Imperfect Perfection

|Chapter 1| |The Forgotten Land|

I wake up to get ready for another day of hell. The apartment is cold as usual, the cracks in the walls and mold on the ceilings left the same as when the previous owner was here. I roll over off of my blow up mattress, crushing a couple of ants as I get up from the floor. I look around for my flashlight to help me get around the room. Although not a good source of light, this is probably the best you'll get here since power to lights isn't provided here. After turning it on, I get dressed in whatever clothes I can even find. I grab a shirt that's a size too big, shorts a size too small and a hoodie that I stole from a dump in Zone Gamma.

I gather myself together as I head to the kitchen, the creaking of the floor probably waking up whoever wasn't awake. I head over to the counter and grab myself a cup of water. As I finish sipping the warm, unclean water I look over at the barely working clock I have put on my wall. 6:30am, it says. "Looks like I still have an hour to walk to school," I said with the enthusiasm of someone who was sentenced to life in prison. I'd look around the dreary, run down apartment and found my shoes. Although a size too small and several holes decorating them, they got the job done. After tying the unkept laces, I headed outside to one of the only safe spaces in Zone Delta, Delta High.

Walking down the street leading to my school I see the usual sights, people gathered around a sorry excuse for a fire for warmth, homeless people asking for money along with many more unpleasant things. Even with all this, you hear the anthem of our country made by the people of Zone Alpha, the elites of our society. Basically, if you wanted a way to say fuck you to someone in Zone Delta, you'd play this. It's our constant reminder that we aren't seen as equals, that people like us don't deserve a place in society even though most of us haven't committed a serious crime. There of course is people here that deserve this treatment, but a lot of us were born here and are cursed to stay because of other's mistakes.

After walking for around 30 minutes I reached my weekly destination, Delta High. I entered the run down building hoping for an okay day. Like usual, my friend Ares Pechman met me outside our classroom door. He stands about 5'2 and seems to be a healthy weight. Reason why he's here you may ask? His parents found out he is transgender and that he used the name Ares and decided to kick him out. As you can probably tell from that, the higher up society isn't very fond of the LGBTQ+ community, seeing us as out of place. You can't really complain about it though, whatever they say goes. What can we do about it, revolt? Damn near impossible.

"Hey Akeru, how's it hanging?" Ares asked with a look of pure innocence.

"I'm hanging around I guess," I sighed. "Yourself?"

"I'm doing mighty fine myself thank you very much," he exclaimed.

Before we could get another word in, our teacher would drag us into the classroom to start another day of learning. As the daily lesson started, I looked over to my usual suspect, the window. Soon enough it seemed like I was hyper focused on the dead grass outside even though everyone in the class knew I was just daydreaming. After what seemed like an eternity, the bell rang and it was time for break. Before I could think about what I was going to do Ares already had me by the arm dragging me to our usual hang out spot. Once we got there we sat down and saved our daily spot in the room as we waited for our friends.

Just like every normal day, two figures would walk into the room. One, a short, scrawny looking guy with hair color that would remind you of a violet. The other around average height, average weight and overall just looked. . . average. The only noticeable features of them being their strawberry blonde hair and freckles that covered their face.

"Hey guys," the strawberry blonde mumbled. She clearly didn't get enough sleep like usual because of the bags under her eyes.

"Are you ever going to sleep enough Oizys?" Ares asked with a look of concern.