Bound

Gorim has inspired me to put my little prologue to a book Im about 20,000 words into here on this dandy little site. At first I was afraid of having actual people judge it, as we can be mean sometimes, but then I though, 'heck If Im going to get this published before I go to college, then real people need to see it!' ^^ Hope you like it, but if you don’t--please tell me. Id love to know what y'all think, and any advice, tips etc etc. Please excuse my grammar... Im suckish at it, and Im having a friend help me as far as that stuff goes so don’t get to fed up with it -cowers-

Soulmates
By Mrs. Cinder Rathbone
Started July 30, 2009

Prologue:

A Thursday. Most everybody who had been in the City Councils meeting room remembered the day, as it was the most important one of the year, 2411. It was around twilight that the City Council was meeting for its usual debates about things that were truly unimportant, but made the whole idea of a City Council seem like what the people thought actually mattered, in the city of New Angeles. Today was the third time a heated discussion was scheduled, on the subject of what to do with the growing amount of high-schoolers who claimed the disgusting, grey school uniforms they had to wear were causing them to become depressed and fail tests. Mrs. Buzz, a shrill woman with a high-pitched, bird-like voice had become so animated over the discussion, she had abandoned her chair, and was walking around the room pointing and yelling at all people opposing her opinion. A hush fell over the Council, and Mrs. Buzz felt a tad smug they were all finally listening to her (as they naturally should have! She had not been elected Secretary of the Council for nothing!) What Mrs. Buzz had failed to notice, was the rather loud, hard sound of the huge doors to the meeting room, opening then, closing.
The flustered woman finally turned around, and even Mrs. Buzz could not keep the horror and shock off her face. A young girl, the age of her own darling daughter was leaned against the wall next to the door. Mrs. Buzz couldn’t help but notice the freckles that sprinkled the girls’ highly-defined cheeks. The strange guest was tall for her approximate age, and all too skinny. Her hair lay flat and tangled, flowing down the young woman’s back in waves of unstyled chocolate brown-colored hair, that Maria Buzz (Mrs. Buzzes daughter, of course) would have admired, and sneered at if, Mrs. Buzz knew a thing or two about her protégée.
A strong-willed, handsome man, that Mrs. Buzz had been squawking at only a few moments ago stood up. Mrs. Buzz knew him well, James ‘Jimmy’ Daniels, the Vice President of New Angeles very own City Council, only second on the authority-level to his wife, Corinne Daniels, President of said Council. Jimmy Daniels, maybe twenty years younger than Mrs. Buzz stood, staring at the girl, and the look on his face mirrored Mrs. Buzzes exact feelings about the new-comer, girl. At last the great Jimmy Daniels had agreed on something with Mrs. Buzz. If only he could see the importance of keeping the uniforms grey, now, Mrs. Buzz would be able to call this, her most exciting, special day in a long while.
“Who—Who did this to you, young lady?” Jimmy asked, and Mrs. Buzz finally noticed the red splotches on the girls plain, white t-shirt. It was not some stylish design, but sticky, warm, gushing blood. Mrs. Buzz heard a woman gasp as she came to the same realization Mrs. Buzz, herself had just come to a moment or so earlier. This girl was dying. Mrs. Buzz was not a doctor, but she knew a thing or two about death, as she herself was a widow. Corinne Daniels had paled a few shades, something Mrs. Buzz found she had never thought could happen, as Corinne had always looked as white as a ghost compared to her olive-toned husband. Mrs. Buzz noticed with some jealousy, the way the two love-birds held onto each other for dear life, so like Charles and her had oh so many years ago.
The stranger, with a hollow, dead look in her eyes, made of only skin and bones, opened her mouth and Mrs. Buzz could imagine this girls mouth set in a defiant smirk as she herself had worn so very much at these meetings. The girl looked at each person in the room, as though searching for a friend. Mrs. Buzz was then struck by how odd it was nobody had yet to recognize her. This girl spilling blood on the Councils plush, cream-colored carpet had no friends or family among the forty-seven Council members.
“My name,” the girl breathed and Mrs. Buzz knew the room had just grown ten times quieter. Even the Santa Ana winds which usually howled this time of year had seemed to come to a dead-stop as the Council hung onto every word this foreigner had to say. “My name is Amy, and I do not come from Los Angeles,” she continued, and Mrs. Buzz had to search her memory of ninth-grade city history to remember the old name of New Angeles. “I am a worker from the plantations outside your grand city, and I have come to beseech the people of New Angeles,” although the girl seemed to be closer to death every moment, her voice rang through the Council Hall, and Mrs. Buzz could not help but compare her to her child once more. Weak Maria had a shrill, high voice similar to her own, whereas the girl, Amy had a voice more charismatic and melodious. It was similar to Corinne Daniels voice when she was addressing the whole City during a televised event on one or more of the local channels.
