From the rock that Arlie was sitting on, you could still see the ship sailing away. It was the last thing she and the other kids would see from the world for a long time, if ever. She thought it was a cruel thing to do. Ovepopulation or not. You couldn't just simply place a whole fraction of all the children under 16 on little deserted islands, hope they die, and forget about them. Man is always pushing that there is too many humans on the earth, and that there's not enough food. That's what happened this time, and we believed them. Shortly after the acceptance of overpopulation, government decided that in order to make population go down, they would have to get rid of all the "excess" children 16 & under. Five hundred million Random children have been dubbed, useless and unnecessary. The solution? Take them in small goups to deserted islands. When there are no more islands, execute them. This is why Arlie and seventeen others sit huddled around a fire, on a small, 14 acre island.

Arlie looked around at the othe kids. One only two years old, was sobbing nonstop. Earlier, he had been screaming but had lost his voice on the way here. Arlie had taken immediate pity on him. Others were annoyed by the toddler and threatened to drown him. She immediately decided to take the kid under her wing. There were eleven others that were under ten, the other seven in their preteens and teens. Arlie was probably the oldest. She would have been turning 17 in two months.

A boy who looked about 16 or so spoke up after awhile.
"Who's 16?" He asked, obviously trying to figure out the oldest and who would be the leader. Me and another girl raised our hands.
"When's your birthday?" He asked us.
"I turned sixteen thee months ago." The other girl said. Then, I spoke up.
"I turn seventeen in two months. When do you?" I asked him. He stared at me for awhile, his eyes sad but serious, then a shadow crossed his face.
"Tomorrow." He said staring back into the fire.
A boy who looked twelve or so started to comment, "That would-"
"Stop." I interrupted. "Act mature, we have little kids here."
The kid's face flushed. We were quiet fo awhile, then fist guy started to talk again. "I'm Marcum, from New York, America." He said, holding out a hand to mine. "I'm Arlie... From Maine." I replied, shaking. Soon, everyone was intoducing themselves. I finally figued out the name of the two year old. His name was Lucas. There were five other kids who were under the age of seven, so the five oldest each decided to be a big brother/sister to one. I of course, adopted Lucas. Afte awhile of getting things straight, we made camp with some of the things we brought. We had just finished dinner (which was just a few cans of cold soup), and some were still crying tears. I hadn't cried many times. I mean, what was there that you could do? Crying didn't help. Or it didn't help me. As I was laying out my sleeping bag, I noticed Marcum walking along the shoreline. I went to join him. We were quiet for awhile as we looked at the ocean.
"What do we do now?" I asked. He looked at me, smiled a bit, and simply said,
"Survive."
Arlie smiled back. They both knew that eventually the government would realize they were wrong. It might be next week, or maybe even in the next century, but they would. It had only been a couple months since they convinced the world with their lies. They didn't have time to think it over. When they realized they were wrong, people would come looking for survivors. Arlie wanted to be "a survivor".