Crestfallen

Chapter One 

The Ruins

I bite my lower lip as I crouch on the floor in the abandoned house-I and my best friend call the Derelict. 

This is a secret place where no one knows. Well, they do know but people don't come here anymore because they believe this is abandoned and old. Well, it is because this was an old stock house but my best friend and I made this our hiding place. 

He is an Affluent-called to people of our city that lives at the Opulent-and I am a Churl, that's what they call to people who lives at the Tumbledown. 

This city was well, also a city before in an archipelagic country located in Southeast Asia. But foreigners invaded the country and the people who lived here became slaves until all of them died from hunger. So the foreigners transferred selected people from their continent to live here and multiply. Every city in this country is ruled by a Governor. You'd expect that only the monarchy type of government pass their crowns from generation to generation just within their families but we also apply this thing in our government. The very first governor in our city was Governor Samson Stevedore and he passed the obligation to his son-the present governor, Samuel Stevedore. 

Governor Samuel Stevedore believes that the poor should be separated from the rich because the two groups have a completely different lifestyle and environment. The poor-also known as the Churls were living on the streets before but then the governor's wife, Serafinna Stevedore gave a piece of land close to the river of our city and decided to make it a village that we call the Tumbledown. Whereas the rich people-known as the Affluent- live in a luxurious village-called the Opulent-with a four-foot wall surrounding it and it has a Sentinel guarding the gate. While our village is surrounded by a wire fence and a bamboo gate that looks old and ramshackle. 

Of course, Churls and Affluent live in the capital of the city called the Main and the whole of this city is called the Ruins. Then the rest of the city is called the Municipality which the governor doesn't give a lot of attention to. 

I can see the ray of the sun seeps and crawls, trying to enter the windows of the Derelict. What time is it now? Because when the clock strikes to seven, it will be another mournful day for the Churls-a boy named Zapp will be punished because he robbed money from his friend from the Opulent. Of course, we aren't allowed to enter the Opulent. We only enter there when we have something to deliver like furniture or charcoal. But if there's nothing that's really important for us to do there, we cannot enter it. Affluent people believe that we might terrorize or assassinate them or something. Zapp was just supposed to deliver a sack of charcoal at the Opulent but when the buyer turned his back away from him, there, he committed crime. He's a culprit. 

I cannot even imagine what kind of punishment he will receive. It's hard to imagine or even picture it out especially because Zapp is my fellow Churl. We are poor and powerless and we cannot object to anything the government tells us. We just fix our eyes at a distance, listen to what they say and nod our heads like dogs. 

I don't want to go to the Concourse to witness Zapp's bloody punishment but we are required. Everybody from the Opulent and Tumbledown must come or else-we will be on the stage with Zapp and go have a sample of our own medicine. 

I smell the bad odor of the Derelict. It smells of mouse shit and urine and anything dirty. 

It smells like misery. It smells like death. It smells like something rotten. 

I quickly get up and brush whatever smell and dirt that I got here in the Derelict from my off-white dress. I hold the door knob and realize that my hands have been sweating for no reason at all. I carefully sweep both my hands across my dress and turn the knob. Morning sunlight blinds my vision. I close my eyes for a few moments and feel the air around me.