Welcome!

This is a prologue, and then I'll introduce our other favourite boy next instalment.

I don't own Glee, or the 100 books idea I stole from Matched by Ally Condie (killer read.)

Kurt Hummel lived in Lima, a fiercely ruled dictatorship in what was once a free country. Having obliterated all that surrounded it, Governor Anderson had taken control of this town, running it like his own theatrical production, choosing lives for the citizens like a cast, and setting out rules like a script.

Most of the time there were no telltale signs that the townspeople were living anything but a normal life. The sun shone on the uniform streets that people were free to walk (after 7am, before 10pm and not between the mandatory school and work hours of 8 until 3), and people were allowed to socialise with friends in the dozen or so cafes and stores littering the main road. People were allowed in each other's houses, though not to sleep, and the huge but slightly empty library was thought to offer enough culture necessary for the residents not to turn into cavemen (there were 100 books, 100 songs and 100 poems kept behind from the "before," ones that were not thought to be dangerous or harmful to the learning and stunted development of the people). They were not prisoners, but they were by no means free.

Every month, the residents of Lima, those were left after the takeover, would gather in the square, thousands of them crammed in together. Governor Anderson would make a speech, usually a recycled variation of the same kind of message – this is all for the greater good; we only have the best interests of the people at heart; resistance is futile. After half an hour or so of this spiel, two more men would mount the stairs to the town hall, standing either side of Anderson, each holding a rifle and each with a sick, smug smirk. Almost immediately they would lift their weapons and shoot into the crowd, three times each.

Then there would be ten minutes of silence. Relatives weren't allowed to fall to the floor in grief, strangers weren't allowed to try and rouse the fallen and no other people could even sigh in relief.

No one was quite sure where these assemblies originated from, who decided they would be a good or even a productive idea. Anderson insisted it was payback for the rebels during the takeover, but that didn't make much sense because all of those people had been put to death. Those who thought about it knew that this was just the government's way of ensuring that they still had power. And fear was the best way to do that, it seemed.

That was how Kurt lost his mom. When he was ten and a half. It was his sixth assembly, because up until the age of ten the children of the town were kept in a "nursery," a bland white room upon the wall of which was projected the live action of what was going on in the square. On more than one occasion children would have to watch their parents, brothers and sisters die, but never did it desensitise the children from what was actually happening in the square.

Kurt swore he would never be more scared than his first assembly, at age ten and two weeks, where the shots were louder and the people more frightened and the man in the suit even more intimidating than had seemed possible from what Kurt didn't realise was the sanctity of the nursery. And it was five months later. That was the first week that he hadn't tried to grab either of his parents' hands (that wasn't allowed, his mommy told him that the man wouldn't want to see him not being brave) but he desperately wanted to. He kept squirming, looking up at the man but holding his right arm down with his left and then his left arm down with his right and then he tried putting his hands in his pockets but then they got hot so he had to wipe them on the front of his sweater and before he realised it the man was finished talking and the shots were ringing through the air and his mom fell down on the ground next to him and something warm and sticky was on his face and he almost screamed, almost turned to look at his mommy but he couldn't. He stayed rooted to the spot, shaking and trying to hold in his sobs. Ten horrible minutes later the two big horns on top of the town hall sounded and the crowds began to file out and Kurt let out a single choked sob, clutching his hand to his face because they were supposed to be silent. Then his daddy took his other hand, held it really tightly, and picked him up, hugging him to his chest and marching out of the square, down the street and home, before he could see that his mom had been shot in the head.

The funeral was a week after, like all funerals. The six victims all had a short service, one after the other, in the same day, conducted by the same man. And then that was it. Kurt's mom's job was given to someone just out of school and it was like she never existed.

Even now at seventeen Kurt sometimes had trouble remembering his mom's face, her voice. That was the idea, though. The people, those that died at the assemblies, they were supposed to have never existed. That was the kind of power that the government wanted to prove that they had. They could put you in prison without telling you why, they could tell you who to marry, give you any job, and they could destroy those closest to you without batting an eyelid.

I hope that was okay. I absolutely love dystopian novels and the idea of so much control (anyone here read the Hunger Games trilogy? Second only to Harry Potter, definitely)

Slightly related note - BORN THIS WAY TONIGHT. I live in England so I'll be tuning in at 1am our time but I am so excited! We get to see our baby Chris Colfer dominate the episode!

Reviews are awesome as well.

Lots of love