The Boy Who Learned to Live

THE

BOY WHO LEARNED TO LIVE

D.N. MOORE

This book is a work of fiction.  Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously.  Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2024 by D.N. Moore

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.  If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact therealdnmoore@gmail.com.

Audience: Ages 12 and up. | Audience: Grades 7-12

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024918712  |

ISBN 9798218495800 (hardcover) | ISBN 9798218540449 (paperback) |

ISBN 9798218495817 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America.  Book design by Lorna Reid.

First edition, Avonlea Publishing, November 2024

ISBN 9798218540449 (paperback)

Shelter From The Storm

Words and Music by Bob Dylan

Copyright © 1974, 1976 UNIVERSAL TUNES Copyright Renewed

All Rights Reserved Used by Permission Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

Girl From The North Country

Words and Music by Bob Dylan

Copyright © 1963 UNIVERSAL TUNES Copyright Renewed

All Rights Reserved Used by Permission Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

Table of Contents

Praise for The Boy Who Learned to Live

Also by D.N. Moore

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Book Club/Literature Seminar Discussion Guide

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise for The Boy Who Learned to Live

Moore delivers enthralling set pieces… the entire cast is outstanding… a wholly absorbing, character-driven dystopian tale.

—Kirkus Reviews

"A visceral dystopian tale about the fight to live a full, free life. The book’s contrast between sun-bright hope and intense, violent shocks are compelling elements that make this story leap from the page. The Boy Who Learned to Live abounds with simple yet deep scenes that wouldn’t feel out of place in Anne of Green Gables. They’re passages to savor."

—Independent Book Review

Intense dystopian tale pitting teens against an intrusive, near-future government. Intriguing ideas… brilliantly lifelike… the [protagonists] are thrust into a heady battle of survival, where reality is uncertain and ‘everyone deserves a chance to put their old life behind them and start again.’

—Booklife

A taut and compelling exploration of identity and freedom, set against the backdrop of a dystopian future. In a society ruled by technology and conformity, Oliver finds salvation in human connection and nature. Moore deftly portrays his internal struggle and transformation, crafting a haunting journey that asks not just how we survive in a fractured world, but how we rediscover ourselves within it. Simply un-put-downable.

—The Prairie’s Book Review

"The Boy Who Learned to Live is a thought-provoking novel that delves into timely themes of isolation, the consequences of over-reliance on technology, and the rediscovery of what it means to be alive in a world that has lost touch with its roots. The novel is perfect for readers who enjoy dystopian fiction with a psychological edge, especially those who are fans of books like The Giver or The Maze Runner. Moore’s characters are relatable and the story’s emotional core makes it worth the read."

—Literary Titan

In The Boy Who Learned to Live, Oliver goes on a fantastic journey that ends up teaching him what freedom really means. This book is a wild adventure that teens will enjoy. It’s fast-paced and compares a life controlled by technology to one that is more hands-on with nature. Young people and adults will enjoy the characters and setting in this creative tale.

—City Book Review (16-year-old reviewer)

Also by D.N. Moore

Ballad of the Dead: A Modern Fairy Tale

The Blandford Fly and Other Tales

For

Annabelle

Emily

Jack

and those in your generation

and the next

who may need a reminder

of what living is really about

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

—William Shakespeare

AMBER ALERT

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MISSING TEEN?

Oliver McNeil

Missing Since: September 3rd, 2085

Missing From: The 5th City

Age Now: 17

Gender: M

Race: White

Hair Color: Light brown

Eye Color: Blue

Height: 5’10"

Weight: 160 lbs

An Amber Alert has been issued for Oliver McNeil, who went missing from his home on the eighteenth floor of building 202 in City 5 last Friday night. He is believed to be on foot. Oliver requires psychiatric care and is without his medication, which makes him a danger to himself and others. If anyone has information on Oliver, call Dr. Makoyiwa, his primary care physician, at 400-1315. Thank you for your help to keep our community safe.

One

Is this a black-and-white movie?

