January 2nd, Monday 

                                                                                   The Lone

                                                                                      11:42

She sits in the corner of the cluttered art classroom, carefully inspecting all of it's rather simple designs.

Her head turns just an inch as she takes into account the two exits to her right. Both of the decorated doors are adjacent to one another, snuggled into the corners of the colorful room to a point where they almost blend with the wall. The door closest to her leads outside to the carpentry workshop while the other to the desolate quad.

She turns her head to the front of the classroom where a white board is between the teachers desk and a messy filing cabinet full of notes from past classes. Not to mention there is a horrendous mountain of random drawings she assumes are also from previous classes. She wishes more than she should that he will eventually organize them before they fall into a mess on the floor.

She deeply inhales as she looks up at the flickering white fluorescent. She exhales and the light finally goes out. A coincidence.

She directs her attention to the rest of the class that sits ahead of her. 

The class consists of eight pristine white tables. Each should have been seating four out of the thirty two students but her table consisted only of herself. She wasn't surprised that by the second week of school her “desk buddies” had all moved to other, more friendly tables. 

She isn't some cruel bully like a stranger may assume, nor is she a welcoming person. She is simply a calm, reserved, stone faced girl that chooses not to talk unless dierly necessary.

She looks back down at her table and the few papers that are scattered atop it. She is focusing whole heartily on her work that lays sprawled across its immaculate surface while the teacher diligently writes on the whiteboard about lighting effects. She listens closely as a majority of the class is too busy whispering to pay attention to his monotone voice that carries through the cold room.

She looks up carefully memorizing the overfilled whiteboard before gliding her eyes back down to her notes and unfinished calculus homework.

She hates school. Which if anyone asked would surprise them. The assumption would most likely stem from the fact she was able to skip two grades by middle school leading anyone to believe she has a thirst for knowledge. That part was partially true but the true reason she continues to receive an education, instead of leaving her foster home, is because she knows knowledge and intelligence is an essential qualification to becoming a great Pinter.

The Pinters are a group of government officials that lead the country. There are even rumors that the Pinters controlled the world in secrecy, which explains the multitude of large embassies and vast foreign officials they have gathered in less than a hundred years.

What she did know for a fact is that the Pinters control all of Totes.

Totes, the country that was once a beautiful land under a different name. All that remains now of that war engaging country is Totes. A sad little country divided into twenty districts all surrounded by pollution and inhabited by a vast population of unemployed people. Unemployed people who would, more than likely, die by avoidable causes.

“Ms. Inlustris?” The teacher sighs.

Like a grand circus master he grabs everyone’s attention. Their voices non-existent, their shining glass eyes watching her with threatening curiosity. Curiosity that makes her skin crawl in undeniable abhorrence.

“Yes?” She responds in an icy voice that can not be shaken.

The teacher decides to speak with a slight tune. “Would you mind telling me what I just said?”

A girl who sits in the front of the classroom throws her hand up and waves it as if she were a grade schooler who was proud to know what three times two was. Her smile is bright like the rising sun and as spell binding as humanley possible as she leans forward. Her curly hair bounces while she frantically waves her hand in anticipation.

“Not you Diza,” the teacher says with a little more kindness. “I am asking Solaforma.” His eyes don't leave hers when he speaks with a smile that holds bane in its undertones.

Solaforma blinks with precision as she retrieves the memory of the last five minutes.

She meets his eyes, his smile now gone as she speaks with flawless articulation.

“When one is shading an object it is up to the artist to tell the viewer where the light source is coming from.” Solaforma pauses for three seconds just as the teacher had before continuing. “Very similar to how a writer shows the viewer their world and how a leader can lead followers to the right destination.

“Also let’s not forget that experimenting with lighting can leave a sense of containment within the vast expanse of whatever piece you are creating. Which is why you should always go into art with either a full idea of lighting or no idea at all. If you are to do the latter be sure to make it simple.”

“Wow, you really are an android.” A girl mumbles while the room fills with the snickers of her classmates. 

"Or maybe an alien." Someone else chuckles.

