The Ruin wasn't always this ugly. It wasn't even the Ruin at one point. It was a chunk of land, but that's all we know. Our teachers tell us there was a great big war that caused it to wipe out everything in its path and it left the Ruin. No one ever tells us what caused the war though. Though I do want to know how and why it happened, I just try to leave it alone. Today is just like any other day. It's fall time and no matter where you look, there are beautiful colored leaves everywhere, some red, pink, orange, and yellow. The wind is rustling the leaves in the trees and coaxing them to fall to the ground like rain drops. I lay on the grass looking up at the sky and the trees when my friends come walking up.
        "Hey Effie," says Jack.
        "What's up?" Will said.
        "Hey, nothing much. What about you guys?" I asked.
        "Nothing much," they said in unison.
        "Nice. I'm thinking the lake today. What do you guys think?" I respond.
        "Maybe, but don't you think it's a little cold for that?" Will whines.
        "Oh don't be such a baby." Jack jokes, and punched his arm slightly.
        Will always seemed to be the more caring one. Almost like a teddy bear. Jack is more like a grizzly bear. He's tough but fluffy at the same time. I laugh looking up at both of them. For some reason they look at me like I'm totally weird. I was usually the only one who laughed the way I did. For some reason I don't know, but everyone else just seems to giggle or smirk at something thats funny. That's one of the reasons as to why I'm different. We talk and joke for a little, then go to our dwellings; e agree to meet at the lake within the forest in ten minutes.
         I walk into my 2 story, plain white, and boring dwelling, just like everyone else's.
         "That smells great Mama!" I yell from the door.
         "Thank you Effie!" she yells back.
          I walk into the kitchen and grab a cookie off the cooling tray. I take a bite into the still warm and gooey cookie.
"Yum!" I said. "This is great!"
My mom looks at me funny, so I reword what I said.
"This is a great treat," I tell my mom.
          I still don't understand why I talk differently from everyone else. People talk all proper, but then you listen to me talk and I sound weird. I usually just ignore it, then reword what I said.
        I go upstairs and change into my swimming clothes. I pull my tie dye t-shirt on over my long, chestnut brown hair and put my black swim shorts over my swimming bottoms. I jog down the stairs with my drying towel and my extra clothing.
        "Bye, Mama! Thank you for the treat!" I call to my mother as I walk out the door.
        I walk up the path towards the forest. As I approach the trees I move the bushes and branches out of my way and shimmy my way through. As I walk through the trees, I take my time and soak up the beauty of the forest. I soon approach the lake and find Jack and Will sitting on rocks waiting for me.
        "Hey losers!" I exclaim.
        "Hey!" they yell back.
        I pull my tie dye top and black shorts off, run, and then jump into the lake. As I resurface I look back onto the shore and I don't see Will or Jack.
        "Where did you guys go?" I said aloud.
        "Woooo Hooooo!" I hear Will scream.
        I look up and see both Jack and Will jumping over my head, into the water.
        "You both are crazy!" I say as they come up from the water.
        We swim for an hour or two having a gleeful time, enjoying each other's presences. We get out of the lake and dry off. After sitting discussing how we are, we decide to go exploring.
        "Im gonna go over here and look," I tell my friends.
        "Ok," says Will. "Yell if you need us."
        I walk off and look around for a bit. As I look off into the distance I see a little building.  At first I was just walking like normal, then before I realized what I was doing, I was running towards the building. When I approach the building, I realize it was almost like a dwelling. The door attached to the building is slightly ajar. I knock but nobody answers, so I lightly push the door open. When the door opens, the creak echoes off the cement walls. I walk in and see a set of stairs. Even though I don't know where they go, I follow them anyway. I can tell that I'm going deeper into the ground by the slight drop in temperature as I descend down the stairs. When I reach the bottom of the stairs, there is a large library, a small desk, a cozy reading area, and then a chair sitting in the middle of the room, and then this man sitting in it. As I walk in, my bare feet pad on the cold marble floor. As I approach the man, he turns to look at me and gives me a strange look.
        "Who are you?" I question the man.
        "If I tell you that, I'm going to have to kill you," he said with a straight face.

