"No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly."
~O. Wilde
Prologue
A zoo has the animals. A jail has the prisoners. A circus has the acrobats. A school has the students. A carnival has the freaks. A tank has me. Maybe we aren't so different after all.
My name is Emma. At least, that's what I remember being called. Sometimes it's just a number. Sometimes it's not even that much. I wish I knew more. Maybe then you'd understand. Maybe I would understand. But, I don't. I've given up trying to understand this world. Nothing ever makes sense anymore anyways.
Have you ever felt like the life you live is a dream? That no matter what you do you just cannot wake up? No matter how hard you cry? No matter how you scream? No matter if you want to die? Death won't even come that easy. Death is not for the chosen.
Death is not for me.
~PP~
Chapter One: The Beginning of Our World
"Welcome, class! Today is your first day of Rusty History. I know you all must be boiling over with curiosity of our naïve ancestors," a blonde middle pretty smiled around her classroom. Surveying the new students, the blonde noticed a small girl in the back covertly pinging. Not wanting to disrupt her lesson all because of one rebellious student, the blonde placed her hands on her hips and continued. "It has been over three hundred years since the fatal Rusty Crash that nearly destroyed our entire world. If it wasn't for some of the smartest doctors and clever scientists, the world might have ceased to carry the human race."
"Excuse me?" the small girl had stood up beside her desk and was glaring at the middle pretty.
The anger flushes her face most unprettily, the middle pretty notes to herself. "Yes, 234?"
"First off, my name is not 234. It's Kelly. And second, why do we always assume the Rusties would have killed off everybody? Doesn't everyone make mistakes?" Kelly placed her hands on her hips and cocked an eyebrow. If she was still in littlie classes the instructor might chastise her quietly outside the door but, now that she is a regular pretty the rules vary.
"I apologize…Kelly," the middle pretty smirks at the name, "but, we do not call each other by our names in this classroom yet. As of recently the government has decided that an individual has the right to choose their name and not follow the tradition of being called whatever the parental figures approve. If you would like to change your number to a name you must go, on your own time, to the admissions office and have it registered into the system."
Of course, Kelly thinks coldly, they have the power in everything. First, my body and now my own name. We claim to be so individual oriented but the minute we act like it they change something to remind us that we are always the majority. "And what about the Rusty Crash? Is there any proof that we would really not be here today if not for the 'smartest doctors and clever scientists?'"
"The proof is all around you," the instructor turns the blinds on the window so that her students can see the outside world. "Without our stabilizing structures and electromagnetic grids our world would not exist. Not only is it more convenient the individual but the Rusties made is so that any reliance on fossil fuels such as oil will end everything."
"But where is the proof?" Kelly yelled back. "This is ridiculous! You can tell me everything you want but that does not make it fact. We have gone to school here for years and you always say the same stuff over and over! There is no proof!"
Meanwhile, as the confrontation between the instructor and young pretty unfolds several other students took it upon themselves to begin pinging not only friends but also the school guards. Many of the students had just recently been gifted the surgery through a lottery in their home towns. Not everyone could afford to leave their villages so the government had taken to a weekly drawing. The reliance on the government and gratitude the students felt caused confrontations to be little and sporadic. No one wanted the government to take away their gift: perfection.
~PP~
KPOV
I blew a kiss to the school security guard before slamming the front door of my home. "Mom! Dad! Are you guys home yet? I got kicked out…again," I murmured the last part.
Now don't get me wrong: I love school. I love learning. I love seeing other people. But what I don't love is the fact that just because I won the lottery that I had to be transferred to a school of lies.
Before my operation I was ugly. Actually, I don't think I was that ugly. My parents didn't either. We were all hoping I was a Natural Pretty that way I didn't have to wait for the lottery like they did. I even used to do those lame morphological games as a littlie. I never saw much of a change after the old fashioned and usual changes occurred before my eyes. When my guidance counselor approached me last year about my lack of entering a weekly drawing I will honestly say I was insulted. They called me Eyes-la all throughout school but we all had to have some sort of Ugly Nickname or we stood out. I loved my eyes. Sure, they might have been a little bigger than the average Pretty but they were mine and we saw a lot of amazing things together. Too bad the government didn't care.
A week after I entered my name in the lottery I was chosen. It's rigged. At that moment I decided the government is not what people think. It can't be a coincidence…
"Stop conspiring over there, missy," Mom sighed as she walked into the room. "What happened this time? Did they say that every ten years they would make you go to a doctor's appointment so you don't die?"
My mom is what they call a middle pretty. A few years ago when they did the operation to older people they learned really fast you couldn't make someone's mom look younger than them. I really don't know why though. People before the operation were trying to look younger. But now that science really would let them the government decided it wasn't 'morally correct.' Luckily for my mom though, she didn't want to look younger than me and took the second operation. The operation I will be receiving in about five years as long as the government doesn't change its mind. But it probably will. Because I have that sort of luck.
"Ha ha, very funny, Mom. No, they just blamed the Rusties again. Poor race. Not even around to defend itself."
"That's the point, dear. They aren't around because they made the worst mistake."
I swirl around and look my mom in the eye. I wasn't able to do that before the operation so it always throws off my equilibrium. "They lived their lives and now everyone mocks them. We can't just do that without a fair trial. It isn't right!"
"What's not right?" Dad chuckles. He always chuckles. He's one of the brilliant scientists the instructor was talking about. With his slightly grayed hair for 'distinction' and perfectly chiseled face from a scalpel he's the poster child for middle pretties. Sometimes I cannot believe we are related anymore. But if you look at us, it's not that hard to believe we aren't.
"The fact that all you do is blame Rusties for the problems we face today," I shrug and turn to leave.
"And what do you want? To sit down and ask them a few questions? Kelly, you cannot keep getting dismissed like this. It isn't good for your professional future or my own. My colleagues find it hilarious that I cannot even keep my own daughter happy when we strive to make the majority happy. Do you not know how this looks upon our family?" Dad slumps into a chair and wipes his eyes.
"All I want is proof, Dad. Just give me some proof."
A/N: And there we have it. Ask any question and I will get back to you.