Dystopian Rhapsody IC

Tuesday, March 16th, 2050

Daniel emerged from the cold, sterile examination room into an environment more wholly suitable to an eight year old child. The metal door swung open, guided by the hand of Dr. Lambent, who urged him through and smiled down through his wire rimmed glasses. "Daniel, the tests are over. Go play with the other children now." He beamed down at the boy, and Daniel flashed a goofy grin before darting off into the dusty courtyard.

Small eight year old bodies weaved in and out of the play equipment, coated in grime already from the thick smog that blanketed the towns like an oily miasma. Two things were constant in this world, the heat and the smog. One could say that they were direct products of eachother. The heat drove people indoors, causing them to crank up their air conditioners, with factories they'd probaly never see pumping black smoke into the atmosphere, which coalesced into the choking smog that hung over them, intensifying the heat, choking them, and so the cycle continued. This was just a fact of life for the children, inconsequential, and certainly not anything they couldn't adapt to. So still, they played.

Daniel's feet knocked up little clouds of dust as they pounded the ground, his eyes searching for another friendly face. He ran up to another child, tapped him on the shoulder, and yelled "TAG YOU'RE IT!" as loud as he could before running away, cackling maniacally, his voice goading his quarry into chasing him. Soon he was caught, and so it continued, with him tagging another child and dragging him or her into the game. His laughter was nonstop, once again pointing to the lung capacity Dr. Lambent had taken notice of during the tests. Even now, the Doctor was watching from a bank of monitors in another part of the building. Watching, calculating, choosing his subjects. This would be the end of their childhoods, because tomorrow, the treatments would begin. Those that survived would emerge faster, tougher, stronger. The other 60% would be burned, and their ashes scattered. Clean, safe, and untraceable.