• Chapter 1-Pariah

    In the shining city of Lucerna, there is no crime, there is no hate. Lucerna, the most comfortable place on the planet. Always filled with light, Lucerna is a pure and wondrous city. Everyone is able to live their day-to-day lives without...the worry of others interfering...no one is put together with a person who is different from them...Accordingly, no one is killed because of differences...
    -Excerpt from President Alentos’ speech on Lucerna’s condition.

    It was a normal day in Lucerna. Everyone was where they were supposed to be. Dark-haired citizens in their designated area. Blue-eyed in theirs. Everyone but me.
    My name is Selah. That is the name my grandmother gave me. She said I had a last name, but wouldn’t tell me. Before she died, she told me to come to Lucerna in search of my father. I don’t understand how I can do that when I don’t even know what he looks like, but I am going to do it. I will find my father. No matter what. Before that, I need to get away from my pursuers.
    I dip into another alley and hide behind a stack of crates.
    “Where’d she go?” I hear one of the voices of a police officer at the entrance to the alley I am in. “Sir,” he says, “we’ve lost the girl.” I wonder who he is talking to. There are a couple clicks, then another voice appears.
    “Look everywhere,” a static voice says, “do not overlook anything. Check every last bit of this city until you find her.” There is a final click before the static stops.
    “Split up,” the officer yells, “no one goes home until the Pariah is located!” They continue to speak to each other, but it is too quiet for me to understand.
    Pariah. That’s what they call me. I am a pariah. An outcast.
    I huddle closer to the crate and there is a small crack. Immediately, the muttering stops. I hear footsteps. They get louder and louder. When I look up, there is a man standing in front of me. He is wearing a mask that only covers his hair and the top half of his face. The smile stretched across his face is the only image I can have of this haunting man.
    “Captain,” he yells to the man who was talking on the radio, “I’ve found her!” He leans down and grabs my arm. His hand surrounds it. He pulls me up and throws me toward his superior. I land on my hands and knees and look up at the man through my white hair.
    Yes, I have white hair. I am the one type of person on this planet that is not welcome anywhere. I have white hair, pale skin, and red eyes. I am an albino, but to these people, I am only known as a Pariah. The man kneels down to my eye level and smiles dementedly.
    “You know,” he starts, “you’re cute. For a freak.” He grabs my face and pulls me close to his. There is something wrong with this man. The people of this city cannot think like this. They are not supposed to find me attractive in any way. They aren’t even supposed to notice me. These people are different. They can think for themselves.
    “Release me!” I yell at them. I pull my head out of the man’s grip, but he only reaches for it again. Before he can touch me, I shift onto my backside and kick his temple. His mask flies off and he whips his gaze towards me. I gasp. These men. They are not normal in any way. They have no hair, that’s understandable enough, but their eyes. Their eyes are pitch black. Like an ink was injected in them to make their irises and the whites of their eyes black.
    They have no hair color. They have no eye color.
    “Now you’ve done it, you b***h!” He exclaims lunging for me. I roll out of his way and find myself against a wall. I avoid the grasp of many of the soldiers. The ones that do get a hold of me are bitten or kicked. I manage to escape all of them and make a run for it again.
    I make it to a school and decide to hide in there. The classes are still in session and no one will notice me there. I walk in through the front door. I pass a few adults talking to each other. Both have blonde hair, and both have blue eyes. They don’t notice me. I slip into a classroom and find a seat in the back of the class. None of the students turn around, and the teacher continues on with the lesson. I believe she is teaching them how to multiply matrices.
    “Now, if I have a scalar of two, what will this matrix turn into?” The teacher asks the students.
    “It’ll turn into something that is total BS!” A student yells from the middle of the room. I finally take a good look around the room and notice that everyone in this class has golden blonde hair. There are differences in shade, but they are all blonde.
    “Anthony, now is not the time for nonsense,” the teacher says annoyed.
    “Whatever, Teach.” Anthony slouches down in his chair and starts hitting his hands on his lap like drums.
    “Caden, would you like to answer?” The teacher turns her attention to the boy directly in front of me. I lean down a bit, just in case the educator is like those soldiers.
    “No, ma’am,” he says without looking up. I can’t tell what he is doing, but he seems to be reading.
    “Come on, get up here and write the answer on the board,” she says with a smile. She moves out of the way and leans on her desk. “It’s not up for debate Mr. Leigh.” The boy sighs and closes something. He stands up and makes his way up to the board. He writes the solution correctly and silently goes back to his seat. Before he sits down, I see the title of the book he is reading, Damned and Divine: Dei Gratia. I wonder what it is about?
