"Anne, wake up. We have to go to Service Office." A hand pats my upper back gently. Sleepiness still has it control over my body, making me feel weak and my eyes still shut close.
But I'm sleepy and feeling lazy for today, mom. I want to go back to sleep and not doing a single thing for today.
"Hmm, five more minute." I keep my eyes close, my arms wrap around my pillow tightly as I snuggle closer into it, sighing quietly.
God, I'm feeling so sleepy.
"Come on, Anne. You have to get ready, we're going to Service Office. You have to submit your information, remember?"
The sunlight comes through the window pane is the first one who greets my eyes as I open them. And when the reality and two words hits me, a pout forms on my face.
The Choosing.
Today is the day. The first big day of the week.
Today until the next six days, person with age between 18 until 26 have to submit their information for The Choosing. And if you're not and get caught, you'll get stripped off of your caste.
The words may sounds cruel. It is cruel. But that's the only way to make us, The Servant, work for our kingdom. Because it's us that has the responsibility to work for other, that is above us in the caste system.
Having a job is better for most of us rather than have ourselves stripped off our own caste to be the lowest of the five caste that exist.
Though our caste only one step above The Lowest, the differences between the two castes are the things that make us a lot more better and fortunate than The Lowest. We can live a lot more better life as The Servant, rather than The Lowest.
If you get stripped off of your caste and be The Lowest, you'll have nothing left to hold on to, although your family would try their best to keep you alive.
The help from your family would be so helpful for you. But that doesn't mean the government would let any of your family, or other people to help you when you're The Lowest, especially because of you break the laws and get yourself stripped off of your caste.
When that happen, you feel like you're a burden and disgrace to your family and you have the feeling to go away from them, from their life.
Being a Lowest means you're homeless, have to fight for food with other starving people. If you don't get any food, you are don't have any other choices but to rob from other people. And you have to do it all over again, to survive from the starving and the harsh world of The Lowest.
"Yes, mom."
"Get ready, I'll wait downstairs."
"Okay."
She flashes me a smile and she spins around and walk out of my room quickly when a thought pops inside my head.
"Wait," She stops outside of my room and turn around again, looking at me, confusion covers her face. "Don't you have to go to work?"
Today is Monday, right?
The confusion replaces by a smile as she stares at me earnestly. My eyebrows raises at the look on her face.
"No, I'm not for today. I have a day off. For you."
A train of people lining up outside the Service Office can be seen from afar as I walk closer to the place. The queue haven't trained too long considering the time that's only 7 in the morning. And besides that, today is the first day of The Choosing registration week which means there's still a long way to go until the last day of choosing.
Mom waits for me under a big tall tree with other people that probably would be the parents of these people who are lining up with me. She's already engaged in a conversation with other mother, sometimes glance at my way and smile.
I return the little smile on her face and look ahead of me. 15 people standing before me, mostly girls, and that means I still have less than a half an hour until my own turn.
After half an hour passes by, a hand taps on my shoulder lightly and I turn around. I bring my eyes up and the man in front of me smiling brightly at my way.
"Oh, hi." A smile as bright as Connor's appears on my face as I stare back at him in astonishment.
"Hi. Wow, I never thought we would meet here." A light chuckle comes out from him, his eyes still fixed on mine.
"Yeah, me too. You're here by yourself?"
"Uh, yeah. My mom and dad have to work and my sisters have to go to school. Besides, my house is not really far from here."
"Oh." I nod my head a little.
"What about you?"
"I'm with my mother. She has a day off and insisted on accompanying me."
"Next!" I jump back a little as I turn around and look at the officer in shock. She just shake her head and gestured me to come inside the office.
"I guess I have to go." I smile at him awkwardly, my heart still beating fast in my chest.
"Okay, see you later."
"See you later."
I bring myself out of the office. I look out to see mom, walking toward my way with a wide toothy grin draw across her face that's brighter than the sun rays. Confusion take over my face as she holds my upper arms and lean into my ear.
