Admittedly, I wasn’t in the best of moods - plus, I didn’t know then either that she would effect my life in such a terribly wonderful way.
The entrance gates were packed. From horizon to horizon I could see people lined up, a funnel of brightly colored hair, and the endless waves of murmurs that streamed from lips too agitated to keep quiet. Some were crying, puffy red eyes pre-bloodshot from the night before, and their upper lips as wet with snot as their cheeks were with tears. It was a grizzly sight to behold - you never come to terms with your mortality until death looks you in the eye. In this case that eye came in the form of the game, and it did like looking.
Across the bristling of people, countless metal orbs with crystalline eyes zoomed around - focus shutters screeching in a cacophony of annoyance, like a breeze that picked up the noise of nails on a chalkboard. It was a faint whisper of such a noise, sure, but it was still somehow audible over the jeering of all of my fellow contests.
Fourteen minutes now I had been in line, and that was with an express pass - the card I had given allowed me off to one side, on a pathway that was inaccessible to the normal's. It was a piece of plastic imbued with magic which allowed me to pass through to the upper class line; its white walk flowing with magic, and erecting a barrier of blue glass similar to the one around the city. Without the pass you couldn’t move through, but it didn’t stop some people from leaning on it like a wall.
With so many annoyed people, and those who were unkind enough to give a nasty glance my way, it made for a very suffocating almost-tunnel of flesh. It was all I could do to keep my head down and feet scooting forward, as unfortunately I wasn’t alone on the narrow highway to hell.
Behind me directly was a very large man. Large enough that he craned his head slightly over the dome shape of the barriers ceiling, at least breaching eight feet tall, and I’d be willing to wager he was bullet proof to boot. I got that impression by his massive muscles - the tank top he wore, an unfitting bright yellow, screamed for help across the absolute unit; I would have been more intimidated, but something about his the smile plastered on his face was almost goofy. It was the type of smile where all of his front teeth were showing, and boy they were white; a white so bright that I immediately noted they were likely dentures, though the contrast of the large scraggly black beard may have been helping them look all the more pristine.
“Loud isn’t it little lady?” The man caught me staring, and the flamboyant edge to his voice startled me. Where I expected gruff and deep, it was light and friendly.
“You’d think it’d be more like a funeral service than a excited send away, huh.” I offered back a smile, an unfitting gesture on my already grimacing face.
“Folks don’t tend to take into account that they’re gonna lose. Everyone has hopes. Not me. We all die, this ain’t no different - isn’t gonna be tomorrow, ain’t gonna be today.” It was only now I was noting the faint southern accent to the mans voice - at odds with the flamboyancy that laced it, but there none the lass. As he scratched his face, I managed to catch a glimpse at a few things; the first were the more than fresh track marks, covering his arm.
The second was a cancer survivors bracelet.
I wasn’t one to judge, but beating such a terrible, magical laced diseased, seemed at odds with taking hard drugs.
Not that I’d say that out loud, of course.
“I guess so.” I’d nod, and glance away - I wasn’t in the mood for philosophy from a druggie, and my attention was pulled elsewhere anyways.
Up ahead of me was an immediately apparent, large family. The father was the first thing that caught my eye. He wasn’t as tall as the man behind me, but he still towered above me by a foot and some change if I had to guess. Greased up hair, sleeked back far too tight, the tips and sides a naturally graying color; he wore a suit, very keen on presentation, and he out right vibrated with natural mana.
It was likely how he maintained his presence, as even those who loitered around the tunnel gave this family an odd distance, an almost circle forming where the edges started from the tunnels at my sides, and then all the way around until it reached the family ahead of them.
Maybe they were someone I should recognize. I didn’t.
The ones with him were slightly more normal, and seemingly unperturbed by the air shaking magic that their central figure exhaled from every pore of his body. A tall man, maybe six years older than me if I had to guess, was standing next to him - he wore a similar suit, though his hair was buzzed clean off, and he held every bag for the family; sixteen in total, eight in each hand, with no sign of a slouch or even pain in his hands.
He had that kind of face that soured milk, a resting bitch face, and I immediately didn’t like him. While he didn’t outright leak mana like the older man, that on further examination was clearly his father, he did have his own radiation. As a down wind draft caught it, I shivered. Animals probably didn’t like him very much, if he was able to get a reaction from my logical ape brain and body; goosebumps scattering across my body in the artificial warmth of the waiting area, under a jacket that was starting to get a little too uncomfortable.
At their sides three other members - the mother, a slightly over-weight in a way that she still managed to full off type of pretty, with burning red hair and a large and comfy blue summer dress, despite the obvious weather, and a purse that probably cost more than my mothers house.
Then the two others, one of whom caught my attention more than most people. The shortest of the bunch, maybe two years younger than me give or take, stood the most nervous - dressed in an overly stuffed jacket, with red hair like her apparent mothers, the deep scars across the lower half of her face stood out heavily. It was like the poor girl had slurped up barbed-wire like a spaghetti dinner, it was a rash of varying shades of pinked, protruding, scars that made up everything from the cheek bone down.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The right sleeve of the coat was a knot at the elbow, and hung limp, I noted - adding to her physical deformities.
As attention grabbing as she was however, it was the girl who stood protectively next to her that caught my attention. Tall, sleek, with musculature radiating from beneath a very thin white t-shirt - so thin, in fact, that the black of her sports bra was visible, not that I was looking, and her core seemed to vibrate with confidence, and maybe arrogance, at the presence of the line, and the wait.
