. . .

I traced the back of my head again, feeling the ugly, circular port that was implanted in the base of my neck. I abominated the cold metal. But I hadn't had much of a choice in whether I wanted it or not. It was just a given. It was a source of excitement for most kids my age. But they were just stupid. All they care about, is seeing this "amazing" virtual reality world you could access using these ports. They wanted to join the Other Side, where all people, aged 18 and up resigned. But I was perfectly fine where I was. I liked running outside, feeling the mud between my toes, and smelling flowers in the air. They just didn't appreciate the beauty around us. They want to be locked up in their rooms, designing little avatars of themselves for when they go to the Other side. I lived the first 5 years of my life thinking that I was alone in this world obsessed with technology. Those 5 years were miserable for me. But on the day of my 5th birthday, I found a friend. It was like God's gift to me, an apology for making me different. I still clearly remember that first meeting. It holds a special place in my heart, a day where I was purely innocent, and was desperate for a friend. 

I had been sitting in the green field, staring into the Forest, my back to the Other Side. A big daydreamer I was, and at that moment, I had been pondering what lay beyond the forest, and why the Government took such strict measures to ensure that no one ventured into it. A boy sat next to me, surprising me. I had no friends. I was the freak who had arrived at Little Ville 2 years younger than the normal age. He asked me what I thought of the wall of soldiers lining the forest enterence, and the tall electric fence behind them. It was the right question to ask. And for some reason, my intuition told me I could trust him. I spilled my story. I told him everything.

"The Government claimes it was for our own protection from the beasts that lay within, but I distrust them. There were many nights where I neglected taking my daily sleeping pill and just laid there in bed, listening to the silence, the complete, dead, silence. Every night I spent awake, I felt as though something was wrong. It seemed too quiet. It didn't match the Legends. My mother had told stories to me as a baby, told me the forbidden Legends. I had listened, gurgling quietly, and absorbing the stories that came out of my mother's mouth. Of course at such a young age, I couldn't comprehend what my mother was saying, but I remembered tone, the pitch, the words. Another one of my secrets. My memory. I have a eidetic memory. I can't experience anything without having it imprinted into my brain. Everything I see, smell, touch, and hear stays with me for the rest of my life. This made me a bit more intelligent than most my age. It was at the age of 3 that I finally deciphered the meaning of the sounds she made. And those Legends that she told me... they would set me apart from the rest of them. But as I made that discovery, again, on my 3rd birthday, my mother was taken away. I had no one left. I never had a father, he refused to stay with my mother to take care of me. I never even saw his face. 

By then I had a general understanding of the society. You receive your connecting port at the age of 18, which allowed you to connect to a virtual reality world, called Illusion. At that age, you move to the Other Side. The Other Side, was where the adults lived. They lived a free life, able to log into a virtual reality w