An Introduction to Our Heroine

At sixteen years of age, Natalie couldn’t help but constantly dream about other places and times. Her own life boiled over with so many horrors that any other place would be better. Natalie and her sister, Jenny, lived with their mother, Felicity in a two-story house left to her in her father’s will. Society had progressed, or so the schools taught it, to the point where women were not allowed to own property unless married or living within their father’s means.

“Slavery,” Natalie called it. When she was younger, she read about the same treatment of other nationalities. Now that all the countries had become a single power, Felicity explained, they needed a unifying enemy. Enough of the countries already considered women inferior; it was a small step for the rest to agree. There had been uprisings at first, but military law was soon established to enforce the decrees. The man Natalie had once called father was among those who established the decree, and she hated him for it. Due to an allowance in the law for women who already owned property, Felicity retained rights to the property her father had given her, but it could never pass on to her children.

Natalie and Jenny spent hours every day digging a tunnel with their mother in a trench near the house. Felicity explained that they would one day need it to escape when she was dead. Despite protests to her death, they dug every day for three years with few exceptions. When the tunnel was finished with numerous shelters and stashes of food and supplies hidden, the girls rested.

For a month or two, everything seemed to return to normal for the girls, aside from the exercises their mother made them do every day. Natalie sat and read as often as she was allowed, and Jenny went to discussing the state of the world with their mother. Neither of the girls ventured far outside the property as their mother did since neither of them had bands that showed their birthright, and neither of them ever could. From inside the yard, everything seemed quiet and simple, and the problems of the world seemed distant.

One day, their mother came home frightened and started giving orders to the girls. None of them would sleep that night until their bags were packed and each of them had heard Felicity’s commands for the coming weeks. When their mother spoke with such authority, neither girl dared argue or speak until asked to. Felicity gave each of them chores and duties based upon their strengths.

Natalie had always been more adventurous than her sister who carefully considered every action before doing it. As the eldest, Jenny was given her mother’s pendant and told specifically to care for it. Her mother said it was a gift from her great, great grandfather who came upon it mysteriously. It was the only sign of their lineage and supposedly a gift from another world, though she didn’t believe that. Jenny was told to make sure everything was packed and ready to go at any time should anything happen. Natalie was told to not let Jenny wait or go back for anything. The moment they sensed trouble or anything happened to their mother, both girls were to leave and make for the tunnels and collapse the entrance. Their mother promised to meet them at the far exit from the tunnel several miles away in the woods if she could.

Two days later, Felicity went to the store and never returned.