Everyday was the same; wake up at 6:30, get dressed, head to the main dining hall for breakfast. Finish your breakfast, head to work, and go home.

Resident #1245 dragged herself out of bed and trudged up to her dresser. She pulled out the basic uniform and slipped into it. The walls of her unit were light brown, with no windows and a constantly unlocked door. There was really no point in locking her door. No one would break in anyways. It was a very small room, exactly like the ones beside it. The only extra room was a bathroom.

Looking into the mirror, #1245 pulled her brown hair into a bun to keep it out of her eyes for the rest of the day. The room was dark, as she never bothered to turn on the lights, but she could still see herself. Her dreary blue eyes slowly closing as she held her head up with her hands. As she sat there, she decided she better start going to breakfast.

Everyone has the same breakfast everyday, unless there's a sort of holiday. The residents ate in a large room, called the dining room. There's three dining rooms, each one able to hold 1,000 residents. Each dining room was a perfect rectangle shape, with two sets of old oak doors. Behind each dining room was a smaller kitchen, were cooks worked to make the food. It's a pretty demanding job, considering you have to work with about 50 other cooks in that room, making food for thousands. A fourth dining building was being made right to the third one. The building was exactly identical the three others.

She entered the 2nd Dining room and got into line. A large clock was on top of the door. 1245 turned around and looked at the clock. 7:23 it read. She was in line for about 10 minutes, and as she left she took a seat but some complete strangers. Everyone there sat really close to each other, since they were quickly running out of space in dining rooms. Quickly as possible, 1245 finished her breakfast and headed to work.

Resident #1245 worked in the plant bed, were she helped take care of certain plants that weren't kept in fields. There were about 30 PB houses. They're pure white boxes with no doors, only light green sheets that were leftover from making clothing. Each PB house has 5 rows of long rectangular tables, with the plants on them. Each house had a different plant. #1245 made her way to the main PB to sign into her job. Every resident had to sign into their job when they entered so the Capital can track where you are. Resident #1245 tried her very best to stay awake as she pushed the cloth out of her way. A woman, about 23 years old, with light brown skin and slightly curly dark hair, was working there currently.

Resident #1104 was printed on her green shirt, the same shirt all the residents wore. Fog spilled into the room as she entered the main room. Resident #1104 was currently the only one working at the desk. Six other residents were standing in line, waiting for their turn to be signed in. She walked up to the line and stood there. She stood there for a moment before another person entered the Main PB. His blue shirt suggested that he was a Capital member. A young boy followed behind him. He looked about nine or ten, with pale skin, green eyes and short brown hair. The Capital member cut in front of the line, not paying any attention to the people waiting.

"Hello, ma'am. This is resident #2147, he needs a new mentor after resident #1369's death." The boy stepped forward. He seemed brave for being handed off to a new mentor.

As a child, resident #1245 Got very attached to her mentor. Her resident number was 1007, and she was the closest friend she had ever had. She was resident #1007, and she hated that name. She asked to be called "Sheriff" by all her friends. Sheriff gave all her other friends random names, almost always being named after random items she saw around, because she never knew any traditional names. #1245 was "Coin". Coin never minded being a number, but she really liked the name Coin. She passed her test perfectly, and the day after that, Sheriff died. Coin had never really gotten over her.

"Ah, yes, I will pair him with one soon. Just let me sign these residents in, and I'll get him a mentor." she grabbed the boys arm and practically dragged him behind the counter. The Capitol member nodded his head slightly and turned away, vanishing into the foggy morning. Resident #1104 reached under the counter. A bell rang from a loudspeaker before she spoke. "May I get some assistance in the Main PB? We have a child, resident number… 2147… he needs to be assigned a mentor and I'm quiet busy." she took her hand off the button. She got out her paper and clipboard, and continued to sign everyone in. The boy stood silently next to her.

"Residence number?" she asked as #1245 approached her. "1245" she replied quietly. "1245?" she asked, looking up slightly. She nodded her head. "Mk." she jotted down some things onto her paper. "You are needed in PB 13 today."

#1245 sighed, and turned away. She left the building and entered back into the foggy morning. Her shoes dragged across the field as she checked the names on the buildings. Plant bed 9, 10, 11, she looked ahead. Plant bed 13. PB 13 contained mainly strawberries, which didn't need anything done to them, just maybe to be fed, but that's it.

