I woke up to the sound of feet hitting the floor just above my head, my room was filled but nothing but darkness.  The musty air filled my lungs as I took long breaths in and out. I was awake but felt getting up was unnecessary. My hair was swept down into my face and I was wrapped in a blanket, I didn't want to move.  For a moment as I lay there I almost forgot what today was. Today is the day my brother takes a test to decide his future, me and my brother are twins, the only difference is to the rest of the world I do not exist.
      But let me start from the very beginning the beginning of the extinction. It started four hundred years ago according to all of our textbooks.  The former countries known as the United States declared war on six former countries, this started the great war. For 90 years there was nothing but fighting,  and to be completely honest I'm not very sure what to the goal was. They fought like an angry cat and dog. They were simply fighting to fight, to have the pleasure of knowing they were superior.  All major cities were bombed and destroyed until it looked like a junkyard when everyone fled to the small towns and the country until those were destroyed too. Everywhere in the world, the war destroyed.  Every house had fallen to the ground, every road cracked, and half of every town dead. At the end of the war, there was no winner. The war was ended when supplies were drained in all countries from the destruction of factories and deaths of public working who made materials.  
The next one hundred years brought no better circumstances. For twenty years its rained only 35 inches a year in the whole world.  Then as though the clouds were ripped open it did nothing but train for twenty years and fill everything with water. That was the year it is said we lost previous places called California and Florida which are now simply apart of the sea.  Then for the next sixty years came everything else, earthquakes ripped open the earth and hurricanes took cities into the sea as they approached and retreated. Fires destroy all vegetation on the western half of the what was the united states and tornadoes ripped through the Midwest leaving all houses flipped on their sides and any farming area destroyed.  There was nothing left, over half of the world's population had become deceased and so had the everything else.
   By the time the earth had calmed down there was the biggest decision our government ever had to make, what do we do.  We had almost no resources and the whole idea of a country was just an idea now. The government decided on one major plan they called the extinction.  Everyone in North America was now under one government and they had everyone, children included, report to the biggest cities left in their areas. Everyone was put into four groups.  Group one was the smartest, the people in group one where the exceptional. Everyone in group one is allowed to pick whatever profession they want as long as they are helping the community with their intelligence.  Group two is people who are average, smart but not amazingly smart. they are required to either go into agriculture or office jobs. Group three is only allowed to be farmers nothing more. Your group decided everything about you the color clothes you could where, the money you made, and most importantly your family choices.  

Then there group four, the forgotten,  people in group four were deemed not intelligent enough to contribute and were killed or at least that is what we assume because no one ever hears from them again..  All children of anyone in group three and four also disappeared. That's when they made the rule that affects me the most, no one was allowed to have two kids unless it was two people from group one.  If its group two they are allowed only one child, and group three is allowed none. They made these rules in hopes of keeping the population under control with our dwindling amount of resources.
My mother is in group one, she was at the top of her class out of the four running universities she was accepted to three.  My mother is the smartest person in my whole town. But she married my father who is in group two, he's very smart but not at what the government deemed important.  He knows all things about all plants and is the most amazing artist in the world. But his math and science skills are not very high and that is all that matters to most people in my town.  Due to the fact that my mother married my father they were only allowed, one child. The problem with that is that I am not there only child, my parents had twins.
     Twins where most parents worst nightmare.  If you have twins and you can only have one child they take one from you, that of course was not an option for my parents.  So when I and my brother were born they made a plan. We looked exactly alike until we were about nine so for the first eight years of our lives we were each other.  We had the same haircut and my parents drew a freckle on the left cheek like he had every morning. We went by his name, Axl, but at home, my parents and he called me by my name Aria.  When my brother and I began to have noticeable differences in appearance my parents had to decide whom to keep hidden and who to let live a normal life. Axl had always been slower in school he needed more help with just about everything and they decided he was the one who needed to go to school to learn.  And so It was decided, I no longer existed at all. According to the government, my parents had one child and he was Axl Sloan. As far as the outside world was concerned Aria Sloan did not exist.
