ACT I
POV - Stray (Conan Hawthorne)
The station is painfully quiet and gray; the atmosphere puts him on edge. That's all Stray has been thinking about for the past few days sitting here, in this cramped corner of the station. It's been ten days since he got out of school, ten days of ignoring the worry churning in his gut and bypassing the prying questions of loitering police officers.
Stray knows that technically what he's doing is not legal but he refuses to go back to school. His patience and determination are both starting to crumble away, it's hot and humid. He hasn't bathed since the day he got here; the feeling of being caked in sweat and grim feels disgusting. His hair is probably a tangled misshapen mess by now. Marigold would probably be disgruntled by the whole situation and throw some snarky comment in his face.
Stray is getting tired of waiting for his father, he just wants to go home. He's been here for far too long waiting for his father to come and whisk him away from this damned train station.
Stray knows that technically he isn't supposed to be out here, that technically there's a law put into place to avoid the exact situation he's in right now, but that law would be his death so instead Stray would rather wait.
And wait he does. While he waits all he can do is sit and watch the few people around walk around in hurried steps silently, all while tucked away in his small corner of the station where not a lot of people stopped by.
His dad and Stray's little corner, the dog zone as his father put it. This was the usual spot his father and he sat at to wait for their train or the instructed zone for him to go so that he could weave through the crowd to find Stray more easily.
Stray sits and sits, waits and waits, and watches. Cold and glum he watches as grief-stricken Families broken by loss move about in quickened strides. The streets are starting to get packed which means all the public schools are probably going to be dismissing for the final time today.
The streets were packed but not in the good way that he remembered. There's no hustle and bustle or crowds of chattering people laughing and smiling, instead, Everyone is quiet.... Just plain quiet and meek almost as if they're trying to keep the peace between themselves and death.
Well not everyone is quite....
Stray's eyes zone in on the startlingly loud cry that erupts from a couple of children. A group of four kids probably siblings from the looks of it just about a block away from him. He assumes their perhaps newly orphaned children based solely just on the way they collapsed on the ground crying. A man in a suit, crisp and clean looking, looms over them with a paper in his hand and a grimace on his face.
There's no mistaking it then, that's a worker from the government. Then that means those kids are no doubt newly orphaned. The government usually hands out money and letters to family members of the deceased, never the remains, just the money and a letter. Stray supposes that money will probably be more useful in the long run to a grieving family than a rotting corpse. Sentimental value aside of course.
A loud cry snaps him out of his thoughts.
One of those kids ...umm... well orphans now technically Stray corrects himself, just starts to cry after hearing the news. Their whole bodies shivering and convulsing as if having a seizure. The rest followed quickly after, well all except one of the kids. The only kid not crying just stands there straight and still with their whole body rigid and a foolish expression, as if too stunned to do anything else.
Stray wants to sympathize but he just can't, that one boy just looks... so ridiculous! As a matter of fact, all those kids do. Stray wonders, if they see how ridiculous they look falling to the ground crying or standing in the middle of the street, shell-shocked in the case of that one weirdo. He notices that the government worker has already left the premises leaving the kids to sort out what comes next. Sneaky bastard.
Stray knows what comes next though, everyone does and that's why nobody rushes to help those kids. He looks up at the scene in front of him once more and almost feels bad enough to inform those kids of their foolish actions and faces. Almost but not quite he has his things to worry about.
Everyone does nowadays. This is why no one gives the crying children any attention other than an annoyed huff or a pitying gaze before quickening their struts away. Nobody wants to be in this subway station longer than necessary surrounded by grief, anxiety, and the thoughts of the deaths of close ones.
Stray can't help but remember the start of the war when a scene like that would have had people running left and right to make sure those kids were okay, and that they had a place to stay.
Nowadays there's no room for too much sympathy.
At least not if you live anywhere near the Caspian Ports. While most of the population of Constantine were calling it a "Cold War" anybody who lived near the ports knew better. People were dying.
Stray looks away from the scene in front of him and for what feels like the hundredth time today wishes for his dad. His father should've been out of the barracks days ago, after all his father promised him he would keep a firm schedule on his missions and time spent in the barracks.
Stray's father always came to pick him up from school and was always on time. His father isn't one to break a promise easily unless something important comes up. Unless he was pulled to the front lines....
Stray just hopes it was a delay and nothing too serious like an accident but at the same time, he secretly prays that his father got another injury on the job. The last time his father got sent home it was because of a severe leg trauma. Stray was immediately picked up from school by his father and they got to hang out together for a whole four days.
Stray feels guilt immediately swarm him and eats him up whole at the mere wish of his Father getting seriously injured enough to be sent home to recuperate. He chastises himself and shifts his attention to the present. Unfortunately the present just so happens to be even more dreadful than his thoughts.
All Stray can see is fresh Widows as thin and dead as their once lovers grip their kids so tightly you can see both parties scrunch up their faces in pain. Newly orphaned kids clinging onto the bags of clothes, food, and meager savings that the government workers offer them in return for their parent's death.