The Homecoming Society was quite advanced. They had scientifically engineered a sort of food that would make plants grow faster than it was naturally supposed to, so it would be able to feed everyone who was forced to join. It was a very controversial addition, but what other choice did everyone have? She entered the empty room. #1245 reached her hand over to the wall and switched on the light. The room did not change in lighting.      #1234 just ignored it and walked over to the tools in the back. She grabbed a water bucket, filled it up, and went to work. As she worked, she heard some residents talking outside. 1245, being extremely bored, decided to listen in.

"Why are we over here again?" one said. She assumed it was a female, around 18 to 20.

"My god, I told you we needed to grab food." another girl replied. Female, same age.

"But can't we go to the kitchen? Or, some-"

"No!" the other girl cut her off. 1245 realized that whoever these people were, they weren’t supposed to be here. She carefully set the watering bucket down and ran behind one of the tables.

"Look, 13's empty." The second girl hissed. "Follow me" 1245 felt a wave of terror wash over her, though she never even knew if they were dangerous. As long as they were breaking the rules, she could get in trouble for not reporting them. Trying not to make any noise, she curled up in a ball and hoped for the absolute best.

"I guess this is better than the other three we visited…" the first girl said.

"For the love of all things holy, Victoria, shut the hell up." she snapped. "If we get caught, I'll cut off your damn arm and beat you with it." #1245 was tempted to look over and see what she looked at, but that would be the most stupid move she'd made since she ran from her first caretaker what she was 5. She heard the two girls footsteps as they stole the strawberries. Whoever they were, they were terrible at being secretive. Suddenly, she made eye contact with one of the two.

"Why the hell are you here?" she hissed. "Vicky, grab your knife." the second said, keeping eye contact with 1245. The second girl, the one who yelled at "Victoria", was tall, with grey eyes, dark skin and shaved dark pink hair. The girl behind her was smaller with blue eyes and brown hair that fell down to her shoulders. She looked a bit like 1245, except she was missing her freckles. Neither of them were wearing the official Homecoming Society uniform.

Victoria reached her hand slowly down to her pocket. The other girl had backed 1245 into the corner. Panic set in as she tried to think of what to think. Victoria grabbed the knife and gave it the other girl.

"I- I won't tell anyone! Please don't hurt me-" the second girl grabbed 1245's shoulder and pulled her up. She held the knife to her neck. "Shut up. Nobody wants to hear your whining." she paused for a moment. "Should we take her back?" Victoria said. The other girl looked back. "Might as well."

The two looked over at 1245. "Knock her out, April." The words floated around her head for a second, before she realized what was happening. She felt a pain in her head, and than nothing.

1245 heard voices as slowly started to wake up. She instantly remembered what happened before she got knocked out, she stayed still, pretending to sleep.

"How bad did we hit her?" someone whispered loudly. "She should be awake by now…"

"You're a wimp, it really couldn't have hurt her badly." there were a few moments of silence before she thought she heard someone enter the room or tent or whatever they were in.

"Oh hey, um, I think we killed h-" she was cut off by something, but 1245 couldn't see because her damn eyes were closed.

"How is she?" a much deeper voice than the other two said suddenly. "Is she still asleep?"

No one said anything.

"Why are we even trying to keep her alive? She's just another Homecoming Resident. Really, she can't be that important." one of the first two girls said. She started to realize that it was the girl from before, Victoria. The other girl must be here too… she thought. What was her name? Autumn, Annie…

"All "residents" are just as important as us. We have to keep her to make sure she doesn't send the Capital to out camp."

She took mental notes as they continued to speak. Things about some type of rebellion, some girl named April…

That was her name! April.

"We should just pour water her or something." April said. "I'm getting pretty damn inpatient waiting for her to wake up…" 1245 tried to stay still and keep her eyes closed.

"I'll go get a bucket." Victoria said. The one other girl, the one who was not April nor Victoria, did not argue. In a fit of panic, she pretended to wake up. She looked around. It was a type of white tent, in a some shape. She was on a mattress on the ground, surrounded by the three girls. Her vision has blurry

The third girl was near the entrance of the tent. They were all wearing old t-shirts, probably dug up from the trash. They stared at her, none of them spoke for a while.

"Finally." April hissed. She seemed to be trying really hard to hurt her feelings. "It's been like, two days." 
"Vicky hit her pretty hard. It's not her fault." Another person said from the corner of the room. 1245 had not noticed him before. He was sitting quietly on a metal chair. There was a Book in his hands, he had been reading the whole time. The book did not have a title, but the cover was light baby blue. None of them responded to him, they all just went silent.