I live in the basement, there are only two ways to our basement, through the cellar hidden in the woods or through floorboards we move in my brothers' room.  My room has no windows, only one small yellow light, no fireplace just a small ceiling fan, and is not allowed to be painted from its wooded color that matches the floorboard.  I have no friends and I'm only allowed upstairs once every three weeks, sometimes I forget what the outside of those four walls looks like. I don't remember what wind feels like, I haven't felt the snow, rain, wind, grass, or anything outside since I was nine.  The only things that keep me occupied are books my brother brings me from school. I try my best to not be angry with my parents for their decision but it is a difficult task to uphold. I Could never be angry with my brother, he is my best friend. The only time I have felt anger towards them really is the first snow the year I was locked in the basement for the first time.  I remember standing by a window peeking out at my father and brother playing in the freshly fallen snow. It covers the Earth like the most amazing blanket, made it all look a little more alive. I was angry then I even cried which I never do.
Today was the big day for every seventeen year old in my city, placing day.  Every year on the first weekend of December every seventeen-year-old takes a test to determine their status and group.  Today was my brothers turn, we turned seventeen last week. I watched him walk down the narrow stairs to my room in his bright yellow cloths.  If you have yet to take the test you must wear yellow to signify that you are a child but once you have been given a group you are assigned a new color to wear proudly.  Blue is my mothers color, it is the color for group one, group two wears purple, and group four wears orange. My brother never did look any good in yellow anyways. He looks like me, blue eyes, brown hair, tall for our age, and more freckles than anyone else I've ever met.  You can tell we are related but not twins his face is much rounder than mine and he has a distinct freckle on his cheek that I do not have. He is my best friend, he is my only friend. I know that sounds rather lonely only having one friend and that's your brother but I don't mind much.  This could be the last time I ever see him if he is put in group four he will immediately move out and go to university. I Never cry I don't like how it feels so I don't let myself feel it. But as my brother walks into my room and walks through my small floor, as we sit in silence I start crying, then he starts crying.  I can feel the warm tears running down my face a drying down my cheeks. I don't know what to say to him, there are no words I can pull from my mouth. He always knows what to say though,
“I'm sorry”, he whispers as he sits next to me on my bed.  The words confuse me, sorry? What in the world does he have to be sorry for?  I stop my tears and turn to him, I scrunch my face like I always do when I'm confused and shake my head.  Then I mutter words back at his also scrunched up face,
     “You have no reason to be sorry, go and get a blue jacket”, I hug him and we talk for what felt like no time at all before my mom called for him, his party was beginning.  I watched him walk up the stairs slowly, not looking back, then he was gone disappeared into the real world.
“Oh my goodness you're so old now!” I heard the loud but in a way still soft voice all the way from my room and knew it was my grandmother.  I remember seeing her when I was little but that was all. My parents decided it was too risky for even her to know I existed so she didn't. Axl was her only grandchild, that always stung a little.  I have seen her in recent pictures, she looks about the same, very short with faded red hair that is almost all white now and very skinny. I never seemed to really miss anyone or anything until I could hear them or see pictures.  Her voice even if she didn't know whom I was seemed to calm me down. Sometimes I worried it wasn't her and I had forgotten her voice but I doubt that will ever happen. I listened to them talk for a while before I slipped under my bed cover and curled into a small ball.  I let the sheet drape onto my face as I laid listing to my own breath and the occasional burst of loud laughter. I could tell when more people were starting to arrive by the footsteps that sounded above me. I didn't recognize most of the voices besides family that was over frequently.  I learned to match faces from pictures with voices to try and imagine what they looked like as they walked just above my head. I want to cry or scream or both but I can't, I can't make any noise or they will find me. Sometimes I think that's not an awful thing, what's a life if you can do nothing with it.  I always dreamed of places beyond my room but always assumed I would never see them. So as I lay there I imagined this being my party I imagined that I was going to go see things be someone. But the aggressive sounds of screams and cheers snap me back into my reality. I could hear everyone run outside as my brother left the building to a test that would decide his future.  