She ignores them just as she always had and looks back to the teacher who is frantically whisking his hand in a failed attempt to calm her amused classmates. He realizes that his efforts are not going to work so instead he places a single finger to his lips and begins to shush them.

Solaforma glances over to Diza who is watching her with calm eyes. She holds her brows up just an inch while her nose wrinkles with annoyance. She sticks out from the smirking faces that surround her as if she doesn't belong amongst her classmates, much like Solaforma. She fluidly pushes herself out of her wooden seat as she rises. In an instant. The world is sent into complete silence that she overrules.

“Sorry Mr.G,” she sighs. “It’s just I think we're running out of time?” She crosses her arms, shrugging while her beautiful face turns into a pout. “So can we continue the lesson?”

The class swivels their head to Dizajner with adoring eyes as they watch her settle back into her seat. The little uniform black bow around her neck bobbing as she sits comfortably.

Dizajner is the daughter to the CEO of a famous oil refinery, girlfriend to the second heir of a major pharmaceutical company and best friend with the son of a senator and the Vice President of Totes. No one could reject her even if they tried. She was too kind, too sweet, too understanding. To reject her was the equivalent of kicking a kitten.

The silence is shattered as the sound of an xylophone over the intercom sends the class into a flurry as they pack their belongings and rush out of the room into the jam packed quad.

Solaforma gently closes her books and packs her worn out leather satchel with her long thin hands. She is well aware the teacher is watching her with his beady eyes.

“Solaforma.” He calls, crossing his long arms.

She mechanically stands straight, her heels touching one another as her hands lay flat by her side. “Yes?”

He clears his throat trying to hide the obvious fact that she makes him uncomfortable, just like every other adult. “I would appreciate it if you participated more.” He says watching the final student trickle out.

“I understand Mr. Gilsby.” She answers just as automatic as the rest of her.

He waits to hear more, an argument, at least an emotion cross her face but there is nothing, just a blank empty canvas.

“That's all.” He sighs with a wave of a hand that is meant to shoo her away.

She nods her head at a perfect forty-five degree angle before picking up her flimsy satchel. She has owned the bag since seventh grade, when she was first admitted to the school. She throws its weight over her shoulder as she places one foot in front of the other, each heel in perfect time as they click against the cold, white, tiled floor and then across the steel threshold out of the art room.

She accounts the way the dim fluorescent light of the art room transitions to the gray polluted sky. It looms like a warning above her head. The sky was always a deathly gray. She can't even remember a time when the sky in Evergreen District was a beautiful sapphire blue that so many of these students gushed seeing on a weekly basis in other places.

The only place any piece of sky was blue is in the mountains, three hundred miles from any civilization and in the elite cities. In the elite cities the rich came together to acquire a twenty four seven air filtration system. The cities lacked any form of filth it was all pristine and new. They even had their own police force that made sure to keep the homeless out. Some say elite cities are the perfect representation of a city. She believes it is a false reality that tries to ignore the wrongs of the world.

She strolls down the cement pathways of the school passing other students who sit on benches busy as they try to solve homework problems or they lean against walls as they wait for their other classes. The students who sit on the benches sends Solaforma's own mind running as she tries to recall whether she finished her own homework. She swivels the flimsy bag to the front of her then throws the flap open to begin her search for her homework. She is so positive that she placed it in her bag that she continues walking to her own class while moving the cascade of papers and binders from one side of her bag to the other.

"Heads up!" Someone calls and she tosses her head up just in time to see someone chuck a football her way.

Instinctively she throws a single hand up and catches it while her eyes pierce through the young man who threw it.

"Great catch," someone says behind her.

She swivels her head to see who it is.

Behind her is a young man who holds an expression of astonishment as his dark brown eyes take into account her quick reflexes. She sizes him up as she recalls just who he is. The son of the Vice President of Totes and heir to the holo-tech company. Not to mention the King of Everton High, that silly nickname was given after he was voted Homecoming King all four years of high school. Almost impressive if you didn't account for the money and influence behind his name.