"Well, I was really hoping to dump some water on her. Kind of sucks she had to wake up now, the most inconvenient of times." she said, agitated. The guy in the chair looked her down sharply. She scowled back at him.

"Where… am I?" she mumbled quietly.

All at once, everyone in the tent got very frantic and tried to explain everything to her. The amount of information confused her, and she didn't understand a single thing any of them said. The third girl snapped her fingers, silencing all of them.

"My name is Eleanor." she said. "You are currently in our little group of rebels. We don't have a name for ourselves yet, but we're bound to find a good one eventually." she looked around the large tent.

"Is this all of you?"

Eleanor chuckled.

"Nope, we've got tons more of these jerks outside." 1245 saw April roll her eyes. "There's like, only 10 of us, not counting whoever she is." April pointed to her.

"I'm Resident #1245" she said confidently. "When can I leave?"
 "You're staying with us, we're not letting you go to rat us out to the Capital." the guy in the chair hissed.

1245 waited for the wave of anxiety to hit her, but it never did. Instead, she felt a sort of relief. Looking back, the Homecoming Society was a terrible idea. It should have never been allowed, yet the government let it become. Now thousands of people are stuck in a reality they never wished to live, stuck in a world they don't even know they can escape.

"I'll explain everything to her later, first, let's fix her." Eleanor said. 
"What do you mean?" 1245 asked.

"You need a new name." April said. "a Number won't cut it for you, even if you’re a resident."

"Can… can it be Coin?" She sat up a bit and looked around at everyone.

"I don't care." Eleanor said. "Coin it is, though it's a weird name…"

"It's a nickname I had a while ago." she mumbled. "I don't really know anything else."

"Hm." Everyone was quiet again. "Sam, why don't you go show her around?" He looked up from his book. "No."

"Yes. Go show Coin around." Sam sighed as he stood up. "Follow me."

1245… now known as Coin…kicked the sheets off her and shakily got up. She was still in the plain residents uniform that she always wore. Her stance was shaky but she quickly got onto her feet.

The five of them exited the tent and entered some sort of post-apocalyptic town.  They were standing on a hill where they could see everything. There were tons of burnt down homes and trees. Smoke emerged still from the backyards of some houses. Plants and vines covered a lot of the burned buildings, as if they'd been like that for decades. The other four were already on their way. There were only two houses that weren't like that. One was a large two story building, close to the tall hill with the tent. It was light blue covered in graffiti. The other one next to it was a ranch type with a large backyard. The sight was really beautiful, Coin had never seen so much green in her short 19 years of life.

The isolation of the place made Coin nauseous and uneasy. All her life she'd been surrounded by countless buildings and things to do and so many people, but here it was simple and lonely; there was a new freedom Coin hated to love.

She stood there and took it in for a second, a light breeze blowing towards her. Past the abandoned buildings, you could see the sun was starting to set over the horizon. Orange light spilled through the clouds, and some stars were popping up from near the bottom of the sky.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she heard Eleanor say from behind her. Coin has been so distant that she hadn't noticed her standing between her and Sam. She nodded without looking away.

"It's so much greener than the Peanut Butters you work at. Funny how the world pulled itself together after it was brutally destroyed by us. I guess it had time to heal while everyone was cooped away in the Homecoming Society." Coin didn't respond. She really liked her old home. She liked how organized and busy it was, but she was surprised that she wasn't freaking out over being in this new place.

"Let's get going." Sam said blankly. "If we stay any longer, it'll be dark before we get to base."

Coin followed him down the hill. She saw new footprints in the soil, so the other three must've been there recently. It took about 20 minutes to get to the light blue house.

They finally reached the door and Sam pushed it open. She entered what seemed to be an average home, but overly decorated and confusing. There was a couch in front of a tv, with three people on it in every which way. All of their heads turned to Coin as she entered.

"Hey, Sam"  one of the people said. She had a heavy French accent, with Coin found mesmerizing and adorable. Her hair was light brown and very curly, but she might have died it because it had blonde roots. She had fair skin with tons of freckles and brown eyes. She was sitting on the arm of the couch, one of her legs crossed over the other, one of her arms resting on the back of the couch. She had on some long black fingerless gloves that laced up, an old black t-shirt and black skinny ripped jeans. "Who's that you brought with you?"

"It's the little resident girl April told you about." Sam replied. She nodded her head and turned back to the TV. Some old musical was playing. "Hey." the girl said, looking directly at Coin.

