The Unraveling of Stillman Park
 

My mattress was small and ruff, pushed up against the wall of my cold wooden room. Above my head, cracked into the pale grey ceiling, exited the brisk air of a small concave hole. The draft pushed the icy breeze onto my skin, and my eyes dripped with tears as I lifted my body up words. My torso cracked in one swift stretch, and I pulled myself up from the ground. Sulking over to my desk mirror was both awakening and exhausting, and I took a second to catch myself when I finally arrived there. I placed my palms on the dark wood surface and held in place for several minutes. My head throbbed from my night of discomfort; that bed hasn't served me well since the day I arrived here. Some of the other younger children had better living quarters then I did. Mrs. Crowe, the orphanage director, kept some of their rooms in nicer condition than mine. The youngest were even allowed to use the in-house bath house that extended into the street. Not for me, my shower would be taken down the street in the alley behind the Crembaline Building. The homeless would make decent company.
Looking into the mirror, I saw the features I regularly tried to ignore; my ratty black hair, my swampy green eyes, my olive toned skin. I was never once considered traditionally good looking, and I'd never consider myself anything of the sort to begin with. That seemed to carry over into my teenage years, because by sixteen years old, nothing seemed to get any better. My clothes were exceptionally bland, a grey lifeless buttoned up shirt, and a pair of black pants that didn't quite fit. Crowe allowed for one pair of everything per year, from shirts to shoes. A never-ending cycle of garbage ridden clothing. I'd be lying to myself if I said that the cycle was becoming a little tedious after three years of living in this place.
I leaned against the splintered wall and pulled on my brown shoes. Grabbing my school bag, I headed in the direction of the dining room downstairs. I exited my black hole of a room and raced down the rickety staircase. The dining table was already alive with noise when I arrived, the other children diving in to the food laid on dingy red cloths. Chipped bowls of green and grey mush inhabited the table, and little pale fibers reached for whatever they could grab. A few feet away stood Mrs. Crowe, gawking with an entitled glare. Her dark grey hair was clipped back behind her large ears, and her rigid pointy nose pungently sniffed the air with the ferocity of a newborn bloodhound. This was typical for her, as she didn't reside here during most hours. Her house was in the inner core of the city, far past the Grey wall and farm lands. It crossed my mind from time to time why she bothered becoming the orphanage director to begin with. Her dislike for children has never been enigmatic.
As she continued her tirade of glances towards the smallest, grumbling children, she spotted me from across the room, far past the ocean of much younger orphans. Maybe she'd thought I had gawked at her, because she began walking over to my direction by the cleaning closets.
"What, you don't want the food Stillman? Too simple for you?" She spoke with a high-pitched squeal, contrast to her sunken appearance. Her face was inches away from mine and wrinkled with malice.
"No, no, mam, I do. Sorry mam." I bowed my head in respect, and took the few steps forward, behind the row of grabbing children. I was spades taller than all of them, and immediately backed away slightly from the pack. She turned her face away and grinned toothless. I wasn't one to argue with a bitter old woman. I'd never been able to get a word out of disapproval.
That was my name, then. Stillman Park. My mother named me it after her late father died young. He was Stillman Junior, so I typically would have inherited the infamous third. But I killed off that title years ago when I ended up living here after I lost them both. The other children, the ones who didn't grow up with money, with anything really, would've made it harder if I came in with the extra three. Stillman Park the Third. Just Stillman Park was enough for me.
Running down the rickety stairs a minute later came the only other boy my age living in the orphanage, Robbie Harvlow. He tripped over the last step as he raced over to the table, and almost rammed into the other waiting children until he finally stopped mid sprint. It seemed to me like he was always running, anywhere he went. Always wanting to move on to the next. Maybe that was the reason we refrained from walking to school together. I was just too slow for someone like him.
He looked the same to me but almost completely better. His olive skin was much more rich and smooth, and his dark hair was more pleasant than mine. He was well built and tall, and the charming nature of his dark blue eyes held most torment at bay. Ms. Crowe was an obvious exception.