    “Thank you, Caden.” She says approvingly. He mutters something and continues on with his book. When he was walking back to his seat, I noticed that he has brown eyes. This class is for students with blonde hair and brown eyes. I blend in well enough. My hair appears blonde with the lighting in this room, and my eyes should look like a shade of brown from the lighting, as well.
    I sit quietly in the back of the room for the next hour. Again, no one has turned to me. To them, I am not here. A loud bell rings and the students gather their things and leave. I am left alone with the teacher. She sits silently writing on some papers. After a few more minutes, I stand a leave the way I came.
    I go through the halls hurriedly. I bump into a few people and they drop their things, but they probably think they simply dropped their things on accident. I don’t even bother saying, “sorry” or “excuse me,” it’s not like they’ll hear me. I look to the exit and see the soldiers entering the building. I turn quickly and start to run down a hallway. It is less crowded and I have no trouble finding an empty classroom. I sneak in and hide under a lab table. There are loud footsteps outside of the room, and a voice joins them. I can’t understand what the voice is saying, but it sounds urgent, and it leaves, so I don’t care who it was.
    “Pomogite mne, babushka,” I pray to myself. My grandmother was my last remaining family member. She died about three months ago. She was Russian, and one of the few left that still spoke it. She taught me how because she felt I should preserve my heritage. Maybe, if I find my father, he can tell me more about my family than my grandmother did. I don’t even know if Grandmama was his mother, or my mother’s mother.
    I jump when I hear a few knocks at the door. I curl up closer to the lab tables side and hope the person doesn’t come over here.
    “Hello?” I hear as the door opens. It sounds like a student. “I guess no one’s in here.” I hear a few more steps and the door closes. I wonder if everyone here talks to themselves. Wait, why am I hiding? If he is a student, then he won’t notice me anyway. I crawl out from under the lab table and stand. The second I start walking, I run into something.
    “Ah!” I exclaim as I fall on the floor. I look up to see and blonde boy with brown eyes standing in front of me. He is looking at the floor in front of him. I follow his gaze and see a book. I reach for it, and so does he. Before I can pull away, our hands brush. There a zap of static and we both pull away quickly.
    That is the one thing Grandmama told me to avoid. Physical contact with other people. If our skin touches, then something will happen. I didn’t know what it was until now.
    “What?” He steps back and looks directly at me.
    I simply stare at him, then look behind me to see if there is something there. Nothing. He’s looking at me. He is noticing me.
    “Who...who are you,” he stutters, “where did you come from?” If he can see me, then his first instinct is going to be to find the police. I don’t answer his questions, instead I lunge for him and tackle him to the ground.
    “Why can you see me?” I demand as I press my palm to his throat.
    “What are you...talking about?” He gasps. I press down harder, and he starts gasping more.
    “I’ll let you go,” I propose, “but only if you don’t run away!” He shakes his head up and down, then I release him. I remain sitting on him for a few seconds before he says anything.
    “Why are you still on top of me?” He questions. He is unusually calm for just encountering a Pariah.
    “Why are you so calm?” I place my hands on both side of his head and lean in close. He is not reacting at all. He’s acting like I’m just another person. I proceed to lift myself off of him. As I stand, I fix my baby blue dress and tap the toes of my boots on the floor to get my feet comfortable again.
    “Who are you?” He asks slowly looking me up and down.
    “I ask the questions, you stay silent unless you are answering me.” I tell him sternly. I gesture for him to sit up and lean against the lab table I was under.
    “Why--” I cut him off with a glare.
    “Who are you?” I ask. I sit down in front of him and cross my legs.
    “My name?” he attempts to clarify.
    “No answering questions with questions.” I lean forward and stare at him more intensely.
    “Caden. Caden Leigh,” he says softly. His voice is very soft. It has a sort of deepness to it, but not overpoweringly so. Caden. That name sounds familiar. I remember now, he is the boy I sat behind in the classroom I snuck into earlier.
    “Can I know your name?” he asks calmly.
    “Is that a question?” I counter.
    “Of course, it is.”
    “Then, no. You can’t ask me my name.” I move onto my knees and stand myself to look over the top of the table. Nothing. Good, they still haven’t thought of looking in here. “It’s Selah.”
    He doesn’t say anything. Good, he’s learning.
    “My name,” I repeat, “is Selah.” I immediately fall silent. There are footsteps outside. I hear him breathe in as if he is going to speak, and I cover his mouth before he can. I look over the table again and see a silhouette through the door window. I drop down and push him under the table. I follow and practically have to sit on him. There isn’t very much room under here.