"Hello." Coin said, shyly. "Um, how is it playing that if the electricity stopped worked after-"

"We managed to snag some from the Capital." she said, cutting coin off. "How did you do that..?"

"I have no idea, ask Eleanor." she turned her head back to the movie she and two others were watching.

"This is were we all live." Sam said suddenly. "It was the biggest and safest building we found, and it was best for everyone that wanted to join." Coin tried to smile as she nodded her head. He started to walk over to the stairs. "Your room is on the second floor, you're sharing it with Victoria, the short brunette who nearly killed you, Louise, the French kid, and Rose, you haven't met her." he led her to the room and knocked on the door. "I've got your new roommate, open the hell up."

The bright green door opened, revealing Victoria, the girl who hit her.

"Ew, take her back!" she said, sarcasm running through her tone. "Take this seriously, Vicky. She needs to stay with some normal girls until we figure out what to do with her." Victoria smirked and motioned for her to come in. "Screw off Sam." The walls were painted grey and there were two sets of bunk beds to the east wall, they were unpainted and just plain wood. One of the bottom bunks was empty, under the one simply labeled "Rose" in messy handwriting. She stood there awkwardly as Victoria cussed Sam out sarcastically. She waited for about five minutes before she finally slammed the door in Sam's face.

"Sorry about that." she said as she walked up to her. "My name's Vicky, Sam's making me explain all this crap to you, because he's too anti-social to do it himself." She pointed to the bunk under Roses. "That's yours." she said dully. "I don't suppose that you have anything, the Capital never lets you have anything of your own. We usually stay up pretty late, so if you go to bed before 12 you won’t be getting any sleep until we find out were to throw you out."

Victoria stared at her. 'It's not like we wanted you here, we just couldn’t let you stay after you caught April and I." there were a few moments of awkward silence, before it was broken by someone opening the door. The French girl swung into the room.

"She's staying with us? I didn't hear anything from Eleanor." she told Victoria as she sat down on the bottom bunk.

"Well, I didn't either. She'll be gone soon enough, though" Her gaze switched over to Coin.

"My name's Louise." she said, some of her hair falling in front of her face. 
"Uh, hi… I'm Coin."

She smiled and nodded, pushing her hair back behind her ear. They started at each other for a moment but it was broken when someone else came it. She had short dark red hair and tan skin, and she was wearing a white hoodie with pajama pants. She paid no attention to Coin and climbed up onto her bunk.

"Is this the kid you and April knocked out?" she asked.

"Yep." Louise said, smirking. "We were just gonna explain everything to her, but you so rudely interrupted."

"Well you better settle down, sweetie, it's going to be a long story." she looked down at Coin and smiled. Coin smiled back.

"Not really." Victoria said. "It's short and sweet; we're a rebellion against the Capital."

"She already knew that, Vicky." Louise jeered. "Let me explain" she stood up and jogged over to the wall across from the bunk beds. She grabbed some random bucket from the corner of the room and turned it over, stepping onto it to make herself taller.

"Your about 20, right?" she asked. Coin nodded. "19" Louise gave her a thumbs up. "So, you were about one-depending on your birthday-when the whole end of the world thing happened?" Coin nodded again. "Alright, so when the earth got destroyed, the one place we survivors could resort to was the Homecoming society. They told us everything there was perfect, like some weird cult. But, as always, some didn't agree."

She paused for a second to see if Coin was still listening, though she had only just started talking. "Everyone acts like robots. Everyday is the same; wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, get back, go home, repeat. Where's the freedom?" Coin listened closely as she spoke. She went off on some long tangent about how everything was so perfect and there was no fun, and stuff like that didn't work for everybody, and the capital doesn't even care,  blah blah blah. "So Eleanor and I ran off. We didn't check into our jobs and we found a gap in the wall. We found a big house and fixed it, along with a survivor who helped." She took a breath and stepped of the bucket. "And that- that's what I know."

Coin smiled at her as she went back to her bunk.

"My goodness, Louise." Rose said, concerned. "We ment to tell her the rules or something." Louise's face went red. "Oh." Coin tried to prosses everything that Louise" just told her. How were she and Eleanor brave enough to just leave like that? How did they even survive? The four of them sat in their beds, doin their own things. Louise was reading a worn-down book, with "Pride and Prejudice" printed on the front.

Looks boring. Coin thought. She probably has nothing else to do, though.

