In Ruin

The morning of the storm was an average one, clouds hung close to the sky like a blanket, smothering out the sun and making the sky a blueish white. I was in my house at the time, sitting on the porch feeding catfish by a pond. When the very first crack of thunder erupted out of the sky, lighting rained down from above and I fell back in fear. I remember running back to my house, tripping over vines and stones. As I closed the door I felt a wall of rain slam the outside of the house, windows broke, furniture thrown across the floor. As I was 9 years old, scared our of my mind and cowering in the corner. My parents went out that day, and I never heard from them again. And so I was alone in a country of orphans.

The recruiters were out again, in their bright yellows and blues. Duel Academy was once again looking for a star from the rubble of America. It was mid-summer and one of the few days that I wasn't wearing a hat. My short hair was baking under the sun, and I was shifting nervously on a park bench. I was broke like most people in America these days, and I was watching the duels over in the park. It was recruitment day and thousands of people came out to the event. I was lucky to live in the city where they recruited otherwise I might get caught up in the chaos of looting and pillaging. I blended right in with the tree above me, the shadows made my skin the same color as the bark, and even my two coal eyes were hardly noticeable. That might be why a group of students had started up a conversation right near the tree,

"Man these test are bs!" said one guy. " I spent weeks trying to get my deck together and they just turned me away!" He was clean looking, and probably didn't live around here. He probably lived in a pocket, one of those areas that either was lightly hit by the storm or rebuilt altogether. So while the people on the East coast put a remix on the definition of poor, cities like San Francisco and Seattle had already gotten back to their old ways. They even stole the capital, moving it over to Washington state.

"To be honest I never even liked dueling!" The boy's temper had peaked and he stomped the ground in anger. "Fuck this school they aren't worth it anyway!" He threw his cards in the trashcan next to the bench and took off running. His friends nearby ran after him shouting.

In my time living on my on, I had learned never to be curious. Surely you wanted to help the little girl that seemed to be hanging of the side of the building but it was probably a trap that would either get you killed or robbed of everything and anything. This however seemed safe enough, judging by how slow that kid runs I could get away if he wanted his deck back. I peered into the trashcan and fished out a bunch of cards, probably a decks worth. I flipped through them letting my fingers leave smudges and stains on their clean surfaces. I reached into my pocket and found the hole in my pants, reaching into it I pulled a card off my thigh. I slipped my card in with the others. But something didn't seem right, while my card was dark all these cards were earth.

Kinka-byo my first card and my only, I had figured it was Japanese which made it a pariah. It was a stupid idea but in a mess like this people will believe anything, regardless of the mountains of support Japan gave to rebuild San Francisco most people around here believed we'd been gypped. They hardly touched the East Coast, they started on New York but that was about it, and the rest of the world could hardly be bothered.

"Hey you there!" I looked up a man in a blue jacket was staring me down with some device strapped to his arm.

"Want to duel?" he said grinning. I looked down at my cards and back up at him.

"Uh sure I guess?"

Jim Morrison sat back in his chair, he stared out the window of his makeshift office. The recruitment for Duel Academy was happening today and he had sent a plane ticket for his son and wife to attend. He wondered if his wife still held a grudge, but that didn't matter. As long as his son made it on that plane he was satisfied. He had never seen his son, but he knew from his agent's observations that he was soft. Soft, Jim hated and loved that word at the same time. His own father had called him soft, and abandoned him, he wouldn't let that happen to his son. No he couldn't, so regardless of anything he'd ever done, he knew now that he had to pave the way for his son. But still, he was soft! And if he ever wanted to get anywhere in the world he had to be strong, so that was why Jim sent out his intern Tobias to find someone to help his son; to help him be strong.

"I'm telling you Molly, this kid is legit! You have to let him in!" the man who I had dueled was yelling to a younger girl in a yellow jacket.

"You know the rules, he has to apply, and give the 50 dollar forward. Besides there is only an hour left in applications and all the spots are filled." The man wouldn't be told off though, he offered to pay the money and would force me in himself; she gave in.

I had never been inside the building they used to test students, it had the strange smell of air freshener probably to mask the smell of whatever was in these hallways last week. This building was abandoned most of the time, but opened just for this occasion.

"Head to room 1-A," Molly said. She gave me one more suspicious glance and went back to the lobby.

The place was bigger then I thought it was, and it had test halls and lecture rooms like a college. I found 1-A without a hitch, it was right around the corner. I opened and closed the door gently, people would be livid if they were interrupted for even a second, getting into this school was a big deal. Luckily I didn't draw too many stares, there was a test already on my desk and I sat in my chair ready for whatever happened.

The test wasn't so bad, just stuff on cards nothing I didn't expect. Then I flipped it over, duel scenarios, this would be difficult. After going through the fourth scenario where you had to summon Giant Rat, I figured dueling must be easy as long as you had Giant Rat. Other people seemed a lot less happy about their answers as we began to hand them in many pulling back their test second and third times and some attempting to wrestle the test away from their proctors.

I left the testing room, and heard lots of sniffling and crying in the hallways. I saw that many of the test results were already being displayed on the electronic board, so the test must be machine graded. I couldn't see my own results, so I assumed they were yet to be graded. I looked around the reception area and if reminded me of an airport, the testing room being the terminal, the result board being the flight tracker and when it was all done heading out to Duel Academy. I got a knot in my stomach just thinking about it all. What was I doing here? After finding some deck in the trash I apply for Duel Academy? But then again, it was better then anything I had to go back to, which was nothing.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to face the surprise of my life.