School started off as it did every day, with the Pledge of Obedience.
"The kingdom gives me all I need. What a kind and thoughtful deed. To the kingdom I owe all. May the kingdom never fall." she and her peers said in unison. Saraphine didn't necesarrily agree with the pledge but it was a requirement. If she didn't say it she would get sent to the disciplinarian to receive some lashes. Her behind was still sore from getting lashes for not gaining weight after being sited three times, last week. Saraphine had failed the weekly weigh-ins since second grade. At first the school had thought that her parents were neglecting her, but after they had turned on the cameras in their house for a month to monitor their daily routines they were satisfied that Saraphine had been eating adequate amounts. The doctors said she was just cursed with a rare thing called a high metabolism and that there was nothing that they could do for her. Her father had punched through the wall in their television room that day sending her mother into a crying spell. Saraphine wondered if all the vagrants had this rare condition as well or if they were just underfed. She thought it likely that that was the case. She didn't see how it would be possible for them to obtain any food pouches. The pouches were pretty well guarded and were delivered to each family on a weekly basis. The morning pouches were the smallest and the easiest for Saraphine to swallow down. However the evening and night pouch were always far too large for her to even halfway finish. She often wondered what was in the mysterious tin foil pouches. She knew that they were all engineered in labs, but engineered from what?
Today her classes started off with history. "Another lecture, greeeat," Saraphine thought sarcastically as Mr. Griffith wheeled into the classroom.
"So as you all know the world used to be seperated into different kingdoms. Our kingdom used to be known as the United States of America. The United States was the most kind and peaceful of all the kingdoms. The most beloved of all of them. Of all the world we were the only kingdom absent conflict. However to our north there was once the kingdom of Canada. Canada started wars with many innocent kingdoms merely to aquire wealth. They were also big bullies and tried to tell other kingdoms what weapons they were allowed to have. This made the other kingdoms very angry, so they threatened to deploy all of their nuclear weapons at Canada. Our wise and powerful king knew that since we were directly below Canada that we too would be in danger. So he had the great steel wall built around our border and put a force field in our sky to protect us. The rest of the kingdoms deployed their bombs destroying eachother and the rest of the world, leaving only us. The world around us is blackened and hard. It is radioactive so if you were to leave Exoplolis you would surely die. The king to this day is still busy protecting us. Only this time it is from the evil dirty vagrants whom dwell below our very feet. The vagrants are barbaric cannibals and will stop at nothing to destroy you. But there is hope. As long as you have faith in your king you will survive and prosper! Long live the king!" her history teacher Mr. Griffith spewed enthusiastically from his power chair, sending his chins in a rippling wave.
"Long live the king!" Saraphine's classmates cheered. Saraphine didn't join in on this cheer. Something seemed more and more off about that story everytime she heard it. Questioning the king was punishable by death though, so she would never voice such opinions. She also wondered what was so bad about the vagrants. Yeah, they lived in the sewers and that was pretty gross but she could not recall a single attack by the vagrants. They kept to themselves mostly. You were supposed to report it to the royal guard anytime you saw one, but they were gone so quick that you rarely had enough time to do so.
"Saraphine, your thoughts on the lesson?" Mr. Griffith asked pulling her from her thoughts.
"Praise be to the king, defender of us all." Saraphine rattled off.
"Praise be!" the students echoed. That was the correct response to all of the lessons in all of her classes. The bell rang signifying it was time to move to the next room. She deeply dreaded her next class, gaming. All the gamers made fun of her. It wasn't her fault that she was terrible at gaming. It's not like she didn't try. When she entered the room everyone glanced up, a couple snickered. She quickly scanned the room for an empty station. She wanted to get out of their path of vision as soon as she could. Saraphine felt as though she would puke when she realized the only open station was next to Darren. Darren was the most popular guy in the school. He was the champion gamer of the region. All the girls wanted him. He was about five foot eight, and weighed what Saraphine guessed was about three hundred pounds. She had heard some of the girls pinning over Darren in the bathroom just last week.
"It's so sexy the way the sweat gathers on his chins and forehead when he's concentrating on his game." the girl had commented the others "mmhmm"-ing in agreement. Saraphine hesitantly took her seat next to him.
"What is Twiggy doing sitting next to Darren? Who does she think she is?" Saraphine heard someone comment from across the class, accompanied by laughter. Saraphine sunk deeper into her chair wishing she could dissappear.
"Don't listen to them." said a low voice to her right. Saraphine looked over to where the voice had come. She was bewildered to see Darren staring at her intensly. She sat there flaberghasted with her mouth agape. "Don't listen to them, okay?" Darren repeated with a look of amusement.
"O...okay," Saraphine stammered. This was the first time since she was in elementary school that someone had actually talked to her, and this someone was Darren Mills!
He chuckled and then said "I mean its not like you try to be that thin right?"
"No, I don't." She replied ashamedly dropping her gaze to her hands.
"Oh dont be embaressed! I didn't mean it that way. I think you look good." He was oozing with confidence. Saraphine felt her cheeks redden almost instantly.
"Crap," she thought "a guy gives you one compliment and you turn into a babbling fool. Say something cool. Come on say something!"
"You're not so bad yourself." Her stomach dropped as the words came out of her mouth.
"Gah! So much for cool." she scolded herself silently. She turned back to her gaming station feeling like the biggest dork of all time.
"Thanks." he chuckled returning his gaze to the RPG that he was dominating as usual. Saraphine felt as though she could have shriveled away at that very moment. No, she longed to shrivel away. She had just messed up her one chance at gaining some sort of human contact outside of her parents. Or so she thought. Towards the end of class Darren once again returned his gaze to her. Saraphine felt uneasy under his gaze.
"You wanna go to the movies sometime?" Darren said cooly. Saraphine didn't know how to respond. She was possitive that this was just some cruel joke that she was meant to be the butt of. "Hello?" Darren laughed. Saraphine realized that she had been staring at him dumbly the whole time.
"You don't have to be so cruel you know? I get it. Make fun of the unpopular girl. Lets all poke fun at Saraphine." the bell rang and Saraphine jumped up and stormed out of the room.
"No wait!" Darren called after her. "It's not like that at all. I genuinly would like to take you out." Saraphine was flaberghasted. However even if she didn't understand his invitation she was glad to have it.
"In that case I'd love to." she said turning her gaze to her feet.
"Great. Meet me at the theater at eight?" Darren smiled.
On the walk home from school Saraphine was in a daze. Darren had not only spoken to her but had asked her out. She knew how happy her mother would be and that brought a smile to Saraphine's face. Not only was Darren popular but his family was prominent in the community. King Jabul showed them great favor due to how loyal they were. Saraphine was finally doing things right and nothing could ruin this for her.
