dusk until dawn (the selection)

choosing ceremony

Dawn leaned her head in her hands and stared outside the window of her bedroom. The sand roads of her neighbourhood were buzzing. There were people putting up posters and running around.

For a nice, warm morning in the summer, the entire town of Helios, located in Fennley, was incredibly tense. There were, of course, festivities planned for tonight. But the loads of people that didn't care about the festivities were working as usual. Castes Five and down had no choice in this, though. They always worked. Whether the selected would be announced today or not.

Dawn didn't have a job to attend today, and stayed put inside the tiny apartment she lived in with her mother and her little brother, Ami, who was three years old. She'd watch him until her mother came back from work.

Dawn's father? Who knew. Her mother didn't like to talk about him. All Ami and Dawn were told, is that they had different fathers, one worse than the other.

It was around ten in the morning when mother came back from her night shift. "Don't you want to go in to town tonight?" Dawn looked up with a dark expression. Her mother stood in the door opening, dressed in a worn-down nurse uniform.

"And do what?" She asked.

Her mother walked into the room and sat down at the small table, "Celebrate the selection, of course." she did not sound happy. She looked like Dawn, yes, but while Dawn's features were hopeful and round, her mother's were wrinkled and unkind, tired and broken. Dawn did wonder sometimes, if she would have inherited her personality from her father—because they were so different. Except asking her mother was not an option.

"Why? They won't accept me among their kind, anyway." Dawn stated bluntly. Their kind. The Twos and Threes. The class barricade was thick in Fennley. Seperated neighbourhoods, seperated stores, restrooms, busses. By "town" Dawn's mother meant the festivities, organized for and by Twos.

The class system the country of Illéa had wasn't too hard to understand. The royal family were marked as "One". And only them. Famous people, important people of court, high-ranked doctors or otherwise important people, were Twos. Threes were scientists, educators, architects, Fours were farmers. Or chefs. Or had other managing-based jobs. And so it goes on. Until Eight. Eights are homeless people. Untouchables.

Dawn was a Six down the caste list. She could get a job as waitress or mail deliverer maybe, but never wanted to.

Twos saw the lower castes as a disease, and loved to pretend it was contagious. Town was dangerous for Sixes like Dawn. She was an easy spot. Tanned skin, dark hair, dark eyes. Her hair may have been straight and her skintone slight lighter than most Sixes (thanks to her unknown father's genes)  she was obviously the odd one out in a row of Twos.

"Then at least to find out which girl will represent Fennley." mother talked calmly but distant. Neither of them expected Dawn to be selected, but this felt different to Dawn. Her mother was bitter about it. She had always been distant towards Dawn and the moment she had to fill in "unemployed" on the selection form they got in the mail a few weeks ago, it was obvious. Her mother thought she was a complete disappointment.

Fennley was one of the thirty-five provinces of Illéa. The selection would consist of one girl from each province.

"You're right." Dawn looked away from her mother.

"Go then." Her mother urged, suddenly glad to have a reason to kick her out of the house for a few hours. "And who knows, maybe you will get selected." the words came out forced and sarcastic.

Dawn picked Ami off her lap and put him on the dark blue couch they sat on, then she stood up. "The selected will be announced at eight on television and radio broadcasting—our radio is still broken." she commented. Ami broke the radio a while ago (on accident). There had never been money for a television.