Fate always had the power to screw you over.
And Alexandra always thought that she had everything she could ask for: a caring family, a best friend and an attentive boyfriend. That is until she discovered the latter two alone in a car together.
Sin...
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Weekends—Fridays included—turned out to be very different on Atlantis. For one, it was more peaceful, and the only sounds I heard were Brooke in the kitchen preparing a meal or doing the laundry. She'd explained to me that they were in the care of Queen Stacia, funded and paid for my custody. It made me feel better, in a way. At least I knew I had some positive influence on the little family of two.
Other families that didn't care for Hybrids like Brooke and Shelly had to work seven days a week, a few hours only on weekends. But by Shelly's optimism, it didn't sound all that bad.
"I've always dreamed of exploring the world," Shelly gushed on Sunday. "You know, to travel outside."
"You mean outside Atlantis?" I asked, sitting on the plush couch in the living room. Everything in the house was bright from the sunlight that streamed through a window opposite the couch, one of the few windows in the marble house. The house was one of the oldest on Atlantis, along with many streets dominated by similar architecture. There were perhaps a hundred of them, but it was obvious that marble wasn't going to sustain Atlantis forever. So it wasn't quite a surprise whenever I saw a few brick houses intermingled with streets of marble houses, sticking out like a sore tooth. No doubt that there were dozens more; Atlantis was leaning towards the twenty-first century.
Monopolis was Atlantis' capital city, although it wasn't quite that big. Shelly and her mum had me mount that dreadful horse again to give me a tour of the miniature city this morning.
As we'd trotted through the stone streets, nearing the palace, I was able to discern a pattern. It was visually evident where the city began and to where it was developing. The palace was at the northern point of the city, ten kilometres away from the massive mansions that dotted the landscape, surrounded by forest. But unlike the Academy, these manors were made of brilliant white marble. No doubt this was where the rich people lived.
Next came the red marble houses, our house included, and as the city spread further outwards, there were collections of brick houses.
"We don't have specific street names like the humans," Shelly had said when we dwelled between the brick houses. "We like keeping things simple. Look, one big main road runs through the centre of the city, from north to the castle to the south where it leads to the next city. At the very heart of the city, there is a plaza where the market is. Four main roads divide out of the Plaza, the North, South, West, and East Road. Those roads also split into the North-West, Northeast, South-West, and South-East Street."
She shifted her reins into her right hand and turned in her saddle to point back the way we'd come. "Remember how I told you that the people who live in those white marble mansions are very important people?" I nodded, and she went on, "Roxy and Mia are the only ones in school to live there."
