Rain on metal

Prologue

(Author note: All fandoms in tags or descriptions have themes taken from them to make this book! If you like them you'll probably enjoy this book. If you have read my last book, these two are actually connected.)

(Main character narrating POV)

It always seems weird to me how adults do things. They do a ton of weird stuff actually. They work at a job they dread for years at a time, they don't play on the swings anymore, they never stay up late, and really I could go on and on. However there has always been some weird thing about them that I always think about. I've gone to plenty of new schools in my life. Then you're at a party during the summer or whatever, before the beginning of a 'fresh start' of a new school. They always ask "Are you excited?" and well that answer really depends on age. At the beginning it's all "Yeah! I can't wait to have brand new friends, teachers, and a new reputation!" but as you get older you are slowly introduced to more dark aspects of the world, and then after a while you straight up go "No. Why would I be excited? What is there to be excited for?" and chances are teachers usually feel the same way as the students when going to school.

I'm not gonna sugar coat this for you, not many people like it. It does however sometimes provide a starting point for life. I'm sure if you're reading this, you were maybe one of those weird geeky kids. Either the popular kids wouldn't leave you alone and kept picking on you, or it felt like you were invisible. Believe it or not, somehow these two things can even work together. However what I find weird is when you say you aren't excited, and explain every way you can why, I have always seemed to get the same answer. "It's alright, I was the weird kid growing up, but I promise you it all turns out fine in the end!" However every school I've been to has only had at least one or two 'weird' kids. So how come, I feel like there's always been more adults saying that then there were actual weird kids. Or other than that, it really might just be all in our heads. That has a name in psychology, actually. It's called the imaginary audience. If you watch "Let me explain studios" You probably know what I'm talking about. I have known about this way before that video was made though. The feeling that every single little thing you do is not only seen by everyone in the room but very much judged, and never forgotten. That's when you lay in bed trying to sleep before a very very long day ahead of you and your brain decides to play "Top 10 moments where you absolutely embarrassed yourself years ago!" I mean it may just not be as bad as we make it out in our heads to be, since we all have that feeling, that feeling we were the geeks growing up. I do know some adults that were the popular kids growing up, and still never grew out of it either. (Example, my mom. But we will get into that in a second.)

There is one more thing to cover, the imaginary audience may not always be, as imaginary as it is sometimes. Like you're the country I live in, Pulchra. Seen as the "country of love and peace" and with our love and peace we bought a load of justice throughout the world. We helped countries, we've hurt countries, but we don't really have any enemies with our title of being so peaceful. But of course there's gotta be a catch. The country of Malum. Those two countries never cut it out. Always at each other's throats no matter what you do. While my country Pulchra has learned to move on, and focus on itself despite the minor inconvenience with malum from time to time. But Malum's news on TV or papers, mainly focuses on Pulchra. Could never seem to let go. It's always what new laws they made, what they said to malum, what they did to malum, what they did, what air they breathed, what food they ate, really malum has some sort of weird obsession. The tension between countries has spread to its people and Pulchraians and Malens don't really get along. This is what I meant by how this imaginary audience isn't so imaginary anymore when you constantly have someone who you despise constantly breathing down your neck, even when you do something that they have absolutely no business in. Seriously, can't people learn to focus on themselves once in a while, because it certainly must get tiring constantly wondering about what other people are doing.

Yes, believe it or not all my meaningless blabbering does have some sort of meaning to the story. I'll get into that in a second, but I need to first introduce myself. I'm zodiac, I'm fourteen years old and live with my mother. I never had a dad, and I'm gonna guess you're thinking I'm gonna tell you why. That's where you're wrong. I don't know the true answer because everytime I ask it's always something different from my mom.

"He found a goose that lays golden eggs, and ran away."

"He works for a secret super spy agency of Pulchra to see what the Malens are hiding."

"He's an astronaut and got lost in space."

"He went with Peter Pan and flew away."

I don't think I'll ever know what happened to my dad actually. Let's just say I wish he took me with him with Peter Pan and gave me some of that sweet pixie dust, because living with my mom isn't the best.

She isn't nice, and always threatens to send me to some boarding school, or an orphanage, or drop me off at Malum, or send me to the military. Usually the types of kids to get these threats aren't the best. But in my defense, I didn't do anything wrong!! I'm passing all my classes, and even help make dinner! I've never pestered my mother on purpose like a jerk. I talk back sometimes, but you can't blame me when you live with a total control freak. She always has to know everything, I get we are family and everything but she knows enough to where she can leave me alone. Always breathing down my neck because I missed a spot when washing the dishes, or maybe I left on the TV from time to time. But she gets so upset over it, I get doing those things aren't the best but she completely overreacts. She always complains about me to her friends.

When a small inconvenience happens she always rips it out of proportion to her friends and makes me seem like some little demon, and how 'hard' she tries and how I'm just a stubborn brat. But I'm not! But then I'm also confused. Because even after all this she will randomly take me to the store and buy me whatever I want. She can be so nice too. After a while I found out she's trying to buy my love, so when I don't wanna do something she can always go "well I bought that new video game for you, can't you just help me with this!?" and when I sigh and go "okay fine." she then guilt trips me "No no it's fine, you don't have to fake it! I'm just a horrible mother, aren't I!?" It drives me up a wall. Then she compares me to my sister, Ruth. "Why can't you be like Ruth, Zodiac? She goes outside and gets friends! Sometimes I really wish you were like those girls on TV that love makeup and shopping, because I would understand you more." I will say for part of my life I have gaslighted myself into believing this wasn't some form of manipulation, and maybe I was just that bad of a person. I can see now it isn't the case. I know some people are thinking it isn't that bad I guess but that isn't all, because that isn't even the tip of the iceberg. She's been mentally and physically abusive. Yes, CPS is an option but it's really so much more than that. Trust me, I've tried everything in the book to get out of this hellhole.

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Author:

HEEEYYYY I'm back you guys! thank you so much for all the attention on the last story I wrote, I really appreciate it! This is some background information from Zodiacs POV on the story before we get to the main part. I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing this.