"Who's that young man?" I snap my head toward her, eyes widening in shock. The previous grin on her face hasn't left yet.
"Mom! He's just a friend!" I exclaim, but it seems like the grin on her face won't leave her yet when I say those words, it even gets wider and brighter in each second. Her blue eyes twinkles with mischief as she stares back at me.
Boys is what she has in mind most of the time. And talk about them is one of her favorite hobbies. And it's not the hobby we really share together.
She compels it on me to like talking about it. I don't really like that side of her because I don't really want to be reminded of how single and lonely I am because I don't have a lot of friends.
But it's funny to hear her talk about things like that. Sometimes when I just stay in my room, reading books like I always do, she would come up to me and suddenly ask when will I have a boyfriend and get married because she wants to have grandchildren run around her house sooner or later.
I know that she's just joking about that whole thing, because I'm just too young to be married, but it's really getting on my nerves time after time.
She leans closer to me again as we begin to walk, her breath tickle me as she laughs quietly. "He's so handsome."
"Mom!" I pop my eyes at her again, and giggles comes out from her mouth as she stares at me playfully.
Connor is a pretty attractive young man, I admit. Even just thinking about him could make me all flustered. His curly dark brown hair almost framing his face. And his brown eyes, sometimes when I look into those eyes I get lost in it.
Argh, what am I thinking?! Why am I thinking about him?! I guess mom did something to me and that thing is to make me think about him.
"You're thinking about him right now, aren't you?" Her eyebrows wiggles as she keeps her gaze fixed at me, probably stifling a laughter from coming out of her mouth and makes her face scrunches up.
"Mom, stop!" I let out a groan, hoping she knows how irritated I am by her and would stop talking about this anytime soon. But I know she won't because she likes it when I get all annoyed when she asks me about boys.
"Hello, Anne."
I freeze in my track, every organ inside my body, even my brain, stop working for a second, and everything seems to be off for a while.
He heard our stupid conversation, didn't he? I'm sure he did.
Mom stands beside me, looking at me with a sly stare, though her face shows nothing and turns to look at Connor who's standing right behind my frozen body with a smile.
I turn around, still feeling my body stiffness as I look back at Connor with an awkward smile.
"Uh, hi."
Heat crawling up my cheek, perhaps the boiling blood inside my cheek already turns my cheek to be in the same shade of tomato, or even darker than it. And just thinking about how embarrassed I am by blushing in front of him make me even more embarrassed and make my face feels hot, I can feel sweat beads forms on my forehead.
Mom, why? Why are you doing this to me?
"Hello, Mrs..." He stares at me, a grin appear on his face when he sees how flustered I am in front of him, and he could probably know about mom and I's previous conversation about him that is definitely inappropriate to talk about in public places.
"Just call me Margaret. And what's your name, young man?"
The sweet voice she's using with him make me roll my eyes at how silly she sounds. And the sweet smile on her face is a plus point for how silly she looks right now.
"I'm Connor." A kind smile shows up on his face, his brown eyes trained on mom's blue ones.
"Nice to meet you, Connor."
"Nice to meet you too, uh, Margaret." He says, seems hesitant to call my mother by her first name.
"Uh, mom, I guess we have to go now." I pop my eyes at her, pulling her away from Connor before any further act and words that could embarrass me to death would be told and done by her in any second.
"See you soon, Connor." Mom shouts, looking at him over her shoulder as I keep a grasp on her wrist and pulling her away from embarrassment.
"See you soon, Margaret, Anne." Connor yells out.
"What's wrong, honey?" I stop pulling her away when I knew we're already far away from Service Office. Giggles comes out from her, makes me taking in the warm air deep into my chest and sigh and roll my eyes at her silly giggles.
God, can't she stops giggling for a few seconds, please?
"Mom, please stop it!" I groan, only to make her laugh at how annoyed I look and sound.
"Okay, okay."
I munch the last bit of my dinner, smiling at dad as he tells us one of his joke that's not quite funny but pretty entertaining for us.
