Write, Wrote, Written discussion

This is the first chapter for a book I am writing called Terminator. It is a dystopian book that is similar to the Hunger Games. Please tell be what you think!!

TERMINATOR
Chapter I
The morning light streamed through the forest trees as I tread along the path to the goat pen. The cool wind blew my long, black hair and my feet squished in the thick mud. My new job as a fourteen year old was to feed the chickens, but my sixteen year old lame sister Hazel was sick so I had to do her job of goats. Each child in our community once they turned ten had an assigned group of animals to tend to. I was thirteen so I did chickens with the other fourteen year olds. Even in the other communities, who had different focus projects, jobs were given to the ten year olds. Our community was the poorest: ‘community number 29: farm animals’. The group on the other side of our wall was ‘community number 28: science’. 28 was one of the richest. We just had farm animals, but still I loved it. I couldn’t wait until I was seventeen and I could tend to the horses. As I approached the pen the goats bleated in hope of their morning meal. I didn’t like goats, but I couldn’t resist the babies. I reached through the fence and stroked the littlest one’s head.
“Hey little goat.” I said. “I’m hungry too!”
Then I remembered that my mother had almost finished preparing the morning meal with the other women when I had left. I had to hurry in order to make it on time. I hurriedly dumped the bag of grain into the feed trough and filled up the water bucket.
“Bye goats!” I yelled to them as I ran back down the path.
As I made my way to the chicken coop, I thought about what I needed to do today before school: feed the goats and chickens, sweep after the morning meal, and get baby Anya dressed. Tomorrow I had dishes after the meal. Ugh! I hated dishes. All of a sudden I remembered: Terminator Day was tomorrow. I wouldn’t be doing dishes.
The Terminator was what everyone dreaded. I usually couldn’t bear to think of it, but out in the calm, quiet wood it seemed to be okay to face my fears. Each week, the Regime sent one of the fifty two communities into the Terminator. The Terminator was a giant obstacle course, filled with anything deadly you could think. And that wasn’t the only thing: after a half hour, the Terminator was flooded. The goal, when it was your community’s turn to go in, was to make it out before the floods came. If you didn’t, well, I didn’t like to think of that. Our community’s week was usually the twenty-ninth week of the year, which was this week. I had gone in twelve times already, but I could only remember seven times. The horrible part was how many people died. There were ten families in each community, but each year each community lost about five to ten people to the Terminator. Even our family had lost a child: Rowan, my brother had died five years ago in the Terminator when he was six. I still cried whenever I thought about him.
All of a sudden I was jerked back to reality when I heard my friend Taren calling my name. Taren had been my friend since I could remember. We did everything together.
“Willow, Willow!” he called.
“I’m coming!” I yelled back. I jogged the rest of the way to the coop. Taren was standing there, holding his box of feed. His dirty-blond hair hung in his eyes as usual. He was always pushing it out of his eyes.
“I’ve been waiting forever for you!” Taren said impatiently. “Where have you been? Why did you come from the goat pens?”
“I was feeding the goats for Hazel. She’s sick.”
“Oh! I bet you liked that!” he said teasingly.
I laughed. Everyone in our community knew how much I hated goats. Taren and I both loved horses, and we couldn’t wait until we were seventeen and could tend to and ride them. After school we often ran to the corral to watch the seventeen year olds ride them.
We walked together into the coop and began to collect eggs. Even though I liked horses better, I had to admit that gathering the different colored eggs was pretty cool. Even Taren loved it.
As we gathered the eggs, we got on the subject of the Terminator.
“So, are you scared? About tomorrow?” said Taren..
“Yeah.” I said slowly “Are you?”
“Kind of. I’ve been training a bit.”
“You have? How?” I asked, surprised. I didn’t know that anyone in our community had been training.
“Well, I’ve been swimming in the pond a lot and I’ve been doing exercises with Axel.”
“Oh. I am really scared.” I admitted. “I am so scared someone else I love will die! And you know about the whole water think. I am gonna do horrible in the training.” I shuddered. My greatest fear was of drowning. “Why does the Regime have to do this anyway?”
“You know why. Ever since the Famine, the Regime knows that there’s a possibility that there won’t be enough food for everyone. So they have to get rid of some people.” Taren sighed. I could see tears in his bright blue eyes. He also had lost someone in the Terminator: his father just two years ago.
“Yes, but why so brutally? They could just tell people to stop having babies.”
“Maybe they want it to be brutal, I don’t know. Maybe they think it’s cool.”
“That’s so sick! Why would they like watching people die?”
“People can be wicked sometimes, Willow. That’s how things are.”
We finished gathering eggs and then raced back with the other fourteen year olds to the central gathering place where we ate every morning. Since tomorrow was Terminator day we had to do a special training exercise in order to prepare. We had just got into the gathering place when I saw them.

