It’s raining. Which is rare because the weather never really fluctuates from sunny and 73 degrees, but the constant downpour isn’t unexpected. The whole nation was informed of this weeks ago; authorities called it a ‘slight malfunction in nature’ that couldn’t be helped. I read somewhere, in one of those magazines that you find in a waiting room to keep yourself busy, that the climate before the Reformation used to be difficult to pinpoint exactly; the chance of rain or snow was measured in percentages, weather updates were issued frequently. How inconvenient, I had thought at the time. To live life in unpredictable conditions like that. I was young when I thought that. Naive, too.

It hasn’t rained like this since a year and a half ago, but for some reason, I remember that day incredibly well. I can still picture walking through the front door and seeing her on the window seat, gazing out into the rain pouring down in torrents. I don’t like the rain that much—it clings to your clothes and kills your motivation—but Hyerin did. She was fascinated by it.

To be honest, I guess I should start from the very beginning. That would be a lot less confusing in the long run, wouldn’t it? Well, in the past, perfection had been something tangible, so close but not within reach. There were illnesses—cancer, heart disease, and the like—and starvation and aching old age. So the government decided to eradicate the detrimental parts of society and instill perfection.

And the Reformation began. 

It started centuries ago. After years of hunching over lab equipment, a scientist had finally put together enough information to go ahead with the experiments. They observed DNA, inserted certain genes and extracted others. Finally, they injected the ideal genetic make up into a womb and embryo, and the very first modified baby was born. Several more years after that was spent fine-tuning this process until it was flawless; they could add or subtract something here and there so each newborn would grow up into a person with their own unique ‘flair’ or something like that. You know, as unique as carbon copy can get. These modified humans, are labeled the New Generation.

The second part of the Reformation was to tear everything down, and build everything back up. It was taken in small strides: a city or a small part of a country at a time. Demolishing buildings, getting rid of the debris, and constructing a new place is time consuming so there are still cities pre-Reformation that need to be reconstructed today. It’s a bit depressing, seeing the world that used to be your past crumbling away like the edges of worn out paper. But I guess it wasn’t really my past. It was the Old Generation’s past. I don’t think I really have the right to be sad.

Afterwards, the government placed restrictions on society. Only certain couples—the ones with the most desirable conditions for raising offspring—were allowed to have one child that was required to be modified for the New Generation. Population, in turn, decreased, but it was what the government had wanted. It was decided that there wasn’t enough room for billions of people. Eventually, that rule was no longer enforced, everyone was allowed two children and genetic modification was only available to the well-off or the wealthy. The New Generation rose up in society, and the menial tasks was shoved into the unwanted hands of the non-modified. 

Since then, almost everything has been adjusted towards perfection. People, technology. The weather. 

For a while, I thought that everything was perfect. But I hadn’t known what it was like outside of the Main Central, the center of the New world, before I met her. I was just another Central boy, an ignorant and oblivious kid who didn’t bother to notice anything outside of his clean cut, black-and-white idea of the world he lived in. But I was lucky; not everyone gets to meet a person like Hyerin.

Hyerin. That wasn’t even her real name.

But it’s raining, and all I can think about is her. I remember it all: the way I met her during a storm, the way the rain stuck to her hair and she was shivering yet she looked so alive. The second time it rained when I was with her, she turned to me with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “The rain washes everything away.” She said after a while. “Please don’t wash away, Luhan.”

I didn’t know what she meant by that. I still don’t, but the look that she gave me when she said that...it was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve seen a lot of sad situations in my sheltered life besides when somebody dies in an Old movie, but it still wasn’t great to experience. If she was here, I’d ask her why she asked me something like that. If she was here.

Though I don’t know the meaning behind her words, the ironic thing is that while she told me not to wash away with the rain, she was burned away by fire; her existence charred and indistinguishable. The last time I saw her, had been about a year ago. I caught only a glimpse of her, and then she was gone. The building had been burning, the heat rolling off my skin in uncomfortable and chafing movements like it was a second layer of clothing. I remember my eyes couldn’t stop blinking from the smoke and no matter how much we trained for these kind of situations, it would never make the burn of breathing in black fumes hurt any less.

Afterwards, they told me that she had lied to me, but I already knew who she was. Even she didn’t have to tell me anything for me to understand. What did it matter what kind of DNA she had or what she did in her past? I loved her anyway. That’s the thing about the New world: everyone’s forgotten what love is. Not the four lettered word in the dictionary, but the feeling of excitement in the pit of your stomach and the constant worrying about what the other is doing, thinking, dreaming of. We’ve forgotten how to feel anything that’s genuine and not constructed. 

Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I didn’t meet Hyerin. Would I have ended up like every other person of the New Generation? Manufactured to feel nothing but indifference? To not question the rules? Other times I wonder how she did it; I don’t know how it had been so easy for Hyerin to enter my life. Looking back on it now, she was brought in by a breeze from a distant storm, calm but whispering of trouble. But that kind of trouble, was easy to deal with.

It was the society that was the kind of trouble that killed.