I get up to my feet, grabbing my plate and spoon as I go around the table to take others plates and spoons, I unconsciously look up at dad and he already use the mask of pleading expression over his face.
"Anne, let me wash the dishes."
"Dad, no. Just let me-"
"Anne, let him do it." Mom says.
"But mom," I pout.
"It's okay. Go upstairs and get some rest."
A defeated sigh comes past my lips, having nothing left to say that would make mom changes her mind. But even if I have, she won't change her mind.
I lay still on my bed, my gaze that was focused on the dull white ceiling, turns blurry after God knows how long by tears filling up my eyelids. And though I try to keep it from falling, it still has it ways to escape.
Again, the thoughts of me being chosen to work at the palace, not going to see my family for years, or maybe never. How would my family live that one of its members gone to a place that's so far away and I would not be permitted to leave the palace. All of the thoughts is too overwhelming for me, trying to stop the thoughts and it only makes more of it to come to my head.
"Anne, are you okay?" A light knock comes from my room door, waking me up from my daze. I wipe all the tears away from my face quickly, panicking that she would see me like this.
I don't want her to see me like this. I can't let my own sadness enters her own feelings and make her sad too.
I take a book close to me and open it in attempt to cover my flushing face and bloodshot eyes too, pretending to read the book.
"I'm fine." I spoke as normally as I can.
My room door let out a little squeak, as mom pushes it open. The thought of mom seeing me like this only make me even more panic.
Mom's body weighs on my bed slowly, witting right beside me. I can already feel her gaze, full of sadness, staring right at my face that's covering my face.
I guess what I'm doing now won't work. My trembling hands won't let me. It can even be seen from the book that I'm holding is shaking a little. But still, I keep holding onto my book, covering my face with it.
She pulls the book away from my face, and I let go of it. I can't try to pretend anymore that I'm okay with all of this thoughts invading my mind and slowly driving me crazy. I keep my eyes avoiding her stare, not ready yet to see her face that already turns sad and her lips already curved downward into a pout.
"What's wrong? You can tell me about it." She runs her hand on my hair, stroking it softly and her touch soothes me a little, making all of the sadness and anxiety leaves me for a little while.
I take in a deep breath, pursing my lips tightly in attempt to prevent myself to break in front of her. I pull myself to sit, pulling all the courage I have left in me to look at her in the eyes.
"It's about The Choosing."
"What's wrong with that?" She stares at me with a kind of worry in her eyes.
"I don't want to be chosen at the palace. I want to live with you. With dad, Sam, Luna. I don't want to live at the palace." Tears clouded my eyes, blurring my vision slightly in a second.
"What's wrong with the palace? Working there could be better than working at any other places." Mom rubs my cheek, wiping the falling tears off of my cheek softly.
"I know. But I don't want to leave you, leave all of you. I want to stay here. I don't want to live at the palace." Mom sighs quietly as she averts her gaze down her lap and back at me.
"Anne, if you got chosen to work anywhere, even at the palace, that's what god thinks is good for you." She gives me a sad smile, rubbing her thumb against my cheek softly.
"But I don't want to leave you all." As I shut my eyes tightly, tears streaming down my cheek, dripping on my blanket as my tears keep rolling down my cheek.
I don't want to. I can't.
"But you still can send us a letter, right?" She rubs my back softly. "Though we can't see you for a long time, we still can communicate with each other." I nod again as I let my gaze fall down to my lap.
She's right. She always right.
Even though I felt the urge to argue with her, telling her it isn't the same, that would be an impossible argument for me to win. She always telling me all of the good things I still can do.
"Get some sleep. I don't want you to overthink about this. Overthinking is not good for you. Even if there's a bad side of one thing, there's still a lot of good side in that one thing. Just think about the good things." She smiles and left the room.
She's right, I'm overthinking too much.
Why am I even worrying about this? Even though I can't be with my family for a long time, at least I can write them some letter. I can get a lot more money from working at the palace. From that, I can help my family finances.
We must do sacrifices to help others.