"Excuse me, Mr. Harvlow, but do you pride yourself on always having to be the most careless person in the room? I don't have the time of day to manage your uncontrollable idiocy. Now go to the table and eat your food."
Crowe extended her bird claw of a finger in the direction of me and the other orphans, and Robbie nodded slightly as he cheerfully stepped over to my right. His smile was sly yet joyful, and he rolled his eyes far back into his temple. I'd wondered for years how he'd ended up living here. He arrived a year after I did, and never brought up anything to me, in our handful of short interactions. I guess I'd never had the courage to ask him; I hated sharing about my life before I fell into this chasm, why even bring it up to him. I felt his elbow nudge into my rib and turned to meet his smirking grin.
"You think you’re ready for this test today? Burke gave me some study packets but it all just went in one ear and out the other." Ms. Burke was our teacher from the inner city. Thinking about it now, she probably lived close to Crowe. "Maybe their neighbors, " I thought to myself. "Maybe the worst of us can find peace with each other." His smile increased, revealing a row or white square teeth. He was the type to laugh at his own jokes, however unfunny they were to the rest of us.
"As ready as I'll ever be, I guess." Short answer. Not particularly inviting to continue the conversation. Perfect.
He extended his neck, whispering into my ear. "l tried to talk to Aline about some of the answers, and the girl so calmly through her pen at my head." He loudly laughed, and the back of my neck could feel the coldness of his spit. I grimaced slightly and took a step closer to the other children. "Little does she know, she shouldn't be expecting that pen back any time soon." I turned to face him and smirked slightly. Still not funny, still not funny. Avoid, avoid.
He was speaking close to me now, almost whispering into my ear, expecting me to laugh at his joke, which again wasn't even a joke because there was nothing to laugh about. Aline Milainne was as unpleasant as they come, and I'd faced the fair share of taunts from the bull faced girl. But I did what I always did, when things got hard. I just turned and ran. Kept it out of my head, because my mind was always too full of worry anyways. She wasn't worth the trouble, nor was Crowe, or Burke. The same could be said for Robbie, and I began hoping for the end of our talk.
After a long pause of silence, I finally responded.
"What did you expect, she's been practically bread to hate people like us." The rich never seemed to like us much, and I understood that even more after my parents died. I've known this since childhood. It just wasn't how this all worked, my world. Our city didn't function on inclusivity. And Robbie seemed to have the same opinion, from the expression of playfulness melting into calm. Maybe he'd just melted because I'd turned the conversation into pain.
                          "Well, we all know that truth, my friend. Us, and them," he looked to Crowe, in the middle on the reprimanding another orphan. Her cold long fingers clawed down the face of the young girl, and we both jolted our gazes away.
"We are at war."
Another pause of awkward silence filled the air, and Robbie Harvlow backed away from me.
We both waited, taking in the quiet as the children ahead shuffled too they're breakfast. We ate some of the grey slush, and finally exited the orphanage after Crowe gave us both the okay to leave.
Sometimes I wish I wasn't attached to this dungeon, that I could get my few things and leave. But where would I run to, the walls of the city held us all in. I was trapped, it was magnetic. And it was never ending.

Off to School
The other children and I left the orphanage just past seven. It was February, cold and icy. The air hurt the back of my throat as I took in a long heavy breath. I looked up towards the inner city, where the sunlight was beginning to touch the tops of jagged black towers. We'd have to run, per usual, towards the train station. School starts at eight, and just walking through the dusted grey streets would take ages. Robbie had already run ahead and was probably already halfway there. I began to pedal along, the other kids following my lead. I wasn't the best runner, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The girl Mrs. Crowe had abused earlier followed closely behind my trail, keeping a faster pace than the others. We lightly jogged past the abundance of small square grey houses plotted everywhere the eye could see. We passed the town square, already bustling with merchants and sellers. The Jumbotrons began plastering themselves onto every street corner the second the buildings started to grow in size, and the second we started getting closer to the inner city. Images of our Prime Minister Steele and his family, smiling in robes of neon blue and orange. Waving to us as if we were family friends. If only that were the case for us.
