The officers met her at the edge of Diana’s gravel driveway. As Kitty walked to meet them, she was glad that she hadn’t cried and made her eyes all red and puffy.
“Anything I can do for you, sir?” she asked the first one as he stepped toward her. Both were heavily muscled and looked to be in their early twenties. For all Kitty knew though, they could have been several hundred years old. There was no way to tell.
“Would you mind coming with us, ma’am?”
Fiddling with her personalized silver bracelet, she followed them with trepidation. “Is there, like, something wrong?”
“No ma’am. We would just like to talk to you a few minutes, that’s all.”
They didn’t clap her in handcuffs, but they made sure to stand firmly on either side of her as she walked down the sidewalk. Pedestrians turned to look at her, so she smoothed the worry creases on her forehead and took long, calm strides, feeling self conscious. Eventually, they made their way to a less populated area of the town. Leading her to a secluded space between two dingy shops, they stopped.
“Do you know how much people are willing to pay the President for a baby?”
“What?” It was not the question she had expected.
The officer ignored her question. “6.5 million dollars. But the population has to stay constant. Do you know where 95% of the lives that are given to new people come from?”
“N-no.” Kitty didn’t understand what the man was driving at. Her boots were hurting her feet. She looked around for somewhere to sit down, but there were only a few trashcans and overturned crates with bits of rotting fruit stuck to them. It suddenly occurred to her that she was in an alley. A dark alley.
“The Government creates new lives by getting rid of old ones. Old ones that are rebellious, threatening, strange, or just… don’t belong here.”
Dark spots sprouted in front of her eyes like black flowers as she started to panic. “But what about the gang victims?”
“The Government is a gang. That makes you…”
The victim.
“No! Please! I-I’m not a rebel, I belong here!”
“Your friend is. That’s close enough. Besides, she’s going to die by herself anyway. You need a little help.”
The first officer drew his gun.
Like a thick, black straw, the barrel of the gun faced Kitty, inches from her face. But she didn’t want to put it in her mouth, nor sip its contents. The very elixir of death that had made her wake up screaming in the night, over and over, had come true.
She turned her face away, remembering the mutilated faces in the newspaper she had always gagged at. Then she started sobbing, because it didn’t matter if her face got mutilated or not, she would still be dead.
“Please.” she cried, “Please no. No. Don’t, please.”
It was all Diana’s fault. If only she hadn’t visited her that morning. If only she had just stayed away from her altogether in the first place. Even though everyone Kitty knew avoided Diana, Kitty had been visiting her for months.
Too late. Kitty heard a volley of shots, and then she sank to her knees. She floated into nothingness, just like she always feared would happen…
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