    The door opens and a voice says, “Is there anyone in here?”
    It is immediately followed by another, “Why would she answer? She’s trying to hide from us.”
    “No need to get sassy, Robert,” the first voice whines. These guys are pretty bad at their job.
    “Don’t call me Robert, dammit! It’s B-12!” the second voice yells. B-12? Seriously? That’s a vitamin, not a codename.
    “I can’t work with you when you get all yelly, Robert!”I hear the first person stomp away. Are they really fighting like this while they are on duty? I look at Caden with a confused look, and he shrugs. He, too, is lost. I wait for the second person’s response.
    “Ah, come on! Don’t be like that!” He yells. “Come back, we have work to do!” His footsteps also fade off. I slowly crawl out and peek around to see if they are officially gone. They are. I stand and sneak over to the door. I close it silently and then turn to the boy I left at the table.
    “Can I ask questions now?” He stares me down. I stare at him silently before nodding. “Who are you?” He says.
    “I already told you that,” I say walking over to the book that is still on the floor. I hand it to him and he snatches it away.
    “You told me your name, not who you are.” He brushes of the covers of the book, and places it on the table.
    “What? You want my life story?” I raise my eyebrow at him. This guy is getting annoying. There is no way I am going to tell him about myself.
    “Your region would be a start,” he states pulling up a chair and sitting down. He is asking about my region? Regions are separated by the hair color of the citizens. The one I am in right now is for blondes. I’m pretty sure they don’t have a region for people with white hair.
    “I don’t have a region,” I whisper. Saying it out loud makes me feel lonely. “I don’t have a sector either, so don’t ask.” Sectors are the subdivisions within regions. They go by eye color.
    “Then, where do you belong?” He stares at me intently. He really wants to know.
    “Question of my life.”Chapter 2-Babushka

    “Why are you following me?” I ask the boy behind me. He has been walking with me for the last two hours. He even stayed with me when I was running from the officers again. That was a good four hours ago.
    “I don’t really know the answer to that,” he pants. He is quite unfit.
    “Why are you panting so much?” I stop and turn around to face him. “You’re smaller than a starving African child, and yet you sound like you’re dying.” I look him up and down. He is skinny. Maybe not as extremely as I made it sound, but he is still thin.
    “That is a very bad assumption to make. Just because I’m skinny, doesn’t mean I can hold a lot of air,” he puts his hands behind his head and straightens his back in an attempt to get more air, “besides, what’s an African?”
    “A person from Africa, duh.” I begin walking again. Oops, I forgot that these students aren’t taught about the old world. Grandmama made it very clear that the things I know are not the things the people of this world know.
    “What’s Africa?” He keeps following me. I walk faster. Maybe if I walk fast enough, he’ll run out of breath again and pass out.
    We make it to a diner and go inside. He orders two meals, and the waitress looks at him strangely. She, too, is blonde with brown eyes. If she weren’t, he wouldn’t have been acknowledged by her in the first place. I ignore the food when it get here. I can’t eat anything in public. All they would see is food floating around.
    “Aren’t you going to eat?” He puts some fries in his mouth and stares at me.
    “Don’t talk while you’re eating,” I say. People will think he’s weird if he keeps talking to me. I look out of the window next to us and stare at the sky. I think that is the only thing left in any world that can’t be categorized by size, shape, or color. Apart from the different levels of it, but that’s it. This sky is a bit brighter than the one from the old world. It’s probably because it is always day in this city.
    “What time is it?” I ask him. He doesn’t look at me, but instead at his watch.
    “7:48. Why?” he says softly. At least he’s gotten the fact that he shouldn’t speak loudly. I sneak a fry from my plate when no one is looking, then stand and walk out. I wait at the door for him. I can’t walk out on my own, I need him to open the door first. He stands and places money on the table. The currency here is odd. It’s nothing like the circular coins and rectangular bills of the old world. They are now in the shapes of octagons, squares, and plastic cards. The total for the meals was three cards, two octagons, and four squares.
    “I have to go before they cover the city,” I explain when he is opening the door. I walk out and head left. I have to get to the center of the city. That is where they keep the archives for the citizens here. If I get there, I can find my father. All I have to do is search his hair and eye color, then place some of my DNA in a scanner. Night is when I travel best, and it is also when the security there is at it’s lowest. I just hope it doesn’t detect my albinism.
    “Why?” He says. He runs up to my side and matches his pace with mine.
    “Reasons,” I tell him, “reasons that have nothing to do with you.”