After Earth's Fall | ✔ UNDERGOING CONSTRUCTION

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"Are you sure I'm able to go over there?"

"Of course you can. Don't worry, no ones going to do anything. Why don't you head over to those kids over there?"

Nila overhears Friday softly murmuring to an unfamiliar, young and male voice which catches her attention. She turns around to see him. He looks much better, less drained of life though he occasionally grimaces every second step he takes and brings a hand to the bandages wrapped around his torso. Once his presence has become known to everyone, the air suddenly becomes tense and suspenseful.

The boy quietly stalks over, sometimes glancing up around the room at others as he hears whispers and stops in front of Riley. "Uh, hi. I'm Adrian, nice to meet you." Adrian introduces himself and Riley gives an uncomfortable smile and nods. To Kaitlyn's annoyance, after a good few seconds, Riley still hasn't said anything back and she growls softly and elbows him in the side. Riley turns his head slowly and shoots her a glare but Kaitlyn doesn't back down. Her eyes keep glancing back up at Adrian then to Riley. Adrian, Riley, Adrian, Riley. Signalling Riley to socialise with him and eventually he complies.

After an awkward silence, Adrian speaks up. "Could I, maybe, sit with you three?"

"Sure! Why not?" Riley replies forcefully.

"Sorry to intrude, it's just that everyone keeps on gawking at me like I'm a bear riding a tricycle or something. And no offence, but I'm not that oblivious to not see when people are covering their mouths to whisper rumours about me," Adrian says very straightforwardly which takes Nila aback and leaves Riley with a guilty expression on his face.

"I guess everyone is a little bit..confused on how you got here, really. What happened to you?" Nila asks, as casually as possible and brings a hand to her side where his bandages are.

"Well its a bit of a long story."

"It's fine, we've been given some time off for today," Kaitlyn says sweetly.

Adrian sighs bitterly, his eyes clouding with memories. "Friday told me that you three were the runaway patients she rescued from the Tower. So I'm not sure if you know this but, Eden has a certain hierarchy. The lowest class being Working Class which is the most populated. Working class isn't granted specific luxuries that the other classes are like immortality, luxurious houses and items. Our houses basically took a step back into the Iron Age except we wore modern clothing and disease didn't spread like wildfire. Working class supply the upper class people with clothes, food and some lucky and very talented people even get to deliver and manufacture DNA for harvesting-"

"Did you just say lucky?!" Nila spits at him, astonished. Her eyebrows furrowed in bewilderment and her body tense.

DNA harvesting killed Anna and Brice. They certainly weren't lucky.

Adrian's mouth drops open. "Oh, n-no that's not what I meant! It was just a highly paying job.."

Nila nods slowly and sinks a little into the olive green, wooden cafeteria chair she's sitting on. Fiddling with the ends of her brown, leather coat uncomfortably. "Sorry, continue," she probes with an upset tone.

Adrian takes a second to get back to where he was up to. "Basically, living was poor and I lived with my Grandma. She took me in after my parents were executed for having ChickenPox. Cruel, I know,"  He says with a furious tone. "But according to Eden, working class has to be healthy and any threats to the productivity and health of the people needs to be euthanised. I love art and my Grandma said I was immensely talented at it. So when a celebrity saw me painting outside my house she said she wanted to buy it. I was so happy. Astonished, really. When she bought my painting, it put a spotlight on me and more people got interested. Then, BAM, I'm famous. And get pushed up one class to Middle Class."