"Stop that! It hurts!"

"You stop squirming then," Rebecca scolded. She held my leg steady as she changed the bandages. "Why did you have to run barefoot?"

"When was the last time you tried to run in flip-flops?" I said through gritted teeth.

She finished bandaging my foot and turned her attention to my head. The cut on my forehead was pretty deep, though I still didn't have any idea when I acquired it. I winced when she dabbed some antiseptic on my wounds.

I had no idea how in the world we had managed to end up in the same place, but I was sure as hell glad we did. I had been worried out of my mind about her, fearing the worst. But now, even if we were at a completely bizarre place, I was happy to know that she was alive.

She had bandages around her torso that I helped change everyday. She refused to divulge the details of the events before she arrived at the UF. She had been picked up by the UF days after the attack, she said, and that was the end of it.

There was more, of course. I wasn't stupid. I just didn't want to force her to speak.

My broken little toe was fixed up soon after I arrived. Jaime Zane, the head honcho here, explained to me why I was there, what was happening in the world outside and, most importantly, who I was. What I was.

I still didn't trust him, though. Ashton had said that UF wanted to set up a dictatorship, and I believed him. Rebecca trusted Zane, even when I told her about Ashton. "Have you ever thought that maybe this Ashton is the bad guy?" she said.

"You don't know that. You haven't met him. I could say the same about Zane," I replied.

"You're right, I don't know. But there is a possibility that he was lying to you to get you somewhere, isn't there?"

"He said my mother knew him and the organisation he worked for."

She raised her eyebrows at that. "A stranger claiming to be sent by your parents. Why am I reminded of fourth grade's Stranger Danger 101?"

I had to admit, she put forward good points. I didn't know whether Ash was lying or not. I didn't know where he was taking me. For all I knew, he could have been working with the same person who killed my father.

Beca said Zane was the one who was taking care of us and our kind, and hence we should trust him. I couldn't help thinking she was right.

We had classes to attend like regular children. There were teachers who taught us regular subjects like maths, biology, et cetera, and special subjects like self defence, power analysis and development of Augmentable skills.

Beca and I walked to our first class of the day: history, a subject we didn't have back at the Ridge. The teacher, a slim woman in her late thirties, motioned for us and couple other new kids (a girl and a boy, both dark skinned) to take a seat. Another thing different here: only four to six kids in each class. "I'm going to be your teacher for history, as you know," the teacher began. "I'm also going to be your handler and guide here at UF. So if you have anything to say, or ask, I'm the person you come to. First things first, names. I'm Sasha."

"Navia," said the girl.

"Nadeem," said the boy.

Beca and I did the same.

Sasha turned to the map of the Four Provinces behind her. "How much do you know about how the country was formed?"

Navia tentatively raised her hand. "We were divided into various districts before, and slowly the districts joined together to make the Four Provinces that joined at Gercalais City."

Sasha nodded. "True, but not the complete truth. What those tea-sipping idiots at the City don't want you to know, I'm here to tell you. Sit back kids, this might take a while." She pulled up another map, old and dusty, torn at the corners. It wasn't a map of any place I recognised. There was more water than land on it. Each landmass was marked and named in big white letters -- North America, South America, Europe, Africa, a big one called Asia, a tiny one called Oceania, and a white one called Antarctica.

Sasha drew a circle on the upper right side. "This is where we live. Upper east Asia. See the white on the southern border? That's the Himalayan mountain range. We are restricted to this corner of the world while there is so much more than they tell you. This," she indicated to the rest of the map, "is the entire world. Not the small map of the Four Provinces they thrust at you in school."

"Why don't they tell us?" Nadeem asked. "We could go exploring the unexplored, and might find something good."

"There is nothing good beyond these borders," replied Sasha, "and it is not unexplored.

"Humans used to live at every corner of this map, even this white thing down south called Antarctica when it started melting. We were happy. The governments fought, yes, but the common people had nothing to do with it."

"Wait, governments? Plural?" Beca interrupted.

"Yes, plural. The entire world was divided into countries, each headed by its own government, caring for its own people. They had uncertain allies and enemies. Each was engaged in a power play, trying to come out as the most powerful country in the world. And it was this power play that drove the world to catastrophe."

She marked two places on the map, one on North America and one on Asia, that seemed like somewhere near the Eastern Province. "One idiot sitting here," she pointed at North America, "got angry at one idiot sitting here," she pointed at the other marking, "and they tried to kill each other. They had explosives, deadly explosives. Things that killed anything living and made the land uninhabitable for miles around.

"These two places dragged their allies into their pissing match. Others, who were powerful but weren't an ally of either side, entered the war only after someone made the mistake of bombing them. Some joined hoping for a quick victory and money. They didn't expect the war to prolong, and drain them of resources.