Dead-eyed kids too young to drink but old enough for war are being drafted right out of their last year of school. Stray looks at his watch and wonders how he lost track of time by this much. It's now officially noon and all the public schools are finally starting to release kids for the summer.
The station is getting busier and busier yet somehow it remains as glum and quiet as ever. Stray would even say that the atmosphere in the station gets worse than when he first got here ten days ago. He wonders when his dad will get here. Stray has spent ten days in this awful station.
"Conan Hawthorn!"
A loud yell yanked Stray and made him bounce to the soles of his feet in shock. Then he freezes completely as he looks up to ogle the familiar man who just yelled his name. Dread not only fills his stomach but completely engulfs him.
It's Professor Sterling looking as gruff and unkept as the day Stray left the campus. A light walnut brown stubble across his chin, long ragged hair, and piercing blue eyes zoning the crowd before locking onto Stray.
Stray debated running away right then and there before throwing out that idea completely and started walking toward Professor Sterling with a grimace on his face. Stray would rather not have a Professor chase him down through the station, especially Professor Sterling. To the general public, it would probably just look like a deranged homeless man chasing a schoolboy around.
In other words, it would be completely humiliating. He thinks as he stops and stands right before Professor Sterling staring up at the man awaiting what he could have possibly been sent to hunt him down and talk to him about.
"Hawthorn, I've got some news that you've been..... Camping out here waiting for your dad?" His tone is questioning and his speech is slow.
Stray would almost say Professor Sterling says it hesitantly if only he didn't know just how crude the teacher was in his everyday way of talking rather it be colleagues, students, or the damn headmaster himself. Stray can't help but wonder how Professor Sterling hasn't been fired yet or the very least beaten up by an angry parent.
"...Stray..." Stray grunts out, barely able to make sound come out of his mouth. His throat feels scratchy from being left unused for so long.
"Excuse?" Professor Sterling questions, his nose crinkled as if he smelled something funny.
"I go by Stray, it's a nickname." Stray elaborated.
"I'm not calling you that, it's a ridiculous nickname, Hawthorne." Sterling objected. Mouth set into a frown.
What an asshole. It's a nickname for a reason, it doesn't have to make any real sense!
"Okay whatever, fine, why are you here?" Stray noted.
He knows it came off more rudely and snappy than he meant it Stray has always known he was no good with words and speaking in general... or even socializing. His vast and endless group of nonexistent friends at school told him as such.
"ugh..... kid you know you can't do that right?" Professor Sterling looks a little ticked off after Stray's rude reply. Stray can hear the annoyance in his professor's voice when talking.
"If you don't have a place to go you can't just hang around the station, and if your dad isn't here any more you have to stay at the school it's literally called th- "
"My dad is just late, he isn't 'not here anymore' he's just running late, not dead." Stray can't help but cut Professor Sterling off. After all, what his professor was implying wasn't something Stray wanted to think about; it made no logical sense to him.
Professor Sterling's face scrunches up and he mutters something under his breath before sighing.
"Okay, whatever your dad isn't dead, he's just "late" but you still can't be hanging around here like that, it's against the law and you know that. Don't you kid?" Professor says sternly and looks at him before going on to continue talking.
Stray can't help but look at Professor Sterling up and down in complete and utter bewilderment as he blocks out whatever else the man is saying. Deep down Stray knows Professor Sterling is right, that everything he said to Stray was the complete and total truth, but that's not what Stray really wants to think about so he doesn't.
Instead, he thinks about what exactly Professor Sterling gains from all this. After all, when has Professor Sterling ever said anything remotely true or adult-like? Stray would've thought that he was talking to an imposter if not for the sheer rags Professor Sterling was in.
In Stray's opinion not even an imposter with some kind of nefarious motive would be caught dead in what Professor Sterling was wearing. A stained blouse that reeks of alcohol and what looks to be a repeatedly patched-up set of black slacks that now looked more gray than black. He can't help but wonder why anyone would want to go out in public looking like that.
Stray stares harder at Professor Sterling and he has to admit if he were to take better care of himself maybe, just maybe he wouldn't look like an unkept homeless werewolf... all rough and raggedy.
It's not like Professor Sterling is poor; he works at a private school and is renowned for his profession. So why dress like a... well as if he was barely making it day by day?
"-Placement act is put in place to help you kids out and to prevent- Hey! Are you even listening?"
Stray immediately snaps out of it and can only utter a single "W-What?" In his defense, Professor Sterling had a really annoying voice and his breath reeked of alcohol.
"Ughh I don't have time for this! Here take this and read it through later for now just keep up we have to make it back to campus before dinner. And try to take a shower when we get back, you reek."
Stray can feel his face scrunch up in shame. Despite the confusion about the situation at hand, Stray knows an insult when he hears it.
"Maybe you should take your own advice, you look homeless, and smelling like cheap booze doesn't exactly help your case." Stray practically growls out, hoping that his insult hits a nerve.
