Blue Eyes Chapter 1

Note: This is a near-future sci-fi/dystopian novel I am writing called Blue Eyes. I decided to share the first chapter, hope you like it!

Emma

The announcements rippled through the school, blaring on the loudspeaker, words nobody could escape.

    All blue-eyed students must report to the front office immediately.

    I was in math class, and we were about to have a test. I was glad to hear the announcement, hoping it would delay the start of the quiz. Either way, my eyes were brown, so it wasn’t as if it mattered much to me.

    I still marvel at how different I was just a year ago.

    My teacher, Ms. Ortega, who had the shiniest of ponytails and the ability to teach me math that I actually understood (a first for me with teachers), clapped her hands and announced, “Well, you heard what they said, didn’t you? Go on, now!”

    I watched as people began to stand up from their seats, picking up their binders and folders and backpacks as they slowly filed out of the classroom. I didn’t know any of them too well, but one of them–Paige–was my lab partner in science. She had pretty eyes; a soft, tentative blue, like spring blossoms just beginning to poke out of the ground. 

    Paige’s eyes were now wide, and filled with fear. She stopped walking once she got to my desk.

    “Why do you think they need us?” she whispered, her voice barely audible above the sounds of chair legs scraping the floor as they were pushed in.

    “I don’t know,” I told her, wishing I could give her a better answer. “I don’t know” is one of the worst in the world. “But I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

    Paige nodded, sand-colored hair hanging over her face as she walked out of the room, hugging her lime-green binder to her chest.

    After all the students with blue eyes had gone, there was exactly half the class left in the room, which, of course, was by design. No arrangement of people was perfect unless half had blue eyes and half had brown eyes. It was how life worked; I’d never dreamed of anything different.

    The boy in front of me–Brandon, I think his name was–yelled, “Ms. Ortega, do we still have to take the test?”
    Ms. Ortega sighed, squeezing her eyes shut, then opening them. She, with her chocolate brown eyes, was the one imperfection in our classroom; she made it so there was one more person with brown eyes than with blue eyes. She, like all teachers, had been instructed not to view things this way, though. Nobody could have both blue and brown eyes, so they couldn’t help adding an imperfection to the otherwise perfect combination of people.

    Ms. Ortega cleared her throat. She always seemed to be drinking some sort of energy drink, but I didn’t see one with her that day. “Yes, you will still take the test,” she announced. “I am sure whatever the blue-eyed students must do will take very little time, and they will be back before class ends. While we wait, we must still carry on with classwork.”

    There was a collective groan that I took part in. I had barely studied for the test, and I’d been really hoping to get out of doing it. For a second, I wished I was with the blue-eyed students, doing whatever they were doing.

    But then I remembered the look of fear in Paige’s eyes, the look that would have probably mirrored my own if I’d been sent to the front office. Occasionally, people were sent there for good reasons–like to work on an art project or be interviewed for the school newspaper–but usually not.

    At least she’s not alone. Simply thinking the thought reassured me. Paige had all the other blue-eyed students in the school with her. She had Tyler and Mia and Aaron and Phie and—

    And Phie.

    Why did I just think that?

    How could I forget that Phie was a good thing for me but not for many others? I mean, of course she was a good thing for me. How couldn’t she be, with eyes like the sky, a laugh that only happened occasionally but was a melody to my ears, a smile like an 100-watt bulb had turned on after months of darkness? She was everything to me, and I don’t mean that in a cheesy she’s my girlfriend, so she’s everything way. Because she literally was.

    All I had to do was to get everyone else to stop hating her. Then life would be perfect.
That is, it would be perfect if math tests didn’t exist either. Ms. Ortega handed me my test with an apologetic smile and the words, “You can do this.” At least she could tell how stressed-out I was. If that was even a good thing.

I barely even remember doing the test now. I rushed through it mostly, probably knowing I’d get just about everything wrong anyway, then handed it in to Ms. Ortega before anyone else did. Still, class was over halfway through, and the blue-eyed students had still not returned.

I was beginning to get worried.

Especially when my phone vibrated with a text. I hid it under the table to read it, my palms slick with sweat. And there the name was, on my screen: Phie, next to a bright-red heart emoji and a picture I secretly took of her sleeping during social studies. 

The text was just one word, over and over and over.

SOS.