Human Harvest

Chapter one

Ammy looked out the grimy window, lightly caressing it with her fingertips, feeling the dirt stick to the grooves of her prints.
This was where she alway hid on the eve of the human harvest. Even now she's old enough to be harvested... She preferred to hide away from it all. Luckily this year she'd manage to pass the tests needed to retain her current life. As for many of the people she knew out here in the village marshland, well tonight would be their last night to live. She couldn't really fault the current powers system of running the entire thing. It kept the useful living, and those who weren't from carrying on reproducing. She thanked the gods that she'd managed to pass this year, even if their was only half a percentage in it. What angered her was that it was a unjustly percentage. She was talented in many ways, but the severe lack of jobs meant that she didn't have the wealth credited to keep her alive. She slammed her fist against the windowpane, hard enough to make a corner of it crack slightly under the concentrated pressure. Poverty killed her parents, it would not kill her. She was determined it wouldn't take her life too!

She pushed herself up from the dusty floor. Ensuring she got the worst of the dirt off. She had one year to increase her percentages, and at the young age of just seventeen it was the only way to secure her next few years in life. Grabbing for her pickaxe, and swinging it in a professional like manner over her leather covered shoulder, she removed herself from the old wooden shed and into the somber festivities that were happening in the streets. Some were partying, as entire families could continue on. Others were dark, and tearful as the learnt that one or more members would be taken off to be culled and fed to the livestock of the animals for a year. It was almost enough to make her sick. Still she continued off towards her private precious mine... One she'd only just found before her test. Luckily it bumped her wealth up just enough, selling the ores she'd manage to harvest herself into her bank.
Now she just hoped their was enough to sustain and even profit on for the next year.

©Odd