My name is James Malcolms.
I am fifteen years old, although I look younger, and I live with my dad in a cramped apartment in the Inner City of Valeria, where we’ve lived for a large chunk of my life. I have green eyes that have been dulled by the endless rush of the city, a sickly appearance ‘cause of the pollution in this lovely city, and a pretty recogniseable scar that stretches from just under my left eye to the side of my mouth.
Up until a week ago, I was happy (well, as happy as I could be) with my life. I had some friends, I was doing okay in school, and I hadn’t fought with my dad for about a month. Hell, I even had a girlfriend (her name was Annie, she was a lovely girl). Life was good.
Until I came home from school to find my room trashed, some of my savings suspiciously missing and my phone nailed to the kitchen wall.
Dear old dad had even had the decency to write a note about it calling me an ‘ungrateful son’ for not coming home immediately after school every day, a ‘selfish brat’ for having a girlfriend, and ending with him telling me to pack my shit and leave because he was going to kill me once I got home.
The writing on the wall was pretty damn clear.
So I did what any rational person would do and dumped everything out of my schoolbag, raided the pantry for non-perishables, yoinked all my savings (plus some cash from my dad’s booze funds) and my ID, grabbed a change of clothes and my jacket, then took my transport card and left, dumping my keys in the gutter on the way out.
I moseyed my way down the street, kicking a stray can around as I walked. I waved at a couple of school acquaintances and made small talk as some of them joined me.
The small talk mostly consisted of me saying hi, said acquaintances asking if I was free to hang out, me declining, them asking why and me citing that I got kicked out. No one was particularly surprised by the reason, which hurt a bit but listen, James, your ass showed up at school with a black eye one too many times and some of us connected a few dots, y’know?
We chatted for a bit more (and I asked a few of them to tell Annie (my girlfriend) that I had to move) until I saw my dad turning into the street. I stopped, he saw me, and I booked it as my dad did his damn best to hit me with his car.
It was a close call, but I emerged relatively unscathed and continued to book it down the street, turning to flip the bird at him before focusing on looking where I was going.
I managed to lose him at the edge of the Inner City. Whether that was because he lost sight of me or because he genuinely couldn’t be arsed to chase me down, I don’t know. Whatever it was, I got out of the city with relative ease, hitching a ride on one of the cable cars which would take me to Pinecrest when I could then hop on a bus and fuck off to one of the other cities’ provinces. Hell, maybe I’d even go to the airport and get out of Atrea entirely. The possibilities were endless.
The cable car stopped at the halfway point. People got off, people got on, the doors held open for a few more seconds, then they closed as… the car didn’t move.
An announcement came over the loudspeaker.
“Heya folks, apologies for the stop but we’ve had word that there is a runaway youth in this car. We will be stopping until the appropriate authorities have arrived.”
Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.
I surreptitiously pulled my hood up to hide my face further, and pretended to be engrossed in reading a magazine. The people around me shifted as they waited, looking at watches, phones, and looking around the car for about five minutes until the authorities arrived.
The ‘appropriate authorities’ turned out to be the Youth Protection Organisation.
I turned to look out the window as they came around, trying to delay the inevitable as much as possible, until one of them finally made their way over to me.
“Hey, kid. Can I just get a quick look at your ID?”
I pulled the card out of my wallet and showed it to the worker.
They looked at it and handed it back with a smile.
“Sorry to bother you, kid. Have a nice trip.”
With that, they turned away and followed the other YPO workers out of the car.
What?
I sat there in shock as the cable car started up again.
The car arrived in Pinecrest with little fanfare. I got out, tagged off, and exited the station with the bare bones of a plan.
Said plan was pretty simple: take the bus to Orland, wait for a couple of days, then cross the Valeria/Minier border and go to Chesterfield.
I (probably) had enough money to make this plan viable, but I resolved to look for odd job offers in Orland just to build up a little safety net in case it turned out that something was more expensive than I had anticipated.
Cheered by this, I set out to locate the bus station.
Unfortunately for me, it was a damn sight further away than I had hoped, and I ended up walking for close to three hours. I tried to make the most of the long walk, taking in as much of the unfamiliar town as I could, noting the architectural differences from the Inner City, tasting some truly fantastic pastries (noting down the bakery’s name for future reference), and petting a couple of stray cats.
My feet were aching when I reached the station, and after scanning the timetable I sat - well, more like collapsed - down onto a bench and waited for the bus to arrive.