A few minutes later, Charlie, Nyx, and I stood on the empty patch of dead lawn with the parents’ blanket wrapped around our shoulders. A few measly possessions were in a box at our feet.
The truck towed the trailer down the ice-covered road.
“Let’s find shelter,” I whispered and led my family toward the nearest trailer to beg for help.
We were officially homeless.
That was the thing about living in dark times—life got progressively worse.
Always.
Chapter 3
Surviving Hell (High School)
Alexis:Year 2099
Neon green flickered on the ceiling as the power grid struggled to keep the school’s lights on.
It was six in the morning but homeroom—the period in the morning where teachers took attendance before classes started—buzzed with noises.
Who cares if Sarah cheated on Bethany with Eric and that they did butt stuff?
People confused me, but teenagers were downright perplexing.
Sometimes (every day), nineteen years on earth felt sufficient.
I’d seen enough.
Sighing heavily, I tried to focus on solving the equation I’d been working on for months.
Everythingwas riding on me scoring top .001 percent on the Spartan merit test this June. Every nineteen-year-old on earth took the Spartan test to determine if they could attend one of the three Spartan-run higher-education universities that were left in the world.
If I managed to get in, I still needed evidence of academicaccomplishments beyond grades. My work on the Riemann Hypothesis would be my proof.
Charlie was depending on me.
I would not let him down.
Jessica sniffed where she sat next to me on the left. “Does anyone else smell that?” she asked loudly, then tittered with a group of girls.
Thank God I’m partially blind and can’t see her expression. A small mercy.
She sniffed louder.
Wishing I could dissolve into tiny pieces and disappear, I sank lower in my seat.
I’d scrubbed in the school bathroom sink this morning.
I cleaned obsessively, but it was never enough because the scent of homelessness lingered on my few articles of clothes no matter how often I rinsed them.
It proclaimed to everyone that Charlie and I lived in cardboard boxes at the back of the poorest trailer park in our town.
Jessica plugged her nose, and her friends pretended to gag.
I hummed a classical tune.
Phantom pains shot up my forearms, underneath the dozen old hair ties that covered my scarred wrists.
