In my world there are three types of people. There are those who will help the world go on. Those people will create inventions, and cures, and peace. Then there are those who will rebel. They don't want to be part of the world that's been created, and so they run. They'll never settle down, and never be satisfied. Then there are the people like me. We will amount to nothing. Anything we say or do won't go down in history. It won't matter, and we'd be lucky if someone even took the time to listen to us.
Each one of us is born with a birthmark. Blue, green, red, black, any and every colour you can think of, in various shapes and sizes. These colours categorize us and decide our fate. Those bearing warm coloured marks are flawed. They'll have mental illnesses, be mutants, or have a barrier preventing them from being useful to our society. The World Government had decided that due to the Earth's ever skyrocketing population, those are the type of people who will be sacrificed for the good of the Earth.
It'll be us who die so those with the cool colours can live. It's not as if they go about it in a cruel way. They give us time to live, and those who don't off themselves are done away with once they've turned 18. For most of us that means we won't live much past graduation.
Those who remain have birthmarks in shades of black and white, and everything in between. They're spontaneous, and because of that The World Government banished them from society. Their unpredictable nature could be grounds for something great, but could also spark rebellion and that just wouldn't do.
After telling you this I guess I should tell you who I am. It comes with no great joy that I introduce myself to you as Dave Strider. Sixteen years old, and destined to die in two years. I stand in my room, the feeling of dread flowing through my veins. Although today was the day I was given birth, it was also be the same date as my death.
My eyes flicker over to my mirror hanging on the back of my door. Will I look the same then as I do now? Pale faced with a splash of freckles across my nose and light gold hair framing my face? Lanky with hidden muscles that surprise the cool colours who pick on me at school? The one thing I know that won't change is my mark. It's a bright unnatural red in the shape of a gear and it covers my eye.
Some of the warm colours are lucky; they can hide their marks because they're in places under clothing. They can lie about their colours, and nobody bats an eye. I raise a hand to cover my right eye. I want it gone. Every time I look in the mirror it's all I can see, and it taunts me with the inevitability of my doom. It's shape mocks me, as if saying "your time's running out".
A knock on my door shakes me out of my depressed musings. Bro pokes his head through my door, his ever stoic expression strained.
"Hey lil' bro… Happy birthday."
He quickly tosses something to me, and I snatch it out of the air. The door shuts and he's gone, leaving me alone with a object wrapped in newspaper. Bro's the fortunate one in our family. At one point our family had been large, and I had three restless brothers and a loving mother and father.
Mom had been a light purple mark, just barely missing the bottom rung of the cool colours. She had been clinically depressed, and had turn to drinking in hopes that it'd kill her before The Government could. Then she met my dad. He'd been an outcast, marked with a grey sword on his arm. He'd been allowed into our city because he was a phenomenal mechanic at such a young age, and that's how he met my mom.
They had fallen in love and plotted to escape the city together. They had almost exceeded, but then the security had gone up around the city parameters. Instead of fleeing they hid inside the city. They made a life for each other, and in time my eldest brother was born. He had a red circle on his ankle. Since he was the first of their children. Bro had jokingly called him Alpha, and the title stuck.
Next Bro was born, a relief to both of my parents. He had taken after my father and sported a black mark on his shoulder in the shape of two triangle touching. Dirk was born a few years after them, and to my parents dismay he was a warm colour. An orange birthmark took its place on his chest in the shape of a baseball hat. He always told me he hated it, finding it ridiculous because he wouldn't wear a hat to save his life. It would've messed up his hair.
Two years after him came me, and another brick of sorrow settled itself on the back of my family. Out of their four children three had a death sentence. By the time I was two my parents had been found, and even though my father was a grey mark, they executed him for harboring my mother. They left me and my brothers in Alpha's care who was my age at the time.
I never got to know Alpha like Bro and Dirk did. I was too young to understand what death was when they took him away, but I remember Dirk sobbing, and Bro clinging onto him. Our once large family was growing gradually smaller and smaller. Now it was Dirks turn. His birthday is two days after mine, and in those two days I will only have one brother left.
My door opens, and he comes in. I'd expect those with a timer on their life would be a lot more somber in their last few days, but not Dirk. He smirks at me and plops down on my bed.
"Quit moping Dave. Jesus, it's your fucking birthday! Have some fun, it won't last forever."
At that last part I flinch. It doesn't go unnoticed, and his expression softens.
"You don't have to worry about me, you know. I have something to tell you."
"Wait, don't tell me. You're gay," I say an eyebrow raised.
He smacks the back of my head and grins at me.
"Shut up smartass, you already knew that. Anyway, what I was getting at is that I think I can get out."
"Get out?"
"Do I have to repeat myself David Elizabeth Strider? Yeah, I think I can get the fuck out of this city before my birthday."
"How?"
My stomach churns with excitement and hope. I might not have to lose another sibling. He could be the one that survives.
"Jake says he knows a way out of the city, and he wants to come with me."
I instantly grimace.
"Isn't Jake a green mark? Why would you trust him?! All that his kind wants is to kill us off."
"Well we're dating."
He says it so blatantly that I can't help but freeze.
"For how long-"
"Two years. Trust me, I think I'd know if he was going to stab me in the back."
I rub the back of my neck, my excitement slowly fading.
"You know security is still going to be a problem? They've gotten lax, but they will shoot you on sight."
"I'd rather die trying to live, than die without hope."
(A/N:
Hey it's Caliah again. So I'm hoping this is going to be a short story? Like max four chapters. So if you didn't quite get it Alpha is alpha Dave, but they're siblings in this. The mother and father in this aren't canon in any way, but I'd like to think of the dad being a mix of all the Strider boys :P I think I'll be posting the first and second chapter in the same day? But if not expect the second chapter soon. :) Thanks for reading! I don't make any profit off this story, and Homestuck belongs to Andrew Hussie. Feel free to check out me and Tauran's other stories!)