Once all the voices were gone I stood back up and went to my dresser where I changed into the only nice dress I owned that was my mother's old one.  It was blue with white stripes on the sides and went down to my knees. I then combed my hair that was all the way down to my hips. I knew looking nice didn't matter since nobody would see me but it was nice to pretend just maybe I would need to know how to look presentable some day.  As I was tying my hair into two braids my mother walked downstairs. And we stared at each other, neither of us spoke or even moved. It was as if someone had paused both of us.
“It's been three weeks”, she spoke strongly and strictly.  
My mother has never known how to be very compassionate but it was fine.  I got to go upstairs so anything would be fine. I used to have to dress like my brother when going upstairs just in case someone was to peek through a window.  But today I dressed like my mother. I put on her blue jacket and pants and pulled my hair into the same tight bun as her. For some reason, this moment felt different than all the other times.  It felt new and different I figured it was because my brother was gone. As I stepped onto each step I made my way to the top and slipped through the small opening that allows me into my brothers room.  My mother went ahead of me and into each room to make sure all the windows were closed. I proceed to the living room where I was allowed to look out the window. The ground was brown and cracked just as I remembered, some lightly falling snow was brushed on the ground, the world looks as if it had been painted with white.  I would give up everything I had to go outside for ten seconds, but I knew that would never happen. I was allowed upstairs until my brother got home then I was to go back into my room. I intended to use every second of time I could stare at the real world. Then I saw it, my brothers black car rolling slowly down the grass up to our house.  I felt I should be excited that he was home and I would have the opportunity to see him again, but I wasn't ready to go back into my bedroom. The black tinted windows stopped me from seeing in the car and what colored jacket he was wearing. When he stepped out of the car I saw it, a blue jacket he had made group one, but he didn't look very excited about it.  
   I was confused why he was even home, he should be leaving for a more advanced school by now.  I was proud of him but the blue didn't fit him like I thought it would. The jacket covered his hands and his hair was cut short, he looked smarter than I thought he could.  Don't get me wrong he's smart but I never would I guess smart enough for group one.
   “I love you so much,” my mother whispers as she walked to the door behind me and locked it.  
   “I'm sorry,”  my father kissed my head.
I then saw it, the other people.  My brother was being followed in by three large men in gray suits and mesh masks over their faces, government officials.  
   “They're going to find me!” I ran to my mother and tried to push her from the door, “you have to let me through!”
   “I can't do that,”  she said softly she was crying and wouldn't look at me.
I wasn't strong enough to push her aside and from the glaring look, my father gave me made me think he wouldn't let me either.  I was crying but not because I was sad, I was angry and confused. I knew my face was red and splotchy I knew there was nothing I could do but stand there in my room and wait to be taken away and killed.  Had they made a deal? Why would they throw me away as you do and an old piece of trash? I couldn't move I couldn't do anything so I screamed as loud as I can. The angry filled me every part of me was on fire.  It found its way through my fists and my throat and spun through my head.
   “How could you!” I yelled at my mother but she still wouldn't look at me.  I decided that by the look of the men in the driveway I had about five minutes to find a way out.  I pushed the idea that my own mother was giving me up into the back of my mind and jump towards her.  I could feel my fist shove into her skin and my hands push her down and away from the door, I grabbed the small circle key and shoved it into the door and twisted shoving the door open.  Almost there, just a little longer, I told myself trying to get through the doorway.
   “You stop that! That is your mother, this is for your own good!” My father grabbed me and pulled me away as I squirmed my feet just above the floor.  
   “How is this my own good, what will they do to me?”  I was screaming the words as my warm tears rolled down my face.  
