I live in a world of chance. My name’s Alexander, and unfortunately so. I’m fifteen, the age of the  t a k e n.

Let me give you a little backstory, I live on a different planet, much like earth before it blew up. My great grandma made it out of there a couple years before in her mother’s stomach, and they’ve been living there ever since. Right now it’s 4160, so it wasn’t long ago that the earth blew up. (We call it The Giant Mushroom Top, a Giant nuclear explosion) The Giant Mushroom Top was a little over one hundred years ago, in 4060. In our society, when a baby is born, their name is randomly generated. The whole purpose is to completely randomize the  t a k e n  selection. The  t a k e n  are kids with names that in some way indicate they will fight off evil. Like for example Basil, Dustin, or Bellatrix, Bella for short. These all mean “protector” “strong” “warrior” or “guardian”

When one kid is determined a  t a k e n, all the childhood memories attached to them, to parents, teachers, friends, enemies, are erased. I like to believe that many would think it’s cruel, that is, if they knew about it. It’s just like being forgotten.

I was born on September 16, 4145.

I was born with light brown hair and blue-silver eyes. The machine said I would be called Alexander.

I lived out all 14 of my happy years, well, happy. I had a couple good friends, but I wasn’t popular. I loved art and reading, and I was average at math. Nobody told me that when I protected fallen kids from the ones that pushed them, and teachers called me a “hero”

They weren’t kidding.

It was September 16, 4160, midnight, when I woke up in a cold sweat. I could hear something moving in my room, though I couldn’t see it. My heart sped up as I desperately tried to make out a figure in the pitch black shadow. My eyes finally picked out a silhouette, and I locked in on it.

“W-Who’s there?” I asked, my voice shaking

The figure stepped out onto a patch of moonlit carpet

“Good afternoon! I’m Minna. Welcome to your new future, Alex”

I wake up, my eyes quickly adjusting to the blinding white lights of what looked like a waiting room

I see other teenagers, all the same age as me, but most of them are still asleep. It’s a horrific sight, all these sleeping or possibly dead teens around me, in this room. I look to my left and almost jump out of my skin as this girl with honey-blonde hair stares at me. She’s shaking, and whispers

“Are we dead?”

I couldn’t help but to laugh, caught off guard. Me? Dead? At fifteen? No way.

“I doubt it” I said, still chucking a bit “Isn’t hell supposed to be red and a lot hotter?”

She looked taken-aback, and the fear was temporarily masked by anger

“Who are you to suggest that I, Verena Matheson, the mayor's daughter, would be in hell after death? My father will hear about this” she huffed, tossing her hair behind her shoulder.

“Actually Mrs. Matheson,” a lady in a lab coat harshly interrupted, coming out of a room that was almost blending into the white wall, “your father doesn’t remember who you are.”

Verena flinched and hid behind me. She smelled like strawberries. I looked up at the lady’s coat, looking for a name tag. My eyes finally caught a small one.

“Well, Mrs. Miller, it’d be nice if you would explain why we’re here and how long we’ll be staying”

Mrs. Miller smiled, though it looked cracked and dark “Oh we get that a lot, love,” She began, and Verena pushed into me further, “You are here because you are part of the taken, Your name indicates that you are a guardian and you will protect us. Our land has been cursed by witches that we made angry, strong witches that could easily kill us. But you, if trained, could take them”

Verena pulled her head up, still against me, and I noticed she was shaking. “I can’t fight! No way!!”

I turned my head and looked at her. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide.

Mrs. Miller chuckled “If we try hard enough I’m sure we can train you.”

Another person came out of the room, this time it was a man. “Are you really going on with that witch bullshit again, Miller? Stop scaring the children.”

I opened my mouth to argue that, because I certainly wasn’t scared, but then I glanced at Verena again, and shut my mouth, giving her a couple pats on the head.

His tag read Dr. Mayben.

“Don’t listen to Mrs. Miller, darling,” Dr. Mayben said, the word “Darling” rolling off his tongue smoothly with his accent, “It is true that your name means something special like that, and that your family and friends don’t remember you… but don’t worry.”

Verena hid her face back behind me and whimpered. “Don't worry? Don't worry??”

Some of the other kids started to wake up, looking disbelievingly at the two adults.

“Wait you can’t do that just because we have weird names..” said one boy with light blue eyes

“Just make our family and friends forget who we are so we can save the planet or something along those lines?” Said a girl with curly red hair

I, personally, was fine with it. I think maybe if this is what turns my normal life new… then I’m ready to protect my planet.