When I turn to run, he grabs my arm. I try to escape, but he is too strong. Even though I know he's too strong I struggle for a bit. I give up and collapse on the floor. He picks me up off the floor and rests his hands on my shoulders. He just stands and looks me in the eyes. I stare back not really sure what to do. At that moment I really want to scream because I didn't know what this man was capable of.
        "What do you want?" I say in a barely audible voice.
        "I've been wondering when you were going to come here,"
he says.
        At this point the man wasn't looking at me in a I'm-gonna-kill-you type of look, but a you-hurt-my-feelings-for-staying-away type of look. The man was very confusing so I start with something easy.
        "Who are you?" I question.
        "I'm the Keeper." he says.
        "What is a keeper?" I question out loud.
        "Why, a keeper isn't a thing. A keeper is me. Therefore I am the Keeper."
        "What's your job? What do you do?" I ask him.
        "I'm the Keeper of emotions. Haven't you wondered why you are different?"
        "Well of course I have," I reply.
        "You are the only one, besides me, who has one hundred percent of his/her emotions."
       "I'm so confused. I don't understand," I say.
       "You see, a long time ago, there was a beautiful land where people had every emotion possible. Then a man named Johnny Ellis fell in love with our chief elder, Rosemary. They were engaged to be married, but something called lust for another women even more beautiful than the young Rosemary, had ripped through Johnny's heart. He had called off the engagement, and left poor Rosemary. The chief became so heart broken, sad, angry, and upset, she forced her mother, who was chief elder at the time, to call war upon Johnny's homeland. This war created destruction and terror throughout our once beautiful world. The chief elder of Johnny's homeland, and Rosemary's mother had enough of this war. Both agreed to sign a peace treaty as long as every baby that was born had an injection that would only let the people of the land have emotions up until the age of two.
      "I...I...Wait. What?" I stutter.
      "The only reason you and I do not have the emotional restrictions, is because we are the only two who are immune to the injections. This is a lot to take in, I understand, but there is a way that we can give everyone their emotions back." The Keeper goes on.
      "How? How can I stop this? I don't want to be the only one with full emotions. Every time I talk different then they do, people look at me like I'm a total wack job!" I exclaim. "I mean people look at me like I have issues." I stand there, fleeting my eyes from him to the floor, not really sure what to do.
      "No need to correct yourself. I'm not one of them, remember?" He says
      "Yes, I remember," I say. I look at him, studying his features. He has hazel colored eyes like I do. He also has a white, grey bread with the streaks of the same chestnut brown hair.
      "You and I have some of the same features," I say to him.
      "Yes. I have noticed that too," he says, not looking me straight in the eyes. It's almost as if he knows something.
      He and I sit together and discuss what life was like before emotions were taken away. He told me he had seen the once extraordinarily beautiful world. The Keeper also explained he was around my age, maybe a little younger when the terrible war happened. He explained to me that he witnessed his family getting killed in a house fire due to a bomb that had gone of just minutes before he got home from school. The Keeper's mother, father, 2 brothers, and unborn baby sister had been killed.
        I explained to him that I knew his pain, because I had been five years of age when my father had mysteriously disappeared. Once we neared an awkward silence, I told him I had to leave, but I would visit tomorrow.

I walk up the brick stairs and push the door into the bright light. It took a minute for my eyes to focus back to the natural light of the sun. I walk through the forest, remembering I had abandoned my friends.
      "Will! Jack!" I yell.
     "Effie! Effie! Where are you?!" I hear Will yell.
     "I'm over here!" I holler back. Within moments of saying that, I see Jack and Will in the distance. I start running towards them. When Will sees me, he starts running in my direction, with Jack not far behind him. As we near each other, you could see the genuine concern on both of Jack and Will's faces.
      "Oh my gosh, Effie! Where have you been? It's been an hour since you went in the other direction from us! You scared us!" Will says as he hugs me in a tight embrace.
      "Will, I'm fine. I just got caught up in looking around, I didn't realize I was gone for so long. Sorry." I say as I hug him back.
     "I'm hungry...I mean. Man! Effie! You had me scared to death!" Jack says while trying to keep a fake concerned look on his face.
      "Ha, ha. Very funny, Jack." I say and I jokingly shove him into a tree.
      We walk through the forest talking about what we found. I was contemplating whether or not I should tell them about the Keeper. Once I made a mental list about what could happen if I did, I decided not to. Will found a hermit crab, which he's keeping, and Jack found a squirrel that he decided to repeatedly throw rocks at.
      When we get out of the forest, it was almost curfew so, we parted ways to our dwellings. Today was a really great day spent. I thought to myself. I went swimming with my best friends, went exploring, made a new friend, and even learned more stuff then I could probably handle. Maybe that last part of the day isn't the best thing that happened.
      When I reach my dwelling, it's just before curfew. I go inside and up the steps to my living space. I change my clothing into my night wear. I go to my washing device, and put my sun and swim clothes into it, along with my dirty day clothes and undergarments. I start the washing device. Once I walk over to my bed, I climb in and pull the coverings over me up to my chin. I clap twice and the light shuts off. I instantly fall asleep and start dreaming.
*Effie's Dream*
      "Bye Daddy! I'll see you after school! I love you!" I say.
      "Love you too, my little Eiffel Tower!" my daddy says.
      *Later that Day*
      "Mama. Where's Daddy?" I ask.
      "I don't know sweetie. He probably is busy with work. That's all." She replays.
      *2 months Later*
      "Daddy isn't home! Daddy's never coming home! I'm never having a daddy again!" I scream at the top of my lungs
      "Baby! Mama is here. Daddy is ok. I promise. He's just going to be on a very long vacation." Mama says while holding me, trying to comfort me. I knew he was never going to come back. I knew it. I knew it. I knew.
*End of Dream*
      "I knew it. I knew it," I say while waking up, with tears running down my hot cheeks. I wipe the warm, salty tears off my face. I get dressed and ready for that day, remembering that I promised the Keeper I would come back.