   “This is the only way he could go to college and get a good job, you were the only one who could make that happen for Axl.”  I stopped my squirming and shoved out of his arms, I understood now. My brother used me as a leverage to get him into group one, and my parents helped him do it.  “They want to know how your brain works since you've been away from the world for so long, it's for science you have to understand that.”
   I did understand it, they wanted him to succeed.  I knew why they wanted to know how my brain worked I was an alien to the world at this point,  I was different everyone is scared of the different. Are they? They where, they used to be. I really hadn't seen the world, this was my chance but I couldn't figure out how to take it.  My head was spinning and my arms were shaking as I felt the needle slide into my wrist, some sort of drug. I watch the needle fall to the ground while I slipped down with it. Then it all went black, my first time outside in nine years was my unconscious body being dragged to a car that was going to experiment on me.  I was nothing but a lab rat to them and nothing but a ticket to a better life for my family.
   My eyes forced themselves open and then came the panic.  My breath was fast and my heart was racing. I felt like everything was wrong and I couldn't change it I couldn't make myself calm down.  After a few moments, I realized what had happened why I wasn't in my room for a change. But this was not what I was expecting at all. The grass was green and there were trees and flowers planted along long brick sidewalks twisting through the grounds of green grass.  The building where small and made of stone the only thing that reminded me of the situation was the twenty-foot tall spiked fence in a perfect square around the area. Outside of the fence, the ground turned brown and cracked and the trees have less and less living leaves.  Once I come to my senses I sit up from where I was lying on the grass and examine myself for any injuries, nothing as far as I could tell. I wasn't wearing what I had left in I instead looked like I had come from a hospital but not as a patient as a nurse. I had been to a small hospital once when I had broken my arm but I have quickly pulled away from further questions so they didn't discover who I really was.  I was in a blue t-shirt and blue pants made of a rubbery material, I had on no shoes and my hair was curling around my neck and down to my waist. And hanging from my neck was a necklace with a silver ring filled in with a dark wave shaped circle. I don't know how I didn't notice before but I wasn't alone.
As I scanned the grounds I realized there were boys and girls in the same position they were lying on the grass with the same clothes and necklaces.  They all looked eaten with confusion and fear. No one seemed to move just looked at each other with blank stares, I was the first to get up. I lifted my body from the grass and nearly tripped on myself trying to take a step.  Next followed a boy whom I recognized and then everyone else, there was ten of us in total if I counted right. My eyes kept moving from the front gate waiting for someone to come inside and the boy who stood up after me. Then a group of men in the grey suits came outside the first building surrounding a man in a dark grey suit.
   “Hello, I'm Doctor. Lazaros you will call me as so, I'm here to welcome you all to group five, you have been sent here so we can help all of you.  We are here to help you start a new life now that the population is under control.” He smiled a smug smile and gestured the men in grey suits towards us.  They did as so and walked around us pushing us into the first building to my right, it was almost too small for us. “You will be assigned living quarters and your daily schedule, you may not speak unless you are told too or leave your cabin unless instructed.”  The sound of his voice filled the room and circled through everyone's ears. His words were cold and brittle and left the hair on my arms sticking up. The silence in the room was almost unbearable. The silence was worse than the words he had spoken. It’s like there was no one for miles as it forced itself into all of our ears and through our bodies.  For the last eight years I had been alone in a dark basement and now in a room of people, I felt more lonely than ever. Name call began quickly giving each person in the room a cabin and announcing their names.
   “Aria Sloan, Cabin 10.”  It grabbed my throat and made my stomach turn, that was my name they called my real name.  I realized for the first time in my life I was me, that's the most terrifying part of this.  
I walked through the building and to the stone path, one, two, five, six, eight, nine, finally ten. This room only had one bed and no one else in it so I assumed I would be alone.  It was a small grey room with a bed and a chest full of blankets. The dust was piled up so high I might of well been knee deep in it. My eyes could barely see what was in the room around me.  I twisted my arms around the pieces of sheet and blankets and tucked it onto the bed. My legs seemed to slide under the covers before I Realized it.
