• arrow Clank! Clank! Clank! The time to get up is now. The tin cans sing the tune of time. Slowly and sleepily I rise from my bed. Suddenly a hand gripped my arm. "Let's go Emma, so we can get a good spot." It was Andrew, my big brother. Obediently I rise up from my bed and rush out the door.
    arrow Now pushed into the "Oiler", a deep dark hole with only one guarded way out. Quickly the foul smell of the oil filled our lungs. It coated our skin as if to say, "I'm not going away." Finally we started to work. A chocking sensation started at the back of my throat but I pushed it away.The boy next to me, Alex, gave in first. He just suddenly collapsed. I ran over to him, yelling to anyone I knew, "Help! Please help him!! Please!" But no one would.
    arrow "Emma, you know that THEY do not care who lives and who dies. So just Let him be," Andrew hissed at me.
    arrow "But I've just got to help him!' I repeated. Then a lady from the crowd came forward. "That is my son. Do you know how much it pains me to that i cannot help him? Please do not risk your own life to save his. Please save your breath. We haven't much down here." Felling beaten I backed away.to get back to work. As I work I had to look at the boy now and again. This has happened too many times. How could I stop it?
    arrow Now Andrew, unaware of interrupting my thoughts, said,"I know it's been hard for you since Mom and Dad died here last month, but this is the life we have."
    arrow "But I heard it could change," I challenged
    arrow "What? Where did you hear that?"
    arrow "Well I rather read it that heard it," I answered shyly.
    arrow "Then where did you learn to read?" I could tell he was trying to be gentle but I had to tell him the truth. "I taught myself instead of sleeping at nap time."
    arrow "Well then stop. You remember how it was when Ruby tried to learn."
    I remembered Ruby.She was our neighbor next door. Once she snuck into THEIR library and then we never saw her again. "Fine. I will stop," I said finally, not knowing if I was telling the truth or not. Just as we finished talking the tin cans rang their mid-day tune. It was time for us to split up into two groups. And soon the day would be over.

    arrow Now it is night time and sleep is upon me. There were two men talking about some kind of article. They had a large piece of paper the read, "Zilplox-Wrong or Right?" Then the first man said,"This is not going well. We need to get rid of the product and take it off the market."
    arrow "You are right. I'll send a boy to get rid of it right away," replied the second man.
    arrow "Good. 2090 is a very strange year."
    arrow "That it is, sir. That it is." Suddenly the picture changed and it became a young boy playing with a silver liquid. "I'll put a little here and a little there," the boy sang danced around an area similar to a junkyard except I saw more toxic waste symbols. Quietly I saw something come out of the trash. A dark figure grew as the boy poured. The creature reminded me of THEM. I yelled to the boy to stop but he could not hear me. He kept on pouring, I kept on screaming, and IT kept on growing. Now more of the same creatures were rising out of the ground, but the first was still looming over him. Finally he stopped pouring as the first creature's shadow crept over the boy's light and good mood. He dropped the bottle and made a run for it, but he could not make it one foot. The monster had very swift movement and swept him off the ground. As the boy hit his head on the concrete, the monsters strolled off destroying everything in their paths. "AHHHHHHHHHH!" I yelled as I woke up in a cold sweat. It wasn't real, I told myself, it was just a dream. But it felt so real. Could I have just seen the past?