"They turned to the Southern Hemisphere -- everything south of this dotted line you see here -- to borrow resources. Many countries in Africa played both sides. When the main powers found out, they bombed most of it, leaving the south because nobody cared. The South Americans didn't declare its allegiance for any side, till they were pressured and threatened into joining."

She marked a bunch of other places -- one on North America a little above the one she had marked earlier, two on Europe, one on Asia that looked like a triangle jutting out into the water below the Himalayas, and one on Oceania. "Canada, Switzerland and Belgium, India, and Australia. These were one of those smart enough to distance themselves from the war as much as possible. Their capitals, however, still suffered bombing because the warring countries feared they would try to capture power after the war ended. Soon, economies and governments all over the world were collapsing. Note that here, a population of 8.4 billion had been reduced to 7.3 billion. 1.1 billion casualties. That's nearly half of the population of the Four Provinces."

Sasha sucked in a deep breath before continuing. "At this point, a ceasefire was called. The leaders met up at a place in Switzerland and discussed their problems. They agreed that if the war continued, they would all suffer. So the armies returned to their own countries. The governments focused on their internal problems, which had multiplied tenfold during the war. As the economy crumbled, prices of goods soared. The ones who had lived luxurious lives found themselves living in poverty. Another billion people died in famines, reducing the population to a little over six billion. Everyone was trying to scrape by on their depleting reserves. China, the country who had suffered comparatively less, started allowing refugees into their country. That's how the first of us reached here.

"Matters worsened when an epidemic broke out. A disease earlier thought to be suppressed, flared up again in Africa, killing more and more people. Africans fled in millions, to South America through ships. Many never reached their destination. The ones that did, carried the disease with them. Soon, South America was dying too, along with parts of North America. Population, 4.5 billion."

Sasha gave us a moment to soak in the information. I listened with full attention; many of the places she mentioned I had read about in books, but assumed to be a part of some fictional world.

"The world leaders met up again," Sasha continued. "They decided that the people had to be moved to one place, if they hoped to survive. Russia, Mongolia, Japan, China, and many other Muslim countries in Asia broke down their borders and joined together to accommodate the refugees. The countries pooled their remaining resources together and persuaded their citizens to leave their homes and go to the safe haven made in Asia. Some people stubbornly resisted, preferring to die on the land their ancestors died in. The smarter ones gathered their meagre belongings and left in boats, airplanes and cars, heading east. The ones that resisted died of starvation as the governments carried all food reserves with them when they migrated and the land had become too inhospitable for agriculture. Population, 3.3 billion.

"This Safe Haven project brought all the people of the world together to prevent humans from dying out. But before people were admitted into the Haven, they had to undergo thorough checks, making sure they were disease-free. Even people having minor afflictions like common cold were not admitted. About 2.5 billion people passed the test and were allowed inside. The rest were left to die without food, water or shelter.

"Inside the Safe Haven, the area was divided into numerous districts, each assigned to a country. The powerful countries bagged the better ones, of course, places that we call Northern and Eastern Provinces today. The poorer ones were crammed into the remaining parts. Beatrix, Nadeem, which districts are you from?" Sasha asked.

"South Africa," said Nadeem.

"Lower Ireland," I answered. "But my grandfather was from Russia up north."

"All these are names of countries to which your district was originally assigned. Years later, when the people were properly settled and everyone was healthy, the districts joined together and made Provinces. The richer countries had also expertly captured Gercalais City, the centre of administration, leaving the leaders of other countries out. Migration between Provinces was made easier and legal, and the country we live in today was formed. Population, 2.2 billion."

The class was dumbstruck, to say the least. Navia looked like her eyeballs were gonna pop out of their sockets.

The rest of the class was just Beca and Nadeem asking questions while I tried not to zone out. When you've heard about war and genocide, the normal stuff just doesn't seem that interesting, ya know?

That night, both Beca and I lay awake, discussing the day.

"I don't believe it," she said. "What Sasha said. Sounds too far-fetched."

"Why?" I inquired, face down on my pillow. "Seemed pretty plausible to me."

"Well, think about it. More than eight billion people, reduced to a little over two. Even if I believed that eight billion actually existed, do you think that six billion people could die so easily?"

"I suppose not. But we don't know what weapons they had. And there was an epidemic after, wasn't it?"

"I still feel her account wasn't completely accurate," she said, leaning back on her pillows.

"I mean, it was a pretty long time ago." I closed my eyes. "Anyway, g'night. My brain is exhausted."

"Night, Bebe."

***

I'm back, bois.

Two more exams to go, and I'm a free girl. I have some problems with WiFi, so I wouldn't be able to post chapters as soon as I write them. This one, for example, I wrote two weeks ago.

Thank you guys so much for bearing with my erratic updates. Seriously, I could be Wattpad's Dan Howell.

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