I had never felt such cold in my entire life.  No Matter the number of blankets I added it found its way under them.  It found its way into my lungs as I inhaled and into everything else when I exhaled.  It’s a feeling I never thought I could get used too as it wrapped itself around my body.  It was mid-July, it should never be cold in mid-July like it was cold right now. I scanned the room for a crack somewhere but instead found a small blinking light in the wall, I knew exactly what it was as I stared at it from the blankets, I was being watched.
In the morning I didn't wake up where I was out the night before.  I followed the walls to a door and the floor and all around me I was strapped down.  My stomach dropped and turned and sweat dripped down my forehead. My breath stood still I went to wipe the sweat from my face but couldn't.  It was as if my arms had been glued to the table. Nurses passed the room with there needles and drugs and other equipment to each of us. I felt like I had run miles without stopping.  Silence filled the room, this must be a way to help us I just wasn't sure how.
I dragged my legs in between two other girls down the hall.  A room with tables and a small kitchen. We piled in slowly and sat almost all at different tables.  A door slammed and the click of a lock which was a sound I was far too used to follow. I sat at a small round table that was vacant and scanned the room, I wasn't alone for long though.  The boy I had recognized near me and swung his leg around one of the chairs so he was sitting on it backward.
   “Jamey,” he stuck his hand out to meet mine.  Jamey was me and Axles close friend when we were younger, I thought he had moved away.
   “Why are you here!”  It slipped out I knew I shouldn't have asked he didn't even know who I Was.
   “Excuse me? Little personal,”  It was but we used to tell each other everything it was a habit.
“Do you not recognize me.”
“Should I?”  His voice was the most confused I had ever heard it.  He looked at me like he had sat next to the group crazy lady.
“Aria Sloan,”  I smiled as big as I could, the first time in a while.
“Sloan? I only know an Axl Sloan I'm sorry.”
“I'm his twin sister I would have been Axl every Monday and Wednesday when we knew
each other.”  Frozen, that is the only good way to describe him at this moment completely
frozen as if someone had clicked pause on his life.  
Despite the confusion of the day and the pain in both my arms from the needles entering them, it was nice to have a familiar face.  His movement was stopped and he stared blankly, I shouldn't have told him he shared his deepest nine-year-old secrets with a lie.
“That makes sense,”  his head bobbed up and down as he talked like he had discovered a new species.  “You did always seem different a lot, I thought you were just strange.”
“Can I ask why you're here now,”  His family was wealthy and had no need to send him somewhere for someone to help him he was perfectly fine.  But I remember the screaming late at night though you could tell it was his parents we never talked about it.  
“My parents sent me here when they found out I didn't make group one, didn't want me anymore or thought I needed help.  Why are you here your family did an amazing job at hiding you.” His eyes fidgeted around the room changing the subject.
“I don't know, I should have seen it coming.”
“How could you see something like that coming?”
“My brother told me he was sorry before he left for the test, didn't know why.”  
His lips moved but not fast enough, that's when the ringing started.  A loud screech filled the room. I hit the floor hard and watch the others do so too.  Hands held up to our years covering them curled on the floor. From the floor, I could see it, a small blinking light under all the tables.
The light was drained from the cabin as the sun set and I stare up at the ceiling.  My eyes could barely see my surrounding. I grabbed my things in a small bag of wrapped sheets and ran too cabin 6.  The door slid open with ease and I slipped inside, it was significantly warmer than my room. I slipped to the only bed in the room and nudged Jamey.
   “don’t talk follow me,”  I whispered as quietly as possible.  Blankets piled too look like he was still there we slipped out of the room into the darkness.  
   “What's going on?”  his eyes where blotchy and face red and tired it must have been earlier than I thought.  
   “They don’t want to help us they don’t care about us I should have known that.”
   “What do you mean my mom said it was going to help me move up?”  
