Unwavering Light

    The light in my bedroom turned on at five. The single bare bulb illuminated everything around me. It was a dirty light, and it flickered. I ruffled back my brown hair and glanced at my band. Five in the morning, per usual. The light was dull, but the steady glow of my band interface told me what I needed to know. In a few hours the bulb would be dead. I stared at the it for a few seconds, with its orange glow. Almost dead, I thought to myself. So I sat up and pulled the grey blanket to the side, and began to lace up my grey boots. The laces were rough from lacing them up every day, at five in the morning, and my fingers fumbled under the orange light. It was so dim, it didn’t even hurt to look at it. The wooden floorboards creaked under my boots, as I pulled a blue shirt from under my bed and buttoned it up. I walked past my sister’s room. Thankfully, she was still in bed. 

    In the kitchen, with dented linoleum floors, there was the small cabinet, built into the wall under the sink. The lights hadn’t been turned on yet, so I grabbed the portable lightbulb from the kitchen counter. With the light in place, it was easier to click numbers into place, and the lock snicked, and fell on the floor with a clunk. Inside were two photographs, a stack of papers, and a dull grey disk with the shape of the strictura status stamped into the center. On the bottom were three steel pins. I pulled the disk out and clicked it onto my band. This was the credits disk, which, when attached to an authorized band, would let me buy the lightbulbs. I twisted my band around to the other side, to see the amount. It would be enough, if the prices hadn't gone up.

    On the dull grey metal were three things, things that I had seen before I had been taught to read. Pressed into the metal was my name: Ethan Hayes. Next to my name was the symbol of my status, an open hand with a loop surrounding it. The last thing was the first part of my schedule, which gave instructions to go to a Source building for the next six months worth of light. I pulled myself up, narrowly avoiding the edge of the kitchen sink. I took a patched cloth bag from the hook on the back door. I left my soft wool jacket next to my sister’s jacket and book bag. I creaked open the door, trying not to wake anyone else up along the street, but people of each family would soon join me on the road. 

    Anyone could tell that I lived in the strictura district. It wasn’t a fact that I cared to talk about, but there wasn't any hiding it. I wore the light grey and blue and I lived in Marrus, the manufacturing city, which had one of the largest Strit populations of the six cities. The usually bright lights, mounted on top of grey poles, were dimly lit. It was still too early to waste power or full light, so I could only just see where I was stepping. I jumped over the broken cobblestones, and waited for my friend, Melody. She lived two doors down from me, and we were also at the same school, and class, coincidentally.

    I took the extra time to stare up, thinking, absentmindedly pulling at the hole in the hem of my shirt.  I looked up, like there was something to see, but all that was there was blackness, permeated by the spots of electric lights. It made me feel small, standing there as if under a cloak with holes in it or something. Suffocating, even. But now wasn't the time to think about those things. I glanced at my band, checking to make sure that the credits were accounted for. I was just about to pull the credit disk off, when a creak came from the building behind me. 

    “Ethan? Why did we have to wake up so early?” Melody said with a yawn, as she pulled her yellow hair back and tied it with a strip of blue ribbon. 

    Other people had begun to emerge. Melody was right, I always seemed to be early. I just shrugged. “Doesn’t seem too early to me.”

    “With that attitude, you could join Hospes and work at the hospital. Open twenty four seven, yeah?” She said with a smirk.

   “As long as I’m not stuck as a Hebe—“ 

    “Like you’d ever be!” Melody pulled at my shirt and flashed a wide smile. “Come on, we’ll have to stand in line for half an hour at this rate!”