Unlike the girl next to her, this ones hair was as dark as her fathers - pulled up into a sporty pony tail, messy and with no regard for any particular styling, that waved back and forth as she rolled back and forth on her heels; slim cut exercise pants trailing down to low cut sneakers, in a brand I only recognized from rap music videos and flex interviews.
You know those kind of manic pixie dream girls you scribble in your note book, or imagine when listening to some sappy love song? She made up that, and more, and despite me staring she never seemed to catch my gaze despite blue eyes raking over me once or twice.
To her, I didn’t exist and neither did the world - we weren’t important enough.
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Despite my express pass, the wait took over an hour. It wasn’t as though I was in any rush, but my heart had an inkling of worry - if that pixie girl ever caught me staring, I’d be yelled at. I wasn’t - in fact, she never acknowledged my existence, neither did she so much as glance at the giant standing behind me.
“Hannah Havers - step forward please.” I was startled, my day dreams broken as I realized I was up next. The family ahead of me had just passed through the gate, the water like blue barrier bouncing after they had all stepped through - and all I was left with was the fleeting memory of the girl as she and her entourage wandered into the city.
Above my head a metal drone bobbled back and forth, having already known my name - magic was annoying like that. When mixed with technology? It meant that privacy was essentially obsolete. This thing probably knew the first time I lost a tooth, and the last time I had a good nights rest.
Both felt like a long time ago.
“Yes, right here.” I stepped forward, unsure of what to do exactly - but the thin blue beam of light that scanned me up and down made me want to stand still. I was pretty sure I didn’t need too though.
As the beam of light ran up and along my form, the whirring of the floating orbs mechanical insides could be heard, before it spit up a projection. A hologram of me. Thin, short, messy chest-nut hair cut above my shoulders, with a very slight over bite and the too big leather jacket on, I was the picture of a mess staring back at myself. The shadows around and beneath my eyes denoted my lack of sleep, and my cheeks were gaunt with the very edges of a bad diet, and pale with the lack of sunlight needed to make them rosy and tanned like the family that had been ahead of me.
“Hannah Havers - fifteen years old, daughter of Alexander Havers and Lenore Havers; first awakened mana with the imbuing of fire, but sits at a potential classification of: Omnikinetic. No formal training outside of public education, sponsored by Hendricks Gorge and Forge- no significant other of any kind to speak. Please take this band, your living quarters will be marked via the way point; special classes may be available- based on your bank account records, you may currently qualify for a tutor with your available funds-“ The mechanical voice rattled on for a solid four minutes, telling me what was and was not available. At the mention of the band, the machine dispensed a bracelet that would have hit the ground had I not fumbled to catch it.
Thin black metal, with a screen no longer than my index finger, and only half as wide. Once clipped on, I knew it would be impossible to take off, or even be destroyed. Reluctantly I clipped it on and watched the touch screen immediately come to life. It listed the time of day, my vitals, and had an abundance of icons on each side of the screen: a calling app, a map app, a rankings app, an email map, an icon for the Internet, and various other things for my convenience.
It droned on about my rights, and the resources available to me, for another two minutes. I could not kill in the first three days, I could seek haven in the dome at the center of the city, classes are available through-out all times, the entire year. I had special access to my own private training room, in which I could hone my skills, and of course: everything in my life was publicly broadcast, and they asked if I would like to opt out of XXX content.
Which I did.
Once done the drone hovered past me over my head, and I was allowed to leave. Its presence behind me made me glance back at at the man behind me, where I found their conversation to be completely mute - it was only then that I realized that the family made no noise in their informational, and that likely meant my conversation was mute as well. Interesting, but not too interesting - I knew you could ask for specific things that you’d need, and that was likely for privacies sake. Was the druggie going to ask for his fix? Staring back at him, I assumed that’d be the case. None of my business, however.
Stepping through the barrier, the soft whoosh of changing atmosphere immediately making my ears ring, the artificial generation of the area made itself clear. Pollution may as well have been a non-factor, magical or otherwise; the air was crisp, and clean, and at a chill that only made my nose slightly cold. I was grateful that my jacket was with me, the artifact of my fathers hanging limply over my shoulders.
The city ahead was no less intimidating than I had ever expected. On my wrist, activating to subconscious thoughts, the panel lit up and projected a three-dimensional render of the city, my location, and the fastest path to my home. I knew from watching the game that, as the conversation with the welcoming bot had been just for me, this as well was for my eyes only - an invisible canvasing of the city I could use to find my way to what would be a new approximation of home.
Three days to fortify my stronghold so to speak. Magical runes, warding seals, barriers, and privacy sigil’s that would keep me mostly safe. I’d be broadcast of course, but it was a strict rule that me and my fellow contestants were barred from watching such content ourselves. Televisions wouldn’t load to the channels, no news, no Internet pages, no phone calls, so I’d be safe from them gleaming information through out of city means.
In that way interviews were somewhat of a blessing for most contestants. You could gleam a lot of information from the interviewers, or public signs, if you or someone you knew went on live - I didn’t expect to get an in person interview, and I doubted I would even get a remote one unless some kind of group adopted me into their fold, and they got one.
I doubted that would happen, and it wasn’t my first priority. It was time to get home, and get armed - sword and shield, so to speak, in a period of three days times, and then hope it was possible to avoid having my slit throat in my sleep. Maybe worse, with magic there was always much worse.