Life Designed (Life Plan Series Book 1)

to whatever they wanted. The Undecided were left with the jobs that none of the Decided wanted, but sometimes had the freedom of their job choice. At first, there were no divisions; no Decided and Undecided sectors of cities, and no provinces. Everyone lived together in one place. However, as the population grew and other parts of the world were explored, people began to branch out. Somewhere along the way, the Decided and the Undecided built their own separate worlds within the cities contained inside each province. What had caused them to separate, though? Was there a war?

Exasperated with the concise version of history and wanting a more in-depth one, he made up his mind to research more on the history of the world when he returned home that night. Stopping to reach into his pocket, he pulled out his interwave and checked the time. Swiping his finger across the flat screen, it came to life and projected the time of 8:00pm.

Good, he still had plenty of time to return to his house with his flimsy alibi still intact. Luckily, he had paid enough attention to his surroundings when the little girl had shown him the way to the library that he was able to retrace his steps back to the main street.

Opal softly closed the door to the shelter behind her. Leena and Mrs. Shaffer had both opted to stay the night with the children, so she was the only one to leave. After a long day at academy and with the children, she was tired and ready to return home and go to bed herself.

Gazing into the night sky, she watched as the two moons grew ever closer. Before long, the day would end and a new one would begin. To her, the days seemed to drag on longer and longer the closer it came to Declaration Day. For the better part of her life, she’d been waiting impatiently for the Declaration Day Ceremony. Although many people dreaded the day, she looked forward to it with such anticipation that her heart felt like it would burst from the wait. Exactly one week and one day separated her from the moment when all her planning and dreams would come to fruition.

Opal turned from the path leading from the brick building and towards the main street leading from the Undecided sector. The street was still alive with people, either returning from work or going to work in the Decided sector. Opal pitied the people who had to walk back and forth every day, sometimes for miles due to the lack of transporters on this side of the city. If only there was more she could do to help them.

As she watched a man slowly make his way across the street, she thought she saw a familiar face. He had short black hair and tall with a lengthy stride, reminding her of Garrett. But she simply closed her eyes and shook her head, Garrett wouldn’t be on this side of the city. When she opened her eyes, the figure was gone. Chuckling to herself, she couldn’t believe she’d just imagined her best friend there. Being in the Undecided sector made her think of him more than she’d like to admit. She wanted to be positive and hope that he would throw his Life Plan together in time, but a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach told her to worry about him—a lot.

Sometimes, she felt like an old mother by the way she nagged him about his Life Plan, but she reasoned that she’d do the same for her sister Gabrielle. Except for the fact that Gabrielle wanted to be like her so much that she’d already written several mock Life Plans of her own. Their laidback parents weren’t worried about either of them. If Garrett didn’t look so different than her, she would have thought the two of them had been switched at birth. His parent’s attitudes toward Life Plans were the same as hers and Garrett’s lackadaisical attitude about Life Plans more closely resembled her parent’s attitudes. Neither of them had ever pushed Gabrielle or her to do anything.

Pushing those thoughts from her head, Opal continued down the main street until it turned into the pathway out of the sector. The dark tunnel was so pitch black that she had to dig in her bag for the flashlight she always carried with her to light her way. Shining the light in the tunnel, she could see that she was alone. Taking her time, she made her way through the empty fields and to the last transport stop. A transporter was at the station, but she’d been expecting that. Line four only ran until 8:30pm at night. She’d have to walk another mile and a half before she reached the next transport station with a line that ran past 8pm.

Pressing on, she strolled under the well-lit mosaic walkway, thinking of the dimly lit Undecided sector. Did they really deserve to have less of things just because they couldn’t make up their mind by the time they were seventeen what they wanted to do with their lives?

Unsure of how to answer her own question, she continued into the night.

Garrett watched Opal pass by the transporter with wide eyes. He sat as still as he could inside the transporter, hoping she wouldn’t notice him. When he walked into the cross street in the Undecided sector, he’d looked left and saw her. For a moment, it appeared that she’d seen him too, so when she closed her eyes, he bolted. Arriving on the other side of the outer bridge before she did, he’d quickly discovered that line four was shut down for the night. Convinced she would notice him if he continued walking down the pathway toward the main part of the city, he decided to wait for her