The war had been terrible, that's what they told us in school. Far past our pocket of safety, beyond the fields and mountains and terrain we called home, was nothing that was left of the old world. Radiation destroyed everything, the falling out of nuclear bombs that dropped in every country around the world. Famine took over whatever was left, and we all suffered for a very long time. We hear tales of mutated animals the still roam free in the darkest places of our earth, but I don't know if I believe that. That was ages ago, one hundred and sixty-seven to be exact. Our founders built our new safe world, behind our walls and black jagged towers. We lived in relative safety for generations, farming and surviving together.
Beyond the taller cylinder buildings we passed, lay in waiting the stone steps leading to the train station. At the top of the platform would be waiting for us another fifteen minutes until the Cloud Kart came to take us beyond the outer wall. The inner city was cocooned behind even taller walls than ours; nearly 2000 feet, touching the clouds with its rock and metal slabs. We ran up the stairs, faster than before, and began our wait for the Kart to take us. Robbie appeared in sight as I walked up the last few rock slabs. He looks slightly sweat induced, but relatively fine. He never looked dissatisfied with anything, and he smiled towards me when we locked eyes. I darted my eyes away and let him be. As soon as his body turned to greet myself and the other orphans, every child (besides the abused girl) ran to him and stood surrounding his legs. The height difference was perplexing; every single little orphan looked like a decrepit elderly figure compared to Robbie's built and confidence. The girl turned to me, expecting me to say something to her. No words exited my lips, and the joined the others by the corner of the platform.
I waited quietly by myself for another five-ish minutes. The wind picked up speed, and the cold breeze attacked my face like a pack of wild dogs. Then I felt her cold hand touch my shoulder. I knew it was her. I looked behind me and saw her, my friend, my confidant. Emma was beaming at me.
Emmaline Ateraine was born with the blessing of beauty, traditional attractive in every sense of the word. Her long flame red hair was pulled back into a light ponytail, and her skin was the color of fresh snow. It was hard to remember if she wasn't the only one of us that had that fair of complexion, because people almost always stopped to stare at her paleness. Her sensual eyes were an obvious draw, the color is afternoon blue on a cloudless day. She smiled at me with a delicate smile and opened her arms for an embrace. I just so happened to comply.
"Hey Stillman, how's everything?" She tilted her heart shaped face to the right, inviting me to respond with just one look.
"Everything's good, it's fine. What about you? Your dad doing alright? I heard he had to take some time off work." Her father was my psychiatrist, Doctor Peter Atereraine. I started seeing him after my parents died, right after I started living with Crowe and the other orphans. He introduced me to Emma about a year ago, and I was always grateful for this acquaintance. I considered her my only true friend at my school.
"He's doing fine. He's just taking time off work to stay at home with my sister. She's just in the cusp of becoming old enough to stay home alone, I guess my parents are an exception to that rule." She smiled again, sweet and calming. Her voice was peaceful, like she hadn't faced the struggles of our world before. Lucky her, I wish I could say the for myself.
"Well that's good news." I smiled and looked onwards towards the tracks. The Cloud Kart, a white ball of a contraption large enough to fit us all inside, came hustling down the route.
"So, are you ready for that test today? I heard from my older sister, Leanne. She said this was the hardest test we'd have to take, until the final placement test in twelfth grade."
I wavered but answered her. "Yeah, I heard that too from some other kids, and some of the other older kids living in the um... house... we're saying the same thing." I lied. No one told me of the difficulty, nor had I listened in on a conversation between my peers. But I lifted my head high and exhaled to myself.
"You mean, orphanage, not house, right?" She stepped closer to me and smiled.  just wanted to make the clarification. It's not a house that you and these kids live in, it’s an orphanage."
I paused. The Cloud Kart finally arrived at the station.
"l mean, it is a house, that's what it is... but yes, it's an orphanage."
She backed away and lowered her eyes. She turned to the Kart and began walking towards the open hole of an entry way. "Well that's good to know. Aren't you coming Stillman?"
The cold continued to blow in my face, and I took several steps towards the great open door.