Last Chance

Set in an ambiguous time period, a society run entirely by children exists. Within the confines of this society, human beings are not allowed to grow past 12 years old in an effort to prevent them from ever becoming adults. The purpose of this is that adults cause things like war, famine, and ultimately, death and suffering. Children don't perpetuate things like racism, sexism, ableism, etc. It's only through adults that these things infect society. In the "Beforetime" a Child Vs. Adult rebellion took place. The children won because ultimately, adults were too arrogant to believe they could. In the "Nowtime," when the story takes place, at 12 children are given a shot to prevent them from ever ageing. The children have devised a system of "measuring" empathy levels in human beings and some are allowed to survive in quarantine for breeding purposes only. At birth, babies are taken from their parents and raised by other children to be integrated into this society. The adults that are kept for breeding are called "Starters" and the babies are called "Freshlings." The Children that turn 12 and are given the shot are called "Graduates" and the process is called "Freezing." The child in charge of the quarantined Starters is called a Daywalker and is always a Redheaded child. Rumoured to have no souls, although that is widely regarded as myth as there is no religion in this time anymore (it was discovered early on before the rebellion of children against adults, that religion was created to control and manipulate children), for some reason redheads actually typically have empathy levels of 99. Within the story, a team of child scientists grow suspicious when the Daywalker in charge of their Starter Cell seems to be turning violent, having "Expired" multiple Starters seemingly at random. Frustratingly, she seems to be doing so with no punishment from the Council. They also stumble upon a trend that reveals slowly declining empathy levels over time in new Freshlings. It all comes to a head when during the Freezing Ceremony, the Daywalker attempts to assassinate the new Graduates, which are later revealed to be her genetic siblings. Again, the Council does not punish her. It's revealed at the end that the Council recognizes that their methods of this new lifestyle are not without consequence, but they feel this was their last chance, so they've just been killing off anyone who finds out in hopes that they can ultimately move forward with society as is, since it's been mostly peaceful since adults have been eliminated.