Earth, 2180

Fifty years.

That's how long the USA and North Korea had nuked each other and eventually the whole world. The skies became black with smoke, skins became charred as it bubbled and vaporized and the earth once so green, turned barren and brown. Finally, there was exactly one thousand people left—the last of the human race.

Perhaps it would have been better for our home planet if we had been wiped out. Earth would have been able to properly recover, regenerate after all the shit we had put it through. But just like cockroaches, we just don't die out. So, what did we do? We went underground and built humanity from scratch.

Ironically, despite all predictions, it wasn't even the superpowers' enmity with one another that caused the War of 2030. It was their children who, like Romeo and Juliet, fell in love. The American and the Korean who was killed by Canadians, because they feared an alliance between these two nations.

But Canada? The one land of the nicest people? Of course not! That was why no one believed it.

America blamed Korea. Korea blamed America. And when the actual perpetrator of the murder was found out, the entire world went to hell—all because two people fell in love.

For the next one hundred years, the Earth was inhabitable- the radioactive levels being so high that one breath would kill you. So, humans made life underground in a huge bunker that was built exactly for this reason.

But we had learned our lesson about love. Males and females had to be separated. Emotions were the cause of all hostility and hence, they had to be terminated. So, the Divide came into place. We were all contained in this box.

And then came me, to fuck it all up.

Our world was a peaceful one for the most part. Of course, like any authoritarian post-apocalyptic regime which faced its trouble as depicted by something called a 'movie', our society did as well. A few years ago, about five hundred of the now five thousand (controlled) population, revolted against our policies. They believed our leaders were lying to us; that the earth was indeed habitable. So, they found a way to escape.

Our leaders told us those rebels outside were faced by instant death, that their Movement had failed. Yet, the occasional person would still make a fuss, and we would hear about the people who somehow escaped through the walls to not be seen ever again.

I wanted to believe in a Movement, but I didn't dare—for it would mean I wanted emotion. That was a crime. But a part of me always hoped it was true—and I knew I was different because of that.

Ceremoniously, every morning, soldiers would come to inject everyone with a serum. This made sure our emotions were kept in check, that we felt nothing—especially love.

Our routines were methodical, and the only time we saw everyone was at the Café to eat.

That was not all the I went to the Café for.

Every morning, I walked to the Café for my latte and a glimpse at him.

We were given a rationed cup of coffee with usually beans or porridge or something of the sort. It was nutritious and gave us the energy we required until lunch. But seeing him was all the energy I truly needed. I looked forward to it.

There were two lines to get our food, which ran the length of the room one for guys and one or girls. Once we got our allotted meal, we were supposed to sit in the segregated columns.

A hundred years ago the Café would have full of twinkling eyes, smiling faces and laughing, happy souls. Now it was cold--stone cold. People methodically ate their food, their lips moving for aught but food. The single females sat on one side of the room and the single males the other. There was no wall separating us, yet no one dare stepped foot in the other side.

Everything was white. The floor the tiles, the table, and our clothes. The only color in the room was the food and our skins. The stoic leaders sat in front of the room, eating on a large table. Everything was eerily silent and coordinated. The married couples sat in a sectioned off area of the room, the only place where a boy and a girl could be seen together.

He usually came last, a soldier physically dragging him in most of the time—a low-level troublemaker that everyone ignored, save for me. He had black hair and bright amber eyes. Something about him...intrigued me. I couldn't stop staring and when he would meet my eyes every day—this spark would crackle through me.

That spark was dangerous—that spark wasn't supposed to happen to anyone.

It was rumored that any emotion if felt strongly enough, would wear off the effects of the serum. I thought that was happening to me.

When I got close to him, it was practically cosmic. Our ancestors would describe it as love at first sight, but I wasn't so sure. It was just there. Consuming me.

There was this point in the serving area where the boys' line and girls' line would be parallel to one another—a point where they were less than a foot apart, backs facing one another as their food was served by the counter ladies. Every day, he and I would stare at each other for a second and no longer than that, but it would last for hours in my head. Our fingers brushed once, and that was when I knew that electricity through me was an emotion. 

I knew there was something wrong with me, yet I didn't say a word. Because in a stone cold, emotionless society, feeling something is exciting.

Once you became 18, you were married to an assigned partner issue by the Leaders. Since we were always kept apart, we knew nothing of the opposite sex, yet we were required to bear one child—the sex biologically controlled to make sure the male to female ratio was maintained. You didn't know a thing about your partner—felt nothing towards them. Even having kids was a stone-cold process.

Our motto was: emotion kills.

