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Sep. 26th, 2002 01:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gilascaveContinuing a storyweb from Mer.
The last town she’d lived in hadn’t had things like anti-suicide fences, or night patrol whose sole job it was to stop people on the street and verify what they were doing, where they were going, and if their curfew pass was forged. It hadn’t had bridges, either, nor had buildings tall enough to bother trying to jump from.
She hadn’t ever wanted to kill herself, but she’d been a teenager once and had friends, so she knew all about it.
She didn’t like thinking about those things – the town before, school, being a teenager. Having friends. She’d left them all behind – as everyone did, when they reached the age of maturity. Everyone graduated at age nineteen, getting their diploma and their new residence assignment all in one scroll. The only time any of them had ever held real paper in their hands was when the Headmaster had handed over their diplomas, smiling politely and murmuring things Amy couldn’t quite now remember, even if she thought she ever had.
It was only a few years ago, but the ceremony had been a frightening time – for all the students. About to find out where they were being sent, away from the home and family and friends they’d known for the last five years of prep school. Before that, a different circle of friends from the four years at boarding school, and before that the clan schooling of whatever family they’d been born into.
Amy didn’t even know where her family lived. Her last name told her who was a clan-relative, when she encountered strangers. There were dozens of families in this city, alone. But her own parents, her siblings, her favorite cousin from childhood – they were somewhere else, and the information wasn’t the sort given out by the Housing Authority.
The last town she’d lived in hadn’t had things like anti-suicide fences, or night patrol whose sole job it was to stop people on the street and verify what they were doing, where they were going, and if their curfew pass was forged. It hadn’t had bridges, either, nor had buildings tall enough to bother trying to jump from.
She hadn’t ever wanted to kill herself, but she’d been a teenager once and had friends, so she knew all about it.
She didn’t like thinking about those things – the town before, school, being a teenager. Having friends. She’d left them all behind – as everyone did, when they reached the age of maturity. Everyone graduated at age nineteen, getting their diploma and their new residence assignment all in one scroll. The only time any of them had ever held real paper in their hands was when the Headmaster had handed over their diplomas, smiling politely and murmuring things Amy couldn’t quite now remember, even if she thought she ever had.
It was only a few years ago, but the ceremony had been a frightening time – for all the students. About to find out where they were being sent, away from the home and family and friends they’d known for the last five years of prep school. Before that, a different circle of friends from the four years at boarding school, and before that the clan schooling of whatever family they’d been born into.
Amy didn’t even know where her family lived. Her last name told her who was a clan-relative, when she encountered strangers. There were dozens of families in this city, alone. But her own parents, her siblings, her favorite cousin from childhood – they were somewhere else, and the information wasn’t the sort given out by the Housing Authority.