My voice shattered the night air like a pickaxe on ice. I blinked and looked down at my feet. White sneakers against asphalt. Another blink. Dirty smudges on gray jeans. Blink. Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of yellow.

Oh, maybe not. I blinked again, staring at my feet. Unless someone put a filter on the world. Could be. Could be that.

I was vaguely aware that I sounded crazy. It was as if my mind had detached from my body and split in two. Or was it three?

Another slow blink and I lifted my head. A road stretched out before me, long and empty, rolling over hills until it disappeared in the darkness. The faded yellow line down its center seemed to vibrate.

I laughed madly. Yellow! My favorite color! Just like sunshine.

The sane part of me wondered who I was talking to. It also wondered where I was and how I’d gotten here. At this point, however, the sane part of me was voiceless.

Another part of me had a bad feeling about that road. It led to something dangerous.

I turned to face the other direction, although that seemed to take hours. My feet didn’t want to move when I told them to. That stretch of road was the same. Long, empty, and definitely dangerous.

Hmm. My voice dragged out the mmm part for a very long time. What do we do now, my dear Watson?

My eyes were heavy. It was time for sleep.

*

When I came to, I was stumbling through water. It swirled around my ankles and pushed against my calves, making it hard to walk. I charged through the waves ferociously. Surely I could out-muscle a bit of ocean surf—but no, it pinned me back and I stumbled down to the ground.

Stupid legs, I mumbled, lifting my head to look down at my feet.

I had been mistaken. This was not water at all. This was a tangled mass of barbed wire that had devoured me like a hideous monster with hundreds of teeth. "This must be a movie," I said, for although the wire was embedded in my skin, I could not feel a thing.

I blinked again, the movement so slow that I watched my eyelashes feather over the frame and float away again. This time the color in my black-and-white film was not yellow, but red. Thick, crimson lines that oozed down my arms and dripped off my fingers. I held my hand up and grew mesmerized by its bloody silhouette against the night sky. And this is where our hero dies, I said in my best narrator voice.

But I knew full well that I was no hero.

Something suddenly jostled the wire and my legs bounced wildly. If I hadn’t been completely numb, I probably would’ve cried out in pain. As it was, I could only stare dully at the pair of boots that crossed the metal and stopped directly in front of me. They were army-style boots, probably steel-shanked, and caked in mud from bottom to top.

The owner of the boots got busy. Bolt cutters snipped away at the wire. A pile of branches was dragged next to me. The movement was too fast for my eyes, so I lay my head back and said, Where’s the fire? with a snort of irritation.

The voice that belonged to the boots was entirely unexpected. You have to get up, it said, and it was soft as first snowfall.

I forced my eyes upward. A cloud of auburn hair, thick like a lion’s mane, framed a tiny, porcelain face in the moonlight. Quiet eyes stared down at me, expressionless. You’re a girl, I said, reaching my hand up to touch her face. And you’re so real.

She crossed her arms and nodded. And I can’t lift you. I need you to snap out of it for a second and get yourself onto this gurney.

My head felt like lead, but I slammed it over to face the layers of evergreen branches that she had fashioned into a makeshift stretcher. I can’t move my legs, I mumbled shamefully.

Can you roll, if I help you?

I’ll try.

Good. The boots stepped over me and she crouched down at my left shoulder. Ready?

I looked up at her and blinked one last time. Are you an angel? I asked. My words were so slurred that it sounded like, Are you GI Joe? She probably had no idea who GI Joe was. I was the only kid I knew who watched old-fashioned movies.

I was expecting her to laugh, but she didn’t. She didn’t even smile. She pursed her lips and the corners of her eyes drooped down. I can’t believe they did this to you, she murmured, pressing my shoulder between her two gloved hands.

Oh, I did this to myself, I said flippantly. This is what I do. Constantly get myself into trouble.

She just shook her head. What’s your name?

Oliver. I had to listen to the sound of it on my tongue to make sure it was correct. It sounded right.

She slid her hand under my back, and I was surprised to find that I could feel her fingers, small but strong within her gloves. Okay, Oliver. On the count of three, okay?

