Taking a Chance | The Selection Fanfiction [NO LONGER UPDATING]

Prologue

EDITED

Author note: just a fair warning, some parts in this chapter are pretty bad. I promise the rest of the book won't be as awkward!
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Scarlett

I woke up to birds chirping and the sun shining brightly through my bedroom windows. The light made my turquoise walls seem more vibrant and brighter than before. The colors reflected off of the walls and onto the white furniture that was littered with all sorts of nonsensical miscellaneous items.

It was around 9 in the morning, meaning I could have some extra time before my last day of work until summer. I was a four, meaning I worked in a factory that, luckily for us, was just down the road from the area where we lived. King Maxon and Queen America are still working on abolishing the caste system. Before they even started to abolish any of the casts though, they had to set up laws (a lot of which were based on American laws from before the third and fourth world war) for how job applications and hourly wages were going to work for people of all former castes, along with building more universities that weren't as expensive as the ones a lot of threes and maybe twos went to for their advanced education.

They spent almost 20 years just setting up to remove castes before they finally started to two years ago. They say that within the next year or two, whenever the Prince's selection is over, they'll continue to remove castes five, four, three, and two, and then they will no longer be referred to as "Ones" but as royals or monarchs. Surprisingly, very few people had a problem with it. Once you passed caste six, a lot of families were fairly happy with where they were job-wise and financially, or at least they weren't starving on the streets like the eights, sevens, and some of the sixes were. It probably also had to do with the fact that our queen came from a five family, although I suppose they're all ones now.

We lived in a fairly nice neighborhood that was quite large. Our neighbors were mostly fours and fives, with the occasional threes and sometimes twos who lived on the other side of the neighborhood. I normally didn't go near that section unless I was doing a job for someone because everyone there was so stuck up and disgusted of me I couldn't deal with it.

I spent those few extra hours practicing on the keyboard piano in my room. I got it when I was only 12, and it surprisingly has held up pretty well these past 5 years. I was self taught on the piano, with only the help of a few books to show me how to play and read music.

Now I write songs. It's something I did for a while in little snippets, but once I took up actually playing music I started writing full songs with piano accompaniment. It's probably one of my favorite things to do in my spare time, especially when I'm upset.  I didn't care that I wasn't a five, I loved music and even though I couldn't pursue a potential career in music and art until my caste was removed, I still enjoyed it and practiced often.

I heard a knock on my door and shut off my keyboard, pulling myself off of the bench. Just as I put hand on my doorknob, the door swung open, almost hitting me in the face, to reveal my older brother by ten months, Percy.

Perseus was basically me twin, and we looked the part too. We were almost identical. We had the same black hair (although I dyed mine blue) and piercing green eyes, and we both loved music; he plays guitar, and as I mentioned, I play piano. The only thing that really differentiates us from one another—besides our genders and age—is our height. I stand at the lowly height of 5'2, while he towers above me, as well as most people, at 6'2.

We also shared an equal dislike for a certain crowned prince of Illéa.

I absolutely adored Queen America and King Maxon, but their oldest son, Prince Samuel, was a seemingly cocky brat who only cared about himself. And the eldest Princess, Leah, wasn't much better. Their other four kids were all too young to really tell if they were going to grow up to be like their older siblings.