POV: Surviving Class Student — Number 30014i
Location: Blackwood Borderline District School
Same Day as Previous Scene
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I wear brown. No shimmer. No gold. No tailored jackets.
Just brown—like the dirt beneath the tanks.
They call us Survivors. Not because we're strong, but because we haven't been erased yet. My number—30014i—was assigned to me the day my mother couldn't outbid the neighbor for number 29999.
She wept for three days.
Now, I'm just 30014i. First-born of a nobody.
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School
Our school has no holograms, no nanobites, no soft-voiced androids. Our teacher is an ex-military reject with missing fingers, probably from when he tried stealing rations. He doesn't call us by number. Just points.
"Ey, you—front of the class. Recite the Blackwood Laws."
I stand, fists clenched.
> "Law One: Identity is number. Law Two: Loyalty is survival. Law Three: Rebellion equals erasure. Law Four—"
He waves me down.
"Enough. You'll probably be a sewer worker anyway. Sit."
My classmates laugh, but it's the kind of laugh that hides hunger. The kind that's familiar with darkness, even in daylight.
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After School
I walk past the checkpoint. Blackwood Academy students roll by in luxury hovers, their escort drones humming in the air. I spot her—
14ii.
She doesn't see me. She wouldn't.
Even though we used to play in the same street before the Numbers came. Before her dad bought his way into status. Before mine lost his fingers in the riot.
She's drinking from a crystalline bottle. I'm licking salt off a leaf.
Two sides of the same empire.
One counts billions.
The other counts minutes.
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At Home
My mom looks older every day. She's trying to sell our only solar panel, hoping to save enough for the next auction. Maybe she can buy me into 29999 if no one notices.
But she knows.
So do I.
There's no climbing unless you marry up… or you do something dangerous.
And tonight, I write something down. A plan. A step.
Because I'm tired of numbers.
Tired of rankings.
And I heard a rumor…
> That the one who created the system once disguised himself as a beggar.
That even the gods wear masks.