   “My dad said I was coming for science, I know what he meant now, the needles and strange situation do not seem odd to you?”  
   “Needles?  When where there needles?”
   “They have been knocking us out and injecting us with chemicals and testing us, I noticed the cameras last night.”
   “Cameras!”
   “Be quiet! Cameras they are everywhere I noticed when my room got really cold last night I knew it wasn’t natural it was a test.”
   “Come on.”
He grabbed my arm and I watch the world pass behind me we came to a stop behind the first building then the second third and so on.  We approached the tall ominous building in the front of the compound. I slipped onto the back wall and found an open window.
   “Two weeks and the extinction begin.” A strange voice said.
   “Do they suspect anything?”
   “Not a thing,  keep them occupied find the smartest of them to join the team the rest are sent away they are all washed of there memories and personality in two weeks you may commence experiments until then.”
   “yes, sir.”  
   The sound of the door slamming was the only noise you could hear unless you could hear my heart beating which I was pretty sure you could.  
   “Meet here every day we leave in a week and a half, tell everyone.”  My head nodded for me and I stumbled back to my cabin.
   Seven days until escape.
One week until we had to leave but seemed like it would be a lifetime.  I shoveled food into my mouth as Jamey and I spread notes throughout the room.  It was like a swarm of bees towards us when the talk started of what was going to happen to us.  I felt suffocated in the middle of all of the questions, but there's nothing I could do about it.  
   Five days
I haven't slept in days people come all night for meetings about how we would escape.  I had discovered three things I decided I needed to know.
    One, I am an awful public speaker and the only thing worse than the talking was the shaking from having to talk.
   Two, there are two different people when they hear they are going to die.  The ones that are especially nice to you and the ones who are especially rude.
   Three,  Life is much more exciting when you don’t live in a basement.  
   Two days
“There's no reason to jump the fence,”  my mouth was full but it didn’t stop me from talking.  “We should sprint through the front gate.”
“But the guards are at the front so we would immediately be caught!”  
“Ok but half of us have spent our lives in basements and rooms never going outside and now you expect us to scale a wall?”
“Front gate it is.”  It had almost become a game of us arguing over what our plan should be.  We had finally figured it out though and I was prepared for every situation.  
Escape day
I look around at my small cabin room a piece of me was going to miss it even if it brought so much pain.  These four walls are where I was me for the first time in my entire life. The ground was cold on my bare feet and the warm air went into through my blue cloths.  The lunchroom had never been so quiet as circle dropped into my bowl. Whispers circled the room but that was all, today was the day. I stuffed my small sheet bag with apple and water trying to be as inconspicuous as I possibly could.  
   We all met where we always did by the front gate.
   “I'm going to open the gate and you all run as fast as you can,”  Jamey whispered so quietly it was like it was swept up with the wind.  Nodds filled the group.
   “Be careful,” I grabbed his arm and he nodded in agreement.  Laughter filled the group as we all began to talk. Heads turned as the rolling sound of metal moving filled out ears.
   “One, two, three!”  I screamed it and I smiled and I didn’t care if anyone could hear me.  We sprinted all ten of us through the field outside of the compound. Everything was going just as planned.  The happiness quickly faded when blue vile started to shoot from the sky. Three people were hit lying in the dirt I stopped at a girl named Sophie.  Bright blue spread through her veins and foam ran out of her mouth.
   “Sophie!” come on you have to get up, no response.  The hardest thing you can do is leave a friend in a field while her brain is being washed away from the rest of her but that’s what I did.  I kept running as fast as I could. I couldn’t see the end of the field of who was left behind us but all that mattered was I keep running. I understood so much more than I did three weeks ago.  I knew why my brother was sorry and why no one knew about group five but I also wouldn’t change it. No amount of needled could now take away the fact that I existed for a change. I didn’t know what was going to happen next but I did know that I was Aria Sloan and by the time I stopped running everyone was going to know that.