*

I had to admire her for getting me out, but man, that gurney was not much of a ride. Even through the cotton wool of numbness, I could feel the jostling of the branches under me and the jarring of the rocks. A couple times we hit a rut and I went over, face down into the dirt. She had to flip everything over and get me back on again. That was no easy feat. My limbs were like those foam pool noodles that are totally useless for anything but flailing around, and my body was like a rubber bumper. Somehow she always got me back on again, hoisted the handles up with a tiny grunt, and continued dragging me through the woods.

The tree canopy above me was backlit by the moon, and the silvery silhouette was hypnotic in its beauty. I had never seen anything like it before. I disappeared into the intricacies of branches against sky (gnarled and twisting), branches against the ground (brushing and dragging), and the steady footsteps of a girl who had just saved my life.

*

He’s from the city. Middle class.

It was spoken at a low whisper, but there was no mistaking that the voice belonged to a man. Older. Probably bearded.

I refused to open my eyes to check, though. My head had an intense throbbing to it, like a tiny elf had gotten in there and was hammering away at the inside of my skull. I knew that opening my eyes would bring the light, and the light would bring searing pain, like the little elf-man had turned in his hammer for a machete and was hacking away, up to his elbows in optic nerves and brain tissue.

How do you know?

That was her. My angel. You’d never catch me saying that out loud in a million years—ultimate cheese—but it was the only way I could describe her. That image of her face, waves of auburn hair, tiny chin, porcelain skin… it was the only thing I wanted to think about right now.

You can tell from the cut of his hair, his shaven face. He was describing me. Look at the size of his body. He’s properly fed, but not overweight. Those are the shoulders of an athlete.

What do you think he’s on?

There was a pause, and I could imagine him studying me. Could be diazepam. He looks about sixteen or seventeen, and anxiety’s pretty common at that age… you said he was hallucinating, talking to himself, right? The man’s voice paused again. He could be on a whole cocktail of stuff. We’ll need to be careful.

I just couldn’t leave him there, Dad. It was probably the stupidest thing I ever did, bringing him here, but he would’ve died, and he looked so confused…

At this point, my headache had gotten so bad that it wrung my stomach out and brought bile to my throat. I turned on my side, clutching my midsection while I retched. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, or what it had been, but it tasted like acid coming up.

The fetal position felt really good. For just a moment, I was pain-free. I lay my head down, but there was no pillow. The surface was hard and made rustling noises when I moved. I still didn’t want to open my eyes.

Then her hand was on my arm. I knew it was hers because it was so light, her fingers grazing my shoulder and her palm coming to rest against my back. The thought crossed my mind that this would be embarrassing tomorrow, knowing that I had lain there in a puddle of my own puke while she stroked my back like I was an invalid. My future humiliation was enough to pry my eyelids apart and lift my heavy head off the ground.

What happened? I asked, sitting up and wincing as the light hit my brain like an anvil.

She was crouched next to me, arms dangling over her knees, her hair a sunrise-saturated cloud. She still wore those dirty army boots.

We were hoping you could tell us that, she said gently. Most people back home fired questions at me without pause, but she waited patiently for my answer.

I began massaging my temples with my palms. I don’t remember. I was walking down the highway, but I have no idea how I got there. I thought I was dreaming.

Her eyes flitted behind me, exchanging a glance with someone. What’s the last thing you do remember, before you woke up on the highway?

Playing a basketball sim. The squeak of sneakers on the floor, fluorescent lights, blue uniforms. Tightening my headset when it kept slipping off. The usual smell of the air conditioning in my room.

A basketball sim? She had her head cocked to the side.

I looked around the clearing, squinting through bleary eyes. God, it was bright out here. Trees loomed over me like overprotective giants, crowding out the sky and smothering the horizon. Even so, the sun was inescapable, blazing down in fierce slats wherever an opening could be found. What time of year was it? I hadn’t looked out my apartment window in months.

What is a sim? she asked.

