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Akana
town limits. I could have ridden him but I promised my mother that
I would look tired for the monthly ceremony. The best way to do
that was to stay in the heat and keep moving, not taking in any
water.
    Very few ever went to the edge of Akana.
Mainly because it was dismal. While the event had not touched our
pocket of the world, time took its toll and the civilized Sybaris
concentrated on creating our communities out of places that once
were thriving small towns, leaving the rest of the world to decay,
fall apart, or turn to waste at the hands of the Savage Sybaris and
rebels.

    I don’t know what it looked like before it
became Akana since they removed many of the buildings. The farmland
was kept thriving, and the older roadways remained intact, unlike
the ones of the former world that had set on the end of Akana just
before the Salton Sea. Those roads were still there. They were
barren, desolate, and mere remnants of a world that once was.
    The road was wide, and made of smooth stone.
Nature had reclaimed it, and weeds, grass, and other growth poked
through, and some of the road had broken. It was marked by a faded
sign that had fallen from a metal post. I never knew what it meant,
just what it said.
    The number ‘86’ was on top, then the sign
read with faded lettering ‘ Next Exit, Awly – 2.
    The sign meant the end of the line to me, the
end of the protected civilized world, the end of life under the
thumb of the Sybaris.
    I walked a good distance along the edge of
the ‘ends’. A strong wind from the west brought in a mighty stench
of the Elder Sybaris that waited hungrily and impatiently at the
gates.
    It was time to feed and feast.
    I wonder how they fed them? The way they
devoured my brother told me they were ravenous. It has been told to
us that, unlike the Savage Sybaris, the civilized ones use machines
and tools to take a small amount of the human blood every few days.
They dare not mix their saliva into our bloodstream, or they run
the risk of turning us into one of them or allowing their appetites
to get ahead of them, making us into creatures.
    Instead, the Civilized feast on fruit and
ration our blood like they did thousands of years before.
    We are taught that our sacrifice is small. In
my opinion, one drop of my blood to feed them is too
much.
    After a long walk, I heard the bell. It rang
from the town square signaling the high and mightiest of the
Sybaris were entering our town limits.
    I was in perfect condition. My hair was
messy, and I was so thirsty and dehydrated, that I wasn’t even
perspiring.
    I hurried without stopping to the center of
town, where everyone lined up in a single file. The sound of their
motorized vehicles drifted over and shortly after, the sun
reflected from the shiny black vehicles.
    I found my mother and Sophie and took my
place next to them. My mother looked bad, worse than she had in the
morning. Sophie appeared dreadful and pale. I knew for a fact that
my mother had given her that syrup that caused her to expel the
contents of her stomach. The entire day before I could hear my
sister retching.
    After the Sybaris had made their selections,
Sophie would be fed and cared for. Until then, so she wasn’t
selected, my mother kept her ill while the Sybaris did their
adoption process, and Sophie looked as if she was knocking on
death’s door.
    “Perfect,” my mother told me, then
straightened my blouse so I didn’t look too intentionally
messy.
    I hated what was happening. Were we the only
family to not look their best? Everyone stood proud and
anxious.
    Across the road Iry emerged from the school
building. He too looked anxious, probably because this was his last
ceremony to witness. He would move in a month from the outskirts of
Akana to the City for the Ancients and then he’d start choosing
himself.
    He tried to make eye contact with me and I
turned my head.
    “Why is your educator coming this way?” my
mother asked.
    I lifted my head to see Iry walking our