“The people who I work with are all half-starved. Imagine seeing hundreds, and hundreds of young girls and boys just like me. So thin, so weak,” she murmured the last four words as though remembering. Mrs. Buzz thought, for a moment, that Amy had just died right here in front of the forty-three person Council, but was relieved to hear the girl push on. “We work to supply New Angeles, New Francisco, and New Diego with food stuff, clothing, and other goods. We work long hours and have no pay, as we are slaves in our own right, or were born to slaves,” she explained.
Jimmy Daniels once more spoke, but this time his voice was much smoother and calmer, “Amy darling, do you mean to say a War-Lord has kid-napped hundreds of children? Do you mean to say you are being forced to work for no pay, with no freedoms, or free-time?” he asked her. Amy had started to shake her head in the negative before the good man even finished what he had just said.
“No sir, yes and no, sir,” she said and the Amy’s eyes closed a long moment, “I mean to say that suit you are wearing, the one you believe to have been manufactured by machines with no human-beings having to supervise, or work at all to make, was hand-stitched. Probably by somebody I know. I know its hard for you city folk to understand, but everything you though New America is, is a lie. Equality, freedom, compassion toward all people no matter whom they are…” the girls compelling, harsh brown eyes grew darker.
“The agents of New America do not want you to know this, but everything that had to be made or tended to was done so by a slave like myself, and thee government knows about it. From New York City, to Dallas, to here in Los Angeles, for every one citizen of the great cities, there are three to four slaves, each assigned to a different aspect of our clientele’s life. We are used for growing your food, sewing your clothes, and anything else you may desire. We are the children of what used to be the United States of Americas poorest citizens, and other undesirable people. I am but an innocent girl whose ancestor a few generations back was a criminal, and now Im stuck paying for it. Does that seem fair?” the supposed-slave asked the Council. Mrs. Buzz felt a deep desire to raise her left arm, as the Council always did when they were voting no on something. She actually witnessed a hand-full of people do so.
Amy looked over them, her eyes no longer so powerful, and awe-inspiring. She had slid down the wall, and was now leaned against it lying down. Mrs. Buzz noticed Jimmy Daniels had left his wife’s side, and was now crouching down next tp the girl. The murmured a few things to each other, Amy looking desperate. Finally Mrs. Buzz watched as the Vice President of New Angeles City Council nodded in the positive, then leaned down and kissed the girl on the forehead. Amy smiled weakly and whispered something more, before closing her eyes and finally relaxing her tight muscles. Looking at the girl Mrs. Buzz for a third or fourth time could compare her to her own little darling daughter. Amy looked weak and young as she, ‘slept,’ and Mrs. Buzz had to rethink the age she had put to the girl when she had first came in the room.
A few hours later Mrs. Buzz sat in her late husband’s rocking chair in front of her flat-screen television, a very old model, and watched the local channel in shock. Not one thing was said about today’s strange meeting, and Mrs. Buzz could not imagine why. She could not imagine the streets filling with newly awakened citizens of New Angeles, rebelling against the government after hearing a young girl named Amy tell of the horrors the government was keeping from them. Her thoughts did not shift to this subject, nor did they come to the conclusion Jimmy Daniels would lead the New Rebellion in their efforts to free the slaves and bring truth, equality and freedom to the whole of New America. She didn’t come to any of these conclusions, but the subject of what color the students uniforms should be did not come back to her either. Slowly but surely Mrs. Buzz was waking up and smelling the metaphorical coffee as she let herself, came to the realization that New America had to change. The lives of all the people Mrs. Buzz held close to her heart, depended on it…

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The world of Soulmates is loosely based on that of the Uglies Trilogy, Skinned, The Giver, and Night World.

Im still working in a synopsis that sounds good, but here’s a little bad, version:

The story revolves around Payson Daniels, daughter to Jimmy Daniels, founder of the rebel group called New Rebels. Payson lives in the futuristic city of New Angeles, with her mother and twin-sister, Angela. In New America, every three years sixteen-eighteen year olds receive a test, and later, a letter that helps to identify who there Soulmate is. Payson has never worried about being stuck with some loser as her Soulmate, as she is positive her best-friend and partner-in-crime, Daman, is the only guy for her. In just a few days, Payson will receive the e-mail that will bind Daman to her, for life. At last he will notice her in that way, and no more girls will ever go after her man. Obviously, things don’t go the way Payson wanted, and instead she’s been paired with the current leader of the New Rebels. As Payson struggles to get over her lost-love, Daman, and cope with her new-found Soulmate, Quinn, she must also come to the realization not everything is as great as it seems in New America. Could her nutty father have been right about the country being all that horrible? Its all too much for her to handle, and to top it off Payson has to deal with her Soulmates, annoying current girlfriend who also, may not be what she seems...