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 most of my life. I have green eyes that have been dulled by the endless rush of the city, a vaguely sickly appearance because of the pollution, brown hair that curls in the rain, and a scar that stretches from just under my left eye to the side of my mouth.
I was happy (well, as happy as I could be) with my life in Valeria. I had a small group of friends, I was doing okay-ish in school, and I hadn’t fought with my dad in about four weeks. Hell, I even had a girlfriend, Annie, who I'd been dating for two months. All things considered, everything was pretty good.
That all changed when I came home from a nice, easy day of skipping school—listen, sometimes you just need a break, and I'd finally convinced Annie to join me—to find my dad leaning on the kitchen table, an indecipherable expression on his face. I nodded a greeting, then went through the kitchen, living room, and back hallway to dump my school bag in my room, wandering back to the kitchen to grab a quick snack.
“Mind telling me why I got an email from the school about you being absent from all your classes today?”
Fuck.
I nervously swallowed, the snack forgotten as I turned around to face him.
“All my teachers were out, and the subs were bad?” I tried hesitantly.
He scoffed, then straightened up and turned to face me, casually blocking the kitchen door as he did so.
“Really. And I suppose the school simply failed to follow up on your progressive absences throughout the day?” he drawled, raising an eyebrow.
Double fuck.
“Y-yeah. You know the school system, always slacking,” I stammered.
“Uh huh.” He lowered his eyebrow, visibly unimpressed.
“Cut the crap, James. We both know you’re lying.”
Triple fuck.
Scrambling to think of a better excuse, I changed tacks.
“Is it really so bad that I didn’t want to go to school today? I’m pretty up-to-date with all my homework and schoolwork, plus my attendance is good-”
My dad cut me off.
“I don’t want to hear more of your second-rate excuses. Give me your phone, then go to your room.”
I looked away and did as he asked, pulling my phone out of my pocket and putting it in my dad’s outstretched hand, then reluctantly made my way out of the kitchen, turning into the hallway and idling at my bedroom door.
I glanced back down the hallway just in time to see my dad grab a hammer and nail my phone to the kitchen wall.
“What the fuck, Dad?! I saved up for three months to buy that!” My mouth dropped open in shock, and I took a few steps forward on some half-abandoned instinct to try to rescue my poor destroyed phone.
“I told you to go to your room.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting you to break my fucking phone.”
My dad turned, glaring at me over his shoulder.
“And I told you to go to your FUCKING ROOM!” He roared, stepping forward and making a grab at my shirt collar.
His face was stormy, with pure, unadulterated fury etched into his features. A burst of adrenaline coursed through me, coupled with the fear that always reared its head whenever my father grew pissed enough to become physically violent, the anxiety that I wouldn’t be able to conceal my injuries well enough this time, and the small bundle of hurt and resentment that sat heavy in my chest every time that this happened. The tentative peace that we’d had for the past month was well and truly shattered, both by my own actions, my father’s volatile temper, and a series of events that I would have no idea of until much, much later on.
I ducked under his arm and scrambled away.
We played this game of keep-away for a while until I misjudged a corner and went crashing into the wall, narrowly missing the kitchen table.
Taking advantage of my stunned daze, my father seized the back of my shirt and dragged me back through the kitchen and down the hallway, pulling my door open and shoving me inside. I stumbled and fell onto the carpet, lying there for a couple of seconds before slowly pushing myself to my feet.
“You can stay there until you’ve learned some fucking respect,” he growled, then slammed the door closed, locked it, and stomped off. A moment later, the front door banged open and shut, and his car screeched as he presumably drove off to somewhere.
I took in a shuddering breath and ran my hands over my face, willing myself not to cry.
***
After a few minutes of getting my emotions under control (and waiting to make sure that my father wouldn't be back anytime soon), I sprang into action. Grabbing my schoolbag, I packed it with two changes of clothes, my savings and some other bits and pieces, then picked the lock on my bedroom door, went to the kitchen, raided the pantry for non-perishable foods as well as a can opener and circled back to the bathroom to grab toothpaste, a toothbrush, and body wash. I went into my father’s room, too, to grab stuff like my passport and birth certificate, setting everything back in its place before I returned to my bedroom.
After double-checking to make sure that I had everything I thought I needed, I zipped up my bag and slipped it on before crossing the room to open the window. I clambered out onto the fire escape, closed the window behind me and descended the stairs to get to the street below.
I moseyed my way down the street, kicking a stray can around as I did so. Waving absently at a couple of friends who were on the other side of the street, I crossed over and joined them, shouting a greeting as I came within earshot.
One of them enquired as to why I was out and about, and I just muttered that I wanted to be out of the house. None of them batted an eye at my response, and we chatted until I saw my father turning into the street. I kept walking but angled myself away from the road and slouched down a bit. He continued driving, and I straightened back up, turning the movement into a stretch, then made a show of checking the time and said a hurried goodbye before picking up the pace and heading to the cable car station.
I got out of the city with relative ease, hitching a ride on one of the cable cars, which would take me to Pinecrest, where I could then hop on a bus and fuck off to one of the other regions. 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, in San Arilee, the region in between Pinecrest and the Inner City. People got off; people got on. The doors held open for a few more seconds, then they closed. The car remained at the station, and after a few minutes of passengers grumbling and muttering to each other, an announcement came over the loudspeaker.
"Good afternoon, folks. Apologies for the delay, but we’ve had word that there is a runaway youth in this car. We will be remaining at the station until the appropriate authorities have arrived."
Shit, shit, shit.
I surreptitiously pulled my hood up to hide my face further, pretending to be engrossed in reading a magazine. The surrounding people shifted as they waited, looking at watches and 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.
"Excuse me, sir, 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. 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.
My plan was 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 expected.
Cheered by this, I set out to locate the bus station, but unfortunately, it turned out to be 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.