I leave my dwelling and head towards the forrest. I reach the Keeper's dwelling. I enter the door and go down the cement stair, leading down to the library where we had been yesterday.
      "Keeper. Heyyyy Keeper. I promised that I would come back, so I did. Tell me how to get rid of the injection affect," I say aloud as it echoes in the large room.
      "So you did show up." I hear him say from a loft, that I never noticed before.
      "Well, of course I did. I want to know how I can fix this," I explain. He tosses down a book and I catch it just before it hits the floor. I set it down gently next to another stack of books.
      "How am I supposed to fix this?" I question.
      "Well, considering that you came back today, and that you took everything I told so far quite well, I think you are ready to reverse the injection affects," He says.
      "How do I do that?"
      "Well, first we need to get to the hospital. At the hospital, there is a main office area that you see when you first walk in. Behind the desk, there is just a plain wall, but behind that is the panel that controls the injections. Everyone gets an injection every week. When they put everyone's first injection in, a microchip was in the serum which is how everyone gets their dose of serum. They have a time release on the chip so the serum is put in the blood stream every six hours." the Keeper explains.
      "So, I just have to get into that room and I can basically shut off the microchips that control the injections?" I ask
      "Yes. I suppose you could say it that way," he responds
      We discuss a little longer on what I should do if something were to happen to me in the process. The Keeper explained to me how to turn off the microchip. The Keeper tells I'm immune to the injections I get so that's why I'm not emotionless.
      The Keeper and I walk to the hospital together going over the plan.
      "Ok, so I walk in and say that my "grandfather" is really sick. I'll tell them you are outside getting some air. I'll go and get you, then bring you inside. The lady will most likely ask you what's wrong and then that's when I will shove her, knocking her to the ground. I will go behind the desk and go into the back room where the microchips are controlled, while you make sure nothing outside of the back room happens. I'll bust up the panel so it can't be fixed and then we'll leave. Did I get everything right?" I ask.
      "Yes, I believe so." he says.

      As we near the hospital, my hands start to sweat. You've got this Effie. I think to myself. I enter the hospital doors by myself and leave the Keeper sitting on a bench. I walk up to the counter like the Keeper had told me.
      "Hi," I say. "My grandpa is sitting outside, and he's really sick. He said he needed some fresh air, so I told him to wait while I came in and talk to somebody," I lie through my teeth.
      "Why don't you go and get him? I'm sure we can figure out the problem," the lady says with a smile.
     I walk outside to get The Keeper. He's sitting on the bench with a butterfly on his finger.
      "Keeper? It's time to fix this mess."
      The Keeper gets up and hooks his arm through mine and hunches over a little. As we open the hospital doors, he starts coughing. The lady I had talked to before, was walking towards us.
      "How are you feeling, sir?"
      "I have a sore back, a runny nose, and a bad cough." he says.
      Once the Keeper had finishes his sentence, I pushes the lady as hard as I could. She goes tumbling backwards into the waiting room chairs, and into some patients laps. I run behind the desk and try to figure how it opens. After a few minutes of struggling, I manage to get it open. I go inside, and close the door behind me. I find in front of me, a large panel of buttons, lights, and knobs. Next to me is a desk with a cellular device, a stapler, and a tape roll. I yank the cellular device off of the desk, and start slamming it against the panel. In seconds, the board of blinking lights and buttons, were sparking clearly getting upset and putting up a protest. I drop the cellular device on the floor and the door. When I get outside I realize, that the Keeper was struggling against three people. I jump in and punch one of them. He doubles over in pain, then falls to the floor. Once the man was on the floor, I grab the other one and shove him just like I did with the receptionist. He falls backwards into the wall. The Keeper is kicking and punching the other man, and that seems to be working, because soon he falls to the ground. We run out of the hospital and into the forest.
    Once we reach the Keeper's dwelling, we go inside to the library, trying to regain our strength and relax.
   "I know what happened to your father." the Keeper says out of nowhere.
   "What?" I question him.
   "I know what happened to your father." he repeats. "The reason he left was because he was in danger. If he had stayed at home it would have put you in danger as well." he continues. "The government knows certain people can be immune to the injection. The only people that can, are the people in your family. He ran away to prevent him from being killed." he explains.
  "Keeper?" I say, "I know who..."
     

¿The End?