feet, my skin is perfectly normal. I don't feel ill, nor do I have the hacking cough that others have. I would say I haven't been exposed to it, but that can't be it either; since at least half of the people in my house have died, and everyone other than me has at least some of the symptoms. There was one girl, Anya who didn't show anything, but I heard her coughing last night. 

Ugh, it's so dark, it must be nearly midnight. I was using a stolen mini-light, but its battery just died. I'll write some more tomorrow...