Children of Adaygue Book 1: Mad World

Chapter 1: A Beginning And An End- (Part 4) | The Big Green

Disclaimer: I might shorten / change this chapter, I just added it a little bit to be a bit in her thoughts, and know about her struggle. If you want to point out how I can insert these details more organically, you're welcome to point it out in the comments. thanks :)

Since I forgot: the currency is based on the old Goldmark (Pre-WW II). 100 Pfennig are one Gold Mark. In this Age, they are no longer containing actual Gold Mark. And while the original Kurant coins were 10 and 20 Gold Mark coins, here, they are 50 Pfennig. Like 10 Pfennig are a Groschen. You might have similiar words for specific coins in your currency :) If you ask me for a value, I would say 1 Gold Mark is worth around 1 USD. By the way: the actual economic powerhouse in this world isn't the US... Sorry, I guess? :D

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The last bus of the day sat at the stop, as if it was waiting for her.

 30 seconds. 

 Madleine cursed and started running. 

She was never good at short sprints, and certainly not fast. She had stamina, but was slow as a duck. 

 She practically threw herself into the bus as it closed the doors behind her. 

Done! She sank down into one of the seats, this time without headphones and music. Not again. Not again for today. Tomorrow, maybe. But today she had lost her sense of security. 

Madleine stared into the reflection of the bus window as the rows of houses passed by her in the orange light of the street lamps. The facades became increasingly dirty and run down, typical of the district in which magically cursed people like her were legally required to live. 

The ghetto, surrounded by a high wall, in which not only people with magical talent but also the very poorest live closely packed together, was gray and overcrowded. The Groß-Grünau district was also cynically called "The Big Green" by the residents, because there was practically nothing green here. The few trees and bushes only grew there because there was not enough space to put up a miserable hut made of flakeboard like in some areas of the district, or because no one could squeeze into this empty area to sleep. 

Madleine had been lucky and had enough financial means in her life to be able to afford a small apartment in an area of ​​the ghetto close to the border. The wall was surrounded on the outside and inside by a narrow strip of green that served as a park. The further you moved away from it, however, the closer you came to the holes of the former open-cast lignite mine, in which toxic water collected. Some of these remains were used as garbage dumps, which poisoned the environment even further. Life there was accordingly "good". 

The city didn't give a damn about this part, it only existed to generate more tax- revenue for the non-magical part of the city. The residents of Groß-Grünau knew exactly how to get around it. And so a bureaucratic tug-of-war had arisen between "tax this income and do it pronto!" and "I did my neighbor a favor because he always looks after my cat. What is there to tax?" 

Fruit, vegetables, pest control, repairs to the house and roof - everything was paid for in a currency called favors, which could not be taxed. And so when people sent by the authorities asked for money for their services and prices, the residents shrugged their shoulders indifferently and quite spitefully. The Temple of the Children of Adaygue regulated everything here anyway, without the city paying a single Pfennig. 

Starting with self-organized shuttles twice an hour that picked up the residents of the ghetto from the last stop and drove them to different places, and meals on wheels. What the temple couldn't regulate, neighborhood communities regulated: favors for favors. The favors had to be fair, but fair was not always moral or ethical. It was not fair to steal, but punishing someone who had stolen to avoid immediate death from starvation was not ethical or moral. Moreover, what was considered moral or ethical changed, while justice always remained the same. 

Familiar gray walls of the facades passed by her where, in spring, dandelions grew from the corners of some buildings, and the paving stones were covered with lichen and not quite smooth. 

Madleine stood up and requested a stop and was promptly let off. She nodded in the direction of the bus driver as a thank you and pulled her hood further down over her face. 

Habit. 

The hair clips that she had bought and pinned especially for this purpose did their job excellently. They had kept her hoodie stuck through the whole fight, and flight. 

The light of many of the lanterns flickered and the dreary orange of the street lights barely illuminated the surroundings. She walked, lost in thought and occasionally startled when a piece of rubbish or a rat searched for food in the bushes.

The cold air condensed her breath and she looked down until she recognized the strange pattern that announced the way to her home.

Madleine had had exactly three criteria when making her choice: the apartment could not be damp or musty, the bathroom AND toilet had to be in the apartment and not, as in many others, in the hallway and or shared between the neighbours on the floor. And the apartment had to have a window. 

You might think that having at least one window in your apartment would be a normal thing, but in order to squeeze as many people as possible into a house, this had been of secondary importance in the planning during the renovation of the individual apartments and rooms. The heavily wrapped, exhausted bakery saleswoman opened the front door of the house and pushed the heavy door shut.

The mailbox door squeaked open. Bills, advertisements, a reminder that her 'semester tax' was due - the fee she had to pay if a magically gifted person deemed 'safe' wanted to keep her name off the register for said people. She grimaced when she had received the same letter for Marik, probably with double the fee, since 'safe' definitely didn't exist for someone 'cursed' with the power of fire, in addition to the fee of him being in prison for something she personally considered unjust. But the law was rarely just...