Louise looked over at her. Coin quickly snapped her head away and pretended to be paying attention her hands.

"Wanna go and break into a few houses; see what weird crap we can find?"

"Hm?" she jerked her head back up. "Uh, sure!" Louise smiled awkwardly and stood up, nearly bumping her head on the bottom of the top bunk. "Lets go."

Coin followed her out of the house. The two others that were watching the movie were still there. They didn't really speak as they exited the house. There wasn't anything to really talk about.

The buildings they passed were covered with vines and plants, though the structures underneath were broken down and rotting. Darkness was spreading though the area, and Coin could see some stars start to appear through the trees growing quickly above them. Shadows fell over them as they passed by slowly. It was like some type of weird jungle, and it was much different than the places Coin had stayed all her life. Plants were starting to sprout up from the cracks in the road. There were different kinds of wildflowers and young trees.

The two girls walked down the middle of the road in silence, until Louise decided to speak up. 
"I shouldn't have explained our little group like I did, sorry." She looked over at Louise, her brown eyes focused on places before them. "What do you mean?" Coin replied, confused by her statement.

"I said it was a rebellion. It's not, just a way to escape from those terrible people who controlled you all your life." she said. They wandered in silence for some more. "Sorry April and Vicky had to snatch you away from your home. I guess we had to take you because we can't get caught."

She stopped walking and made eye contact with Coin. "Why aren't you freaking out?" she asked. "We just kidnaped you and now your being forced to live with a bunch of jerks all the sudden, and your being completely cool about everything." Coin looked down at her feet and thought about it for a second. 
"I'm not completely sure. I should be panicking, but I quite like it here."

"Huh." Louise started to walk towards a stone two-story home with bright red peeling paint that you could barely see through the vines and debris.

"This one. Grab a rock, a branch, something to break open a window if they didn't leave the door unlocked while they were running for their sad little lives." Coin grabbed a flat stone sitting right in front of her while Louise struggled to open the door. After some trial, she managed to yank it open.

"Ah, finally!" she said smiling. "Follow me, the stuff you find here is so weird." the two of them entered to house. The stuff inside was untouched, just as the previous owner had left it.

"We should go quick, it's getting pretty dark…" Coin whispered as they went deeper into the house.

"Oh! Don't worry about that. The sky at night is pretty bright so we will most likely find our way back."

They searched around the kitchen for some stuff. Coin rummaged through drawers and cabinets, finding only half-eaten rotting food and some forks, nothing important.

"I'll go upstairs, nothing here seems interesting." Coin exclaimed after some time of looking through the old stuff. "Well, go ahead. The old owners of this place are long gone. Steal whatever you like"

Coin dashed up the stairs to find a hallway of rooms. She slipped into the closest to her as she arrived. It was a bedroom, possibly for a teenage girl. Posters were lazily taped onto the walls of their room. She walked up to her closet and slid open the doors. There were just a bunch of clothes, nothing really important. But really, she did need some stuff. Coin grabbed a bunch of random crap and left the room, realizing her arms were full. She ran down the stairs to meet Louise, who had some stuff too.

"Good idea, taking something you needed" she said. "I was going to let you borrow some of my stuff, but I guess you've got your own now." Coin just nodded and smiled. They left the house and made their way back.

It was night when they got there. Sam was sitting as the table with Rose and someone Coin didn't recognize. 
"Finally, ya'll are back." Sam said. "Why'd you take her out? Can't you let any new kid just explore the house?"

"I just wanted to get to know her a bit." Louise responded calmly.

"I don't get what you mean… she barely ever talks." he replied.

"She's just shy!!" she said with her pretty French accent. "Aren't you, Coin?" Louise looked over to her. Coin nodded. "Yeah…" They both ran up the stairs to put their stuff away.

Louise shoved her stuff under her bed. Coin did the same. She sat on her bed and went through her stuff. Luckily enough, most of it looked like it fit her. Coin was pretty small. Louise pulled out a computer from her stack of stuff. 
"Wonder how much porn you can find on that." Rose said. "My goodness, Rose, this was probably a family computer. It probably doesn't even work anymore." she plugged the charger into the wall and put the charger in the computer. It didn't turn on. Louise sighed. "I'm so bored."

"Just go to sleep." Rose said. "It's like, 11, anyways." Louise dunked under the covers and shut her eyes. Coin decided to do the same, though it never really worked. She stayed up all night, listening to Victoria's and Rose's conversations.