Thank you! I cant believe you like it!

Here is the second chapter:

Chapter II

Hundreds of tanks surrounded the gathering place. Armed soldiers stood around the tables as the nervous women served food. When Taren and I slowly walked to our family’s tables the soldiers came up to us.
“What are your names and identification numbers?” one of them asked gruffly.
I glanced anxiously over at Taren, “Um, I’m Willow and my number is 4239.”
Taren said, “I’m Taren and my number is 8675.”
The other guard wrote something in a little book he held. “Go to your tables and sit down.”
I looked over at Taren mirrored the look of confusion I must have had. I walked quickly to my table where my Mom, Dad, and Anya already sat, looking equally confused. Hazel was probably still in our living unit resting. All of a sudden over a loudspeaker one of the soldiers was talking.
“You might be wondering why we are here. Well I am here to tell you. There have been rebellions in communities 50, 51, and 52.”
Rebellions! There had never been a rebellion that I could remember. And the fifties? They were the richest communities as their focus subjects were banking, law, and soldiers. Why would they rebel?
The soldier went on, “As a result of these rebellions, the Regime has ordered that all the soldiers in the state must spread into the fifty two communities and keep peace. The scheduled Terminator day tomorrow for community 29 will still go on. Please go on with your daily activities as usual.”
I looked back to my family. My mom and dad looked very worried. Baby Anya gurgled happily as usual. I smiled sadly at her.
“Dad, why did the fifties rebel?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Willow. Their Terminator day isn’t for so long. I don’t know what would incite them to rebel.” My dad looked over at my mom, who had already been looking not so well leading up to this week. She looked like she had been crying for a long time. He held her hand.
“It will be okay, Fiona. We will come out okay. Hazel and Willow are strong; they can make it.”
“That’s not who I’m worried about, Phillip. This is my first year with a baby. How will I get Anya through?” er voice broke.
My dad was quiet. He looked tired and sad. Just then, the food server for the day, Taren’s mom Regina, brought the plate of potato pancakes and eggs to our table. I scooped Anya some and then served myself. I had to fill up for the big day tomorrow.
_____________________________________________________________________________
A woman with long, straight, graying hair sat at the head of a table in a large room that overlooked a walled city. Also at the table sat about ten other people who all looked to the woman at the head of the table. She was talking to them intently.
“It will work. The past years have been minor compared to what we could do. We need to do this! Only this extension can accomplish what we need. She didn’t overcome the last one, she won’t this time.”
A man interrupted. “But what if it doesn’t work? What if she does overcome it? What if the same thing happens that happened that happened fifty years ago?”
“Yes.” Said a woman with dark curly hair and glasses. “They could resist it. And why her? She is just a child.”
“We have already discussed this!” the head woman exclaimed. “You know the capabilities she has! We can’t let her be! I know we thought she would be fine after the boy died, but it isn’t working.”
A man sitting at the other end of the table spoke. “I agree with Pamela. We must go through with the plan. We can’t let number 4239 live.”

Interesting. I must admit Anna, you have a really good idea going on. My only worry is that it might be too similar to the Hunger Games storyline - then again, I look forward to seeing where this will go!

Thank you! I am trying to make it not so Hunger games like!