When did it start?

The craze started slowly and at first appeared no threat but gradually as time passed, we noticed more of the Games were becoming easier to obtain and users were less secretive. Who started the craze we never found out nor did we find the reason ever, all we knew is the Games took over and soon books would become hard to obtain; little did we realise what lay ahead.

Reports from the main cities appeared on line; telling of mass burning of reading material and executions of readers seen in public places but these things don’t happen in a civilised world - or do they? And anyway we are miles from the nearest city, out here in the deserts, so, nobody would bother about us, or so we thought.

The beginning of the end of free reading and the beginning of the resistance group “The Word” are masked in the flames of the libraries and halls of learning; which now ring to the noise of the Game Lords – people living in vast towers – who produce and sell the games which corrupt the minds of the young and force them away from the pleasures of reading.

The evening was hot and humid – aren’t they always – and we decided to visit our library. While we were there we witnessed the horrors we read about as Firemen charged through the halls gathering as many books as they could and yelling, “Everybody out! Anybody found with reading material will be shot on sight by order of the Game Lords.”

The next thing I remember is standing outside watching the books and papers burning in piles as the Firemen turned their flamethrowers on them. I wept at the sight of such fine works ending up as ashes in the skies; I looked around and spotted figures moving in the shadows cast by the orange glow of the fires and forming a huddled group.

Slowly, I walked across to the group, as I approached them I saw them back away in terror, “Don’t worry, I’m a reader too,” I whispered, my voice only just audible over the fire’s roar.