text: When I was born, the world above had long since drawn its dying breath. No matter what the books told and showed me, what I saw in them was not what was out there. Outside was a bitter, cruel, and deadly place. A hell for everyone, no matter who they were. Humankind had been forced to crawl down into the ground, far below the surface of the world they themselves destroyed. From what they had, they created villages and cities to their best efforts. The ideas of names had started to dwindle, so whatever cities and towns that were carved into the rock were given numbers. City 1, City 2, City 3, and onward. I had been born in City 9, somewhere along the east of the world, along the cliffs. The caves used to be plentiful with water from whatever falls formed by the oceans. When the water became too off to drink, we had to resort to trade and deliveries from the other Cities. These would take several days, and whoever lived in 9 were forced to ration what they had. My home was cramped, small, and dirty. But it was the only place I knew that I could really call home. Nobody liked living down here--everyone hated it; they all wanted to go up and see the sky. And we have to remind ourselves every single day that we would die if we ever did that. Our eyes would bleed and our lungs would explode, or so the story was told by our elders. By the time I turned ten, I was going to work in the mines. It was required that everyone had a job, and the common one was expanding the City itself. More caves meant more houses when more people came to. The caves were cramped for a while, and some couldn’t take the heat all too well. A friend I knew at a young age wasn’t hydrated enough. He died at my side with a dry tongue. But we kept on working. By the time I was thirteen, City 9 was one of the largest of the twelve along the east. Travelling from one side of the City to the next would take several minutes. At thirteen, City 9 was home to a thousand. With time, the City grew less crowded, grew cooler as we grew deeper. At fourteen, my mother died. The water was too dirty. When I was fifteen, there came the resource conflict. There were simply too many people and not enough food for everybody--not enough drinkable water, not enough to ration for every single Niner. You wouldn’t think that the people would be fighting *each other* for a piece of bread or shuck of corn. And yet, I saw people reduced to corpses. My father couldn’t trust the City. We packed up whatever we could and we left our home. I remember crying the first night on the run. All my father could say was, “Straighten up. You’re not dead.” He was right. &#x200B; The rest is available in the link provided, if it interests you. If this isn't following the rules right, I apologize.