His Choice

⚜ ONE ⚜

Edited

---(Name this Line?)---

What would you do for love? Would you lose your soul just so you can say you love someone?

What would you do for someone you love? Is it the same? Would you do absolutely anything? Anything to the point where you'd find peace with having loved and lost?

My name is Allenica Jones or Ally for short. I'm from Sector XI (eleven) – or more commonly known as 'poor man's land' or the ghetto. I'm pretty boring, nothing too special. I'm tall and I've got curves in all the right places, I could've been a model in another world. Too bad that's all I've got going. Only Mama could love this face. I have boring features really: tanned skin, due to my mixed background; long brown hair that falls midway down my back; the dullest, most boring brown eyes you've ever seen. There's no life in them. Not with the life that I'm living.

I walk down an icy road, outlined by medium-sized rocks. My hands are frozen solid around two small eggs as I scuttle my way back home. My ears and cheeks are numb, from the winter cold biting at them, and my toes are cramping in my woolly socks that are shelled inside my old soggy boots. Hand-me-downs are all I've ever known.

I see my shed of a house at the bottom of the road. It's small, but it does the job. I let out a breath and watch as a white cloud emerges and disappears into the sky. I walk up to my house and examine it. It's painted a dark brown colour, but the paint is horrifically peeling off the rotting wood. The windows are broken and the slated roof is starting to collapse.

My father, before he died, was saving up to move sectors and free us from this life of poverty. He was raised in Sector VI in an upper-middle-class family. Mother told me that his family were tax-collectors so they often had many luxuries in life. It's common for tax-collectors to be from the wealthy sectors. They basically run the sector. They don't answer to anyone but the royals. Half of them are crooked, so you can imagine how things are turning out. I'd like to think that my father's family weren't like that, but it's hard to believe after they cut him off for falling in love with my mother. A mere Sector XI peasant. But he didn't care. If he couldn't take her there, then he'd build a new life here. I want a love like that. I miss him. I was only five when he died.

I push the permanently-unlocked door open with a creak. I waddle my way in and slowly close the door. I instantly feel a second wave of the winter cold punch me in the face. I try to brush it off as I head into the little kitchen. However, the urge to go upstairs - to a warmer surrounding - is too overwhelming. I put the eggs on the counter and jog up the stairs, heading straight into my bedroom. Sitting on the edge of my stone-hard, single bed, I stare out of my window. My eyes scan the limited scenery: the grass is heavily coated in frost; the trees are lifeless; there are broken buildings everywhere and the citizens of Sector XI walk the streets like zombies - we have nothing to live for, really. We just exist to keep the power running to the upper sectors - Zero to III (3). Not much of a life if you ask me. But there's no escape. It's near impossible to move up the chain. But you can die trying I suppose. The other Sectors don't care about us. We are last in the Sector rankings. We're left to suffer. We don't live a life of luxury. Quite the opposite actually. Excluding the Smiths. Our tax collectors. Consisting of a husband, a wife, a son and two daughters. They descend from Sector III.

I close my eyes as I start to hear shouting coming from next door. I live with my mom: Mary, and my stepfather: Kevin. She was forced to remarry in order to keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach. She doesn't say anything, but I know that it's not love. He doesn't treat her right. I'm pretty sure he's cheating on her as well. I feel guilty. Somehow I've led myself to believe that she's only tolerating him because of me. She'd be able to survive on her own. I think. I'm almost 18, I need to start fending for myself so she doesn't have to take crap from him. But work is scarce in these parts.