Labeled (story for Heather's Like a Boss Contest)

We all get labeled when we are born. Every single person. Sometimes your label is good, like Doctor or Teacher. Sometimes the label is terrible. Need I explain more? We're each given a time limit. Each one is different. Once the limit expires, we have to do what our label says for the rest of our lives. I knew a girl who got Grocery Clerk : 10. She had a free life until she turned ten, then the Government ruled over her. We had no choice. Our labels were our lives.

My good friend, Mina, is a Label Nurse, and has been so since she was 5. Her job is to cradle newborns while they're getting labeled. One time, she told me a baby boy was labeled Gangster : 19. Sometimes I think the Government's playing us.

It's the year 2142, when all of civilization has collapsed, and a group of people rose up and became the Government. They wanted everything to be the way it was during the height of our time, the 21st century, but they wanted order and control. So now, they control everything, but they still want it to seem like a free life. That's where the labels came in.

Some would say I'm lucky, and they must've been labeled Blind or Crazy (the Government gives labels like that too). I was an Illegal, meaning I wasn't supposed to have existed. But they still gave me a chance. So, when I was born, I was labeled Death : 14. Ya. I'm really lucky. And I'm thirteen.