His attack hits the mark by the looks of it when Professor Sterling gives him a blank stare and grabs his arm with a bone-crushing grip. Before Stray can try and get out of the Professor's death grip on his arm and start to ask questions or even protest, Professor Sterling stuffs a booklet in his hand and pulls him about in hurried steps to a train. Specifically, a train headed back to...the school.
Stray struggles to keep up, tripping a couple of times before getting yanked up by Professor Sterling who seems to have no interest in slowing down until the both of them are boarded on the train.
Once Professor Sterling gets everything settled and has Stray sit down in an empty compartment he rushes away to do something else leaving Stray with a dreadful feeling in his stomach that's slowly making its way up to his throat.
He peers at the little booklet that Professor Sterling handed him a mere minutes ago. The booklet looks like one of those government-approved informative articles just cut down and remodeled into a more kid-friendly and welcoming format, but that doesn't change what it is... at least not in Stray's eyes.
He can't bring himself to get past the cover of the booklet, not when he sees those mocking words in soft light blue colors and elegant print.
...Placement Act...
It's a newfound law put into place ever since last year when the war started to get bad... started to cause casualties. It's meant to be used as a way to prevent kids from being "lost" to the war, which just means displaced.
In Stray's opinion, the government just doesn't want an overhaul of fresh orphans running amok the streets or crowding orphanages. Especially if their parents are still alive just temporarily unable to house their kids or afford them due to.... Well due to the war.
They call it the Placement of displaced kids, when these kids have nowhere to go or any liable guardians to take care of them they get sent to their school to stay for however long they need.
The schools get a bit of extra funding, the government doesn't have to worry about crowded orphanages or children running around and these kids have a place to stay for however long they need.
Stray scrunched up his face.
He's not a Displaced kid, the only thing that would make him one is what they're doing to him right now, which is taking him away from his dad, from his home. Regardless of his nickname, he is not some stray dog to be relocated. He's not a damn orphan.
As bitter and unpleasant as the situation is he can feel his mouth twitching up as the pure irony of the situation completely engulfs his mind. He can't help but wonder if this is how long it takes for a real dog to be labeled as a stray, for him it was a mere ten days before being thrown in the pound.
If Stray made some lame unfunny joke about this, his Father would've probably bursted out laughing. Stray's eyes sting a bit, no doubt probably because of Professor Sterling. The alcohol stench in that man's breath probably affected his eyes. That man is downright horrible, he probably went out of his way to make this trip horrid for Stray.
————
As the train rattles along the tracks, Stray clenches the booklet in his hand, his thoughts swirling like a storm. He doesn't want to go back to that damned school. This year was a struggle alone, to stay the summer would be tormenting. He hopes that his father will get him soon.
The memories of the station, the crying foolish children, and the bleak atmosphere linger like ghosts. Stray wonders if he'll ever return to that corner where he and his father shared moments of calm blessing. The dread of uncertainty gnaws at him, and he can't shake the feeling that the life he knew is slipping away. That his father is slipping away from him.
Stray doesn't think he could handle another loss, not after Marigold.
The rhythmic clatter of the wheels against the rails drowns out his noisy thoughts. Stray doesn't want to be the one to have to deal with any of this, so he isn't. Stray curls up in his seat withdraws into his head, and locks himself in. He doesn't want to see or know anything going on around him.
Stray doesn't know how long he stays like that, but Professor Sterling returns and sits down next to him. The Professor's demeanor was unaltered, as if oblivious to Stray's internal turmoil as if he didn't just rip Stray from his life.
With a grunt, the older man gestures toward the booklet in Stray's hand, urging him to read. The informational content is cold and bureaucratic, outlining the procedures of the Placement Act, its benefits, and the rules and regulations placed on displaced kids.
Stray's eyes dart over the pages, skimming over the forced optimism. Stray knows what the realities of war and its damage are. Half his neighbors were either on the front lines like his father, working dead-end government jobs that luckily kept them away from the front lines, or dead.
"Read it thoroughly, kid. You're part of the system now," Professor Sterling voices out.
"I know, I'm not stupid." Stray bites back face controlled into a blank mask. Why was this man always talking to him as if he was stupid?
"Could've fooled me kid, the way you're skimming that thing are you even reading?" Sterling says with a smirking face and light voice.
Stray's gaze narrows, and he drags his eyes over to the man next to him. Is Professor Sterling laughing at him?
"Don't get all tangled up kid, I'm just curious no need to get defensive" Professor Sterling says as he holds his hands up in a mock sundering gesture.
"....I'm not being defensive... I'm just tired ...." Stray was one hundred percent being defensive but he would never tell Sterling that, and It's not like being tired is a complete lie.
"We still got a whole hour until we get back to the school, you might as well take a nap before we get there." Sterling mutters. His face scrunched up, he obviously didn't believe one word out of Stray's mouth.
Maybe he is more tired than he thought he was. Professor Sterling being reasonable and offering good advice? Impossible! Stray doozies off anyway.
When the train lurches to a stop, it wakes Stray from his nap. His mind is foggy from sleep, so when Professor Sterling grunts out a "follow me" Stray obeys like a dog.