Oh. My words came out slurred. You guys don’t have sims out here, do you. It was a statement, not a question. It was dawning on me that these people lived in the woods. How would they drag one of those machines out here? They were as big as a room. The expensive systems had headsets and interactive screens on every wall, for a better user experience. Somehow I couldn’t imagine one of those out here in the woods, under open sky.

I guess you could say they’re like video games. Except we do everything on them. General Ed for school. Physical for exercise. Social for hanging out, catching up with friends. Gingle and Yooza for information. You know, simulators.

A flash of confusion crossed her face. Your life is all simulated? It was a look I had never seen before, in my A.I. world—a fleeting perplexity, passing so quickly it was as if it had never happened. But I knew it had, and it confirmed what I already knew—that she and I came from very different worlds.

My voice may have been slurred before, but now my tongue was an oozy, slimy slug blocking my throat. I tried to give her an answer, but after a moment of gargling and floundering, I doubled over and threw up all over my shoes.

As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, she reached into the puddle of green slime at my feet and began searching through the chunks. Got it, she exclaimed, pulling something out between her fingers. She held it up to show the person behind me.

What are you doing? I protested.

Want to see it? She held her hand out.

Uh, you mean what I ate for dinner? No, thanks. I’ll pass. Curiosity got the better of my revulsion, however, and when she didn’t move her hand away, I leaned in and peered at it. I don’t see anything.

She pushed back pieces of food and cleared a space for a tiny, black square in the center of her palm. I pursed my lips and looked a little closer. What is it?

A microchip.

I frowned. In my stomach?

They chip your medication to make sure you’re taking it.

How do you know I’m on medication?

Another perplexed look. You’re all on medication.

If only my mind wasn’t like a dryer on slow spin. Questions tumbled around and around, on top of one and then covering another. Before I had a chance to grab one and present it coherently, she had stood up and walked behind me.

Oddly, throwing up had made me feel better. The headache had gone from a ten to a nine-point-five, and the light didn’t burn my retinas like before. With her out of my line of vision, I studied the environment around me as much as I could without disturbing my head.

We were in some sort of makeshift camp. A fire smoldered a few feet away, and the smell made my nose hairs curl up. I had never smelled a real fire before. Seven piles of branches topped with sleeping bags lay around the crackling logs like the spokes of a wheel, and six had been flattened as if they had been lain on. I wondered why the seventh was untouched.

The air had a chill-mixed-with-smell that I did not recognize. I was sure I had felt something similar in one of my exercise sims, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It meant something. Something about time.

A pile of branches lay next to me, their needles wiry as an old comb. I brushed one of them with the back of my hand, wincing at the sharp sensation that shot up to my elbow, every nerve recoiling in horror. In last night’s black-and-white movie, I had seen the same branches against my skin but not felt a single thing. Was this world of blazing light and overwhelming sensation better or worse?

The girl and her dad were talking in low voices behind me. I tried to tune in, but I only caught pieces of it here and there. Could be a plant, was loud and clear (the words and the meaning); …can’t bring him back, should have been concerning (but wasn’t); and …dead man on our hands, didn’t make any sense. Finally they seemed to come to an agreement, and the conversation stopped. Heavy footsteps made their way over to me.

Autumn, I realized aloud. That was what the chill in the air meant—it was the season! Fall. Autumn. When the leaves came down off the trees, just in time for snow. I had seen it on sims, but the machines couldn’t imitate that cold, crisp smell.

The footsteps turned to a desperate scramble, and suddenly my body was flipped around, face shoved in the ground, dirt in my mouth, and my hands were twisted in a vise grip at my back.

Two

I wanted to cry out in pain, but I could only utter a weak moan.

Who are you? The voice in my ear was low and steady, but it simmered dangerously.

I’m Oliver, I whispered through a mouthful of sand. Oliver McNeil.

There was a pause. Then: Who sent you?

Nobody! Inhaling loose dirt sent me into a violent coughing spell, which was difficult, considering how tightly I was pinned to the ground. He was unsympathetic.

How do you know my daughter?

Huh? Convulsive cough.