The Love Club

Chapter 1: L'Appel du Vide (Lucy's POV)

It was a Sunday evening at the stroke of midnight. The harsh tang of wind that stole leaves from its branches was a harbinger of the fall coming upon us. I distinctly remember the slight apprehension I felt as the town that was normally so boisterous with drunkards wobbling their way home was especially quiet that night. It's quiescence was what guided my eyes to the true colors of the town: the flickering street lights and rusted apartment doors heavily contrasted with the loud neon billboards that was trying to convince us into buying products no one will ever need. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket as I quietly chuckled at the erotic graffiti I didn't happen to notice before. Well, it has been three years. A lot can change.

After getting a mild headache from staring all the artificial lights, I turned a corner into the quiet alleyway I used to always pass through. Along the walls hung bright yellow flyers posted by the Love Club.

Have YOU completed your GOOD deed today? If you care about our community, join the LOVE CLUB and help maintain a nation full of LOVE and happiness!

Give us a call! xxx-xxxx-xxxx

I shivered. At first glance it seems like a normal flyer advertising for recruitment, but who would advertise their business in an alleyway no one ever passes through? After experiencing their brutality firsthand, I learned that this is also one of their tactics to indirectly tell the people: "even in a dark alleyway where you thought you could hide, we're still watching you." Three years ago this alleyway was my sanctuary, no one knew about it -- not even them. They must have gotten witnesses to tell them that I passed by here often. Maybe those drunkards I used to always see were just LC members spying over town? I shook my head, I was to save this conspiracy theory for another day.

Ever since I was young I was a curious and skeptical child, and I prided myself on it. I questioned everything from why the sky was blue to what makes something "good" and "bad". It wasn't until I was 8 years old that I discovered I wasn't... normal. My parents had sent me to a psychologist for all the abnormal thoughts I was having and I became diagnosed with I.D., or Intel Disorder. Since the day of my diagnosis I went to therapy everyday after school in hopes to be cured.

Looking back, interaction with other kids could have helped cure me, but with all of the therapy I was having, having friends wasn't even an option for me. Getting therapy was already taboo and weird within itself, so in an environment where everyone wants to be normal, no one wants to be friends with a kid like me. Still, I wanted to fit in. I did everything I could to try to be as normal as possible and I did my best to keep quiet and always listen to the teachers.

My condition never improved; in fact, it only worsened as I got older. The ultimate tipping point was when I got expelled from my school. Not having interacted with many kids my age resulted in me not understanding social cues, so when I was 15, I shed a small tear in the middle of class because I was so tired of eating lunch alone. My teacher freaked out, yelled that my behavior was " totally inappropriate" as I was "enforcing negative behavior onto the rest of the students and promoting hate crimes". I was completely oblivious to the fact that, in this society, crying in public was equal to protesting naked, because I would be in my most vulnerable form and publicly expressing negativity. I was sent into the LCR, or the Love Club Rehab-center, for "inappropriate and threatening juvenile activity", and since then I've lost contact with my parents. Children aren't normally arrested from crying, but I had years of therapy on my record and I'm assuming the LC was looking for a reason to get rid of me. I was an unpredictable teenager with a severe mental illness; who knew what I would do next? I was dangerous, and needed to be kept away to maintain the safety of society.

On the night of my 18th birthday I was finally released from the LCR. It was, without a doubt, hell on earth. I spent the three years suffering with other I.D. kids where they told me everything, absolutely everything, about the LC. It was there that I learned about the infamous dam. It's on the other side of the city and continues to hold the record for being the largest dam in the world. It used to be a tourist attraction because of its immensity, but it closed down from the public around 5 years ago when a man jumped down to his death as a way to protest the LC. He was in his late 50s and was already very well known in the area for his constant arrests and protests. On the day of his suicide, the LC raided the man's home and took custody of the son since he was underaged and put him in the LCR to "cure him of the damages made by his psychopathic father". The reason I know all of this is because that man's son, just so happened to be the person I shared my room with.