Stories On The Wind

By Laura Schiller

Based on: the Matched Trilogy

Copyright: Ally Condie

"Always at night before I slept, my mother used to sing to me about the Pilot. Any day her boat might fly/Across the waves and to the shore … That's what gave me the idea. To build a boat, I mean. I thought … I guess I thought she would be proud of me, for trying to escape, trying to be like the woman in the song. But the look on her face when the Officials brought me back … I'd never seen her look so disappointed. My father, too. I didn't raise you to waste your life, he said. But what else was I supposed to do - nothing? Sit back and watch while people I knew disappeared and wait for a Pilot who might not come for years, if at all? Wouldn't that be wasting my life as well?

"I thought everything would be different after, even if I didn't make it out. But the really sick thing was that it wasn't – almost, anyway. Everyone in the village must have known; it was a tiny place, not like your Oria City where you don't even know your neighbors' names. But they all treated me the same. The same cold smiles, the same how-are-you-and-how's-your-family … it's not like I was all that popular before, so I never knew the difference. It only made me believe in the Pilot even more – that when I find her, or him, I'll finally find a place to belong.

"But it's been years and nothing's happened, and the closest thing to a guide I've found is a naïve little girl who gives her food away and takes blue tablets. I don't know how much longer I can believe.

"Damn it, Cassia. How could you be so stupid? How could you not know those tablets are poison? How could I not know that all those twisted jokes of yours, about the boy waiting too long to kill himself, weren't really jokes at all?

"Don't die. Don't you dare die, Cassia Reyes.

"You're not like me. You're better. You still know how to trust, how to see the best in everyone instead of expecting the worst. You don't just have things to live for, you have people. That boy of yours is going to miss you if you don't reach him in time. And you're not really stupid, I take it back, okay? The Rising could use you. And I … I don't know if I can make it on my own.

"So just … keep moving, all right? Just keep moving. I'll be right behind you.

"I won't let you fall."