"Kennedy!" A shrill distant voice yelled, "This is my last time telling you to wake up! You've got school in an hour!"
A man lying in bed twisted to face the ceiling. He slid his hands under his pillow and pressed both ends into the sides of his face. This didn't do anything to nullify the volume of the lady's voice. Her words only ended up rattling inside his head.
Receiving nothing but silence, the lady began to scream once again, "If you don't get up, you'll force me to come up there and yank you outta the bed myself!"
Kennedy's hands stopped putting pressure on the pillow, falling weakly beside him, "I'm awake!" He yelled, a subtle hint of annoyance in his tone. He would then begin to punch the air, still lying on his back. As senselessly frustrated as a toddler having a tantrum, he flailed his fists with no real target.
Once Kennedy's explosion of rage died down, he tore his tattered blanket off his body and stormed up to his drawer. "Stupid… stupid…-"
"Why do I have to go to this stupid school all of a sudden? Nobody in the gulches has ever gotten a proper education, so why do I have to? It's pointless…"
He rifled through the contents of his drawer. Crumpled clothes, mismatched socks, and for some reason, an empty, dented soda can all laid inside. With a frustrated huff, he tossed the can aside and turned his attention back to the clothes. A wrinkled shirt along with pants that had seen better days were chosen.
Barging through the door and out of his room, Kennedy hopped down a flight of cold stone stairs while still clothing himself. Upon his arrival in the kitchen, his aunt's eyes lit up, "There you are! I've been trying to wake you up for half an hour now!" She would exclaim, cradling a brush in her two wrinkled hands.
"I don't know why; It only took me a few moments to get ready for the day when I was still working, Auntie Maya," Kennedy said, swerving past her and the dining table to head for the sink. In the areas where the metal hadn't rusted, he could see his reflection. His sun-kissed skin, gray eyes, and medium-length black hair all mirrored his aunt's features. He looked more like her than he ever did his mother, not that he even knew who his mother was.
"I thought you'd wanna wake up earlier since it's the first day of you going back completely! you haven't been to school in two years after you dropped out halfway through middle school." Maya stated, "And since you took that special intelligence assessment exam, you won't have to catch up on any lower secondary school education. You'll immediately be placed in ninth grade, and on top of that, at a younger age compared to everyone else."
With a toothbrush in his mouth, Kennedy listened closely to Maya's words, "Curiosity Academy is a really prestigious school outside of our area, and I worked extra hard to secure you a place in it. Please make the best of this opportunity."
For a moment, Kennedy paused, glancing away to avoid eye contact. He pulled the toothbrush from his
mouth and began to rinse it off, "Yeah, I'll try."
After spitting in the sink, he dashed through the house's interior and grabbed his book bag. Before he could make it to the door, Maya grasped his shoulder, "Not with those clothes... there's a uniform policy, remember."
With her free hand, she held a hanger that carried a pristine white dress shirt, a neat blue blazer adorned with an emblem of an open book encircled by laurel branches, and a matching pair of navy blue pants.
Kennedy's breath caught in his throat while his face twisted, "Seriously... I have to wear that? It's embarrassing!"
"Don't say such things! You'll be surrounded by hundreds of other people wearing the same thing! what is there to be embarrassed about?"
"I'm telling you, I'm not putting it on!"
Kennedy put it on, against his will of course. With a miserable look on his face, he stood tall as his aunt snapped countless photos of him. "You look amazing! Really, I can't believe how much you've grown, I remember when you were barely up to my waste,-"
His folded fingers dug into his knuckles as his irritation grew palpable. A singular eyebrow continuously rose as he listened to his aunt ramble on with joyous tears streaming down her cheeks. He suddenly caught a glimpse of the time, all thanks to the digital clock built into the kitchen's microwave. "Well, would you look at that, eight forty, and the school opens their conceited gates at nine fifteen, better get going, right?" He quickly stammered, taking steps equally as fast of steps to avoid any sort of response.
He grasped the door handle and began to twist it, but his panicked aunt yelled for his halt. While wiping the tears from her face, she held a hand out with spread fingers, "I made breakfast. Don't you want to eat before you leave?"
Kennedy's gaze softened as he turned. With a smile and a long sigh, he stepped away from the door.
❖The Gulches❖
Kennedy stepped out of his home, immediately greeted by the sight of the mangled and deformed body of a petty thug. Its limbs sprawled out on the cracked pavement, twisting and curving at unnatural angles. Next to him were broken bars, from what Kennedy suspected to be metal railing. His eyes trailed up, and he noticed the damaged railing that traced the perimeter of his apartment building's roof. "Tch, what an idiot."
Kennedy grabbed the man by his legs and stuffed him in a nearby dumpster, the familiar scent of rotting flesh filled his nostrils. As he began to walk away, he couldn't take his mind off the interaction he just had with his aunt. He caught himself smiling.
The entirety of our world lives in this city called Metropolis, bordered by towering, impenetrable walls. Nobody knows what lies outside of the walls, and nobody worries.
Though, this warm sense of joy didn't last for long. Two men approached Kennedy from both sides. They were thugs, wearing tattered clothing with metal plates that barely matched their skin tones scattered all over their bodies. "Fancy clothes, Punk." One of them snickered.
The other one rested their forearm on his shoulder, "What house ya live in?"
Kennedy dug his hand into the pocket of his uniform, pulling out a bundle of paper cash, "Twenty-nine O seven. This is the payment, so don't go terrorizing my Aunt for chromes that've already been given." Kennedy muttered, yanking his body away while holding the money up.
The pairs of eyes on the thugs narrowed as he walked away. One of them sped up to his pace and threw an arm around his neck, "You've got some fancy clothes! What's the occasion?"
Kennedy tossed the cash and yanked away once again, not even batting an eye, "Don't wanna talk to y'all. Take the chromes and screw off."
It was almost as if the two thugs were synced to one another, for both of them gained angered looks. They looked towards the bundle of cash, which had landed in a puddle of water. It slowly grew darker as the paper absorbed the nasty gray liquid it laid in. They took their eyes off the money and glanced down the direction he had come from.
Despite being such a progressive city with out-of-the-world technological advances, Sixty percent of Metropolis' population resides in these places called Gulches. They're shitty rundown back alleys where organized crime thrives, and desperate souls linger. The Gulches surround the center, a more developed and cared for part of Metropolis, and are divided into eight sections. Each section is primarily controlled by a gang. The government doesn't seem to care about mafias and drug empires ruling their land, as long as the Center isn't meddled with. The section I live in, the north side, is primarily controlled by 'the posse'.
Kennedy stepped out of the back alley and was introduced to a double-lane road that had train tracks running a few meters overhead. Climbing the worn concrete steps that led to the train platform, Kennedy reached his destination in seconds. The sun broke through the heavy clouds, with beams of light raining down.
A harsh glare was now present on the slender tube of metal and wires that glided along the tracks. The train screeched to a stop, and the doors slid open with a hiss. Kennedy entered, greeted by a rush of cold air and the faint hum of digital displays that showcased trivial ads. Despite the train being filled to the brim with passengers, he was still able to get a spot near the window. He clung onto a grab bar, feeling the train lurch forward. The abominable landscape of the Gulches faded away, soon replaced by the towering buildings of the Center.
The truth about Metropolis? some are born to thrive, and others are born to die.
Unless born at the minimum of the middle class, you're destined to rot away, clinging onto the scraps that others leave behind.
They say there is no rising in Metropolis
Unvitiated
The only direction you can move in is down.
Though
Chapter one --
My aunt doesn't believe in this widely repeated saying. I am going to school, because
The Only Direction is Down
She believes in the myth of ascending.