Outsider ||ONC 2024|| {Currently Editing}

Chapter Three

It felt like we'd been walking forever. I couldn't even look up at the tracks anymore because my mind was convinced that we were going in circles.

Every sector we passed, pain increased in my feet. My legs were going numb and that was making it hard for me to keep up with the others.

I wasn't even carrying anything, yet the weight of everything that happened tonight was dragging me down, pulling me further and further behind.

I could only imagine what the others must've felt, carrying heavy loads of supplies and stolen goods on their backs while also keeping an eye on me.

I sighed as my posture folded; everything in me was close to giving out when Noah slowed down and switched rooftops, leading us down an inclined path.

"We're almost there!" He called out, as if everyone's huffing and puffing needed some reassurance, including himself.

This was my first time being away from Pri, Division D28. But after seeing all this—how in shambles the world was—there wasn't anything to miss out on.

The sights to and from were all the same: cities built in rubble, surrounded by smoke and flames from dispersed fires, the only source of light.

Like us, there was more sand than anything. But we could at least say we had a patch of grass, though dry, nearly dead, and with little purpose anymore.

When I looked up, nothing's changed. It was kind of discouraging.

I couldn't tell when we left one division and entered another. But everyone else, they've seen these streets and walked on these roofs many times before.

It became as reliable as the palm of their hands.

I, on the other hand, had to rely on the people who lived in each division, the ones who'd stand out long enough for me to catch on to their living standards.

Each place revealed what its people did or didn't have—an alarming scale of poor and unmanageable to making it on trades and growing as a community.

When I figured out how to tell them apart, I realized that Pri, D28 had more than a lot of these places. We were basically slightly under the comfortable rich.

"Why did it seem like a shorter walk getting there?" I asked, not really expecting anyone to answer.

But Ash laughed. "You'll get used to it." She said, as if those words gave any light to my question. "The first few times were hard for me too."

The first few times? She was only 10 when she started bounty hunting. Of course it was hard. I couldn't imagine it being any other way for her.

But that wasn't comforting for me. I was 15 and I stood lower than low compared to people my age; rebel was the word they used for those like me.

That's why they started you young. By the time you reach preadolescent age, they've stripped you of your emotions—took away all that made you human.

If it wasn't for my family, outside of Jonathan, I would've been thrown out of Pri a long time ago.

Look at me, I barely made it through the day.