We were robots of flesh.

Which was why the thing I felt for this golden-eyed boy was dangerous. Me thinking about him could cost me my life.

And then his eighteenth birthday came. His pairing was broadcasted over the speakers, announcing his marriage was the following day. It was the customary ritual for all. Mine was due in a few months.

Marriage ceremonies were always solemn and bland. A tasteless sour thing just like everything. Yet, we all accepted it. I accepted it. I thought he did as well.

Which is why, the day before he was to get married, I didn't understand why he was at my door in the middle of the night, knocking and asking me to let him in.

We had a curfew-10 pm. Until then we could go and spend time with our 'friends' with expressionless faces and talk about meaningless things. We could play a board game. But 10 was the final time we could be out of our rooms. People in the halls after that were taken into custody. Alarms would blare if any soldier caught someone moving through the halls.

And we could never ever go into the wing of the opposite sex.

Yet, I let him in.

I should have been 'surprised' at him knocking on my door, but I wasn't. A part of me seemed to have been waiting for it—had been for a while.

We just stood there looking at each other, until I realized he was in full view of any soldier that would pass by. I quickly shut the door, pulling him in, gasping at the contact when our hands met.

His eyes grinned in the 'moonlight' that flooded the tiny fake window, almost floating in the dark. His skin glowed and was nearly translucent.

Up close he looked almost angelic and ethereal. Like a vampire.

"Hi. I am Ayden."

"Haylee."

We are less than a foot apart and I just can't stop staring. This was the closest I had ever been a boy other than my father.

"What are you doing here?"

"I can't stop thinking about you. I don't know why, and this changes everything in my plan but..." He gulped.

It sounded insane, but I got what he was saying. He seemed to prey on every one of my thoughts as well.

"I can't marry the girl I am assigned to. Andrea, I think. You know how fucked our society is if we don't even know our wife before we get married." He ran his fingers through his hair, mussing it.

"You have to. They'll kill you otherwise. It is dangerous for you to be here. How have the alarms not sounded yet? They check the thermal levels in the rooms to make sure everyone is inside." I realized our hands were still interlocked, yet I didn't make a move to remove it. It felt right.

"So, let's leave." His hand came up to touch my face and I froze. My heart skyrocketed and my lungs curled up and I was left breathless.

"And go where? There are walls everywhere."

"Join the Movement on the Earth's surface."

"They don't exist."

He suddenly let out a laugh—something I have ever seen or heard before. "Yes, they do."

"How do you know?" My voice was breathy and high-pitched, anticipating what was to come.

"Because I am a part of it. I am supposed to rejoin them now, but I couldn't leave you. Something about you..."

Suddenly, outside the halls, the alarms started to blare, a horrible droning noise that hurt everyone's ears.

Ayden turned toward me. "We leave now or never."

"I can't just leave! I have family here and-"

He let out a bitter laugh. "You have no attachment to your mother or your father. Your own parents. They have stripped us of all that makes us human."

I finally saw this fire in his eyes, and it matched the one burning in me.

"But you have something with me. It was enough for the serum to slowly stop working on you or," he held up our interlocked hands, "you wouldn't feel this."

My heartbeat jumped when he squeezed my hand.

He was right.

"But how do we get out of here? I don't have anything packed--"

"It doesn't matter. We can get you clothes and everything else you need. That was why I was here undercover. To get supplies and information. Now let's go."

"I can't." He tried to drag me, but I was frozen and paralyzed. "This is insane. Just this morning I was admiring you while getting coffee and now I am running away with you."

My brain is spinning round and round.

He grinned at me. "Do you feel that hesitation and confusion? It was what they stripped from you, Haylee. They stripped feeling from you. This is how you're supposed to feel."

He pressed a finger to my heart and it immediately pulsated. I gasped.

"There are so many questions. How does the serum..."

"I'll answer them all." He opened the door and gave me his open palm. "But right now, we have to go, Haylee."

I knew I probably shouldn't take it. For all I could know this could be a test, to see how the people would react when they were given access to emotions and I became the scapegoat.

I placed my hand in his and we ran.

And the way that made me feel was unlike anything else.

I felt alive.

Hey! God, I literally had to rewrite this from scratch because my laptop crashed and when I remember how proud I felt of the original and I looked at this, I cringed.

I couldn't edit it properly because all my editing programs were uninstalled so my computer's OS had to be changed. So much shit haha.

This is actually a semi-fanfiction inspired from two book trilogies- requiem and divergent and then my own twist on it.

Leave me your thoughts :)

And sorry for typos lmao. I literally cannot edit stuff properly.