Odd One Out - Chapter 2 A Lazy Weekend.

The air was chilly. The tempered glass windows were frosted and snow steadily drifted down slowly gently swathing the village with pale white blankets. The chilly atmosphere dampened anything that was in contact with it but there was warmth in the hearts.

Vehicles drove past unhurried, floating a few feet above the roads. No one slipped on the icy grounds as ‘Anti-slip ‘ shoes had already been invented decades ago.

It was a lazy and pleasant weekend morning. The weak sunlight glinted off the high-rise buildings, blinding anyone who came onto its view. There was happy chatter from the pedestrians and the girls at the caf entrance giggled as they gossiped.

There was one exception to the cheerful and languid mood. Right around the corner, a young boy glared at anything and everything moodily. Dressed in black and sporting a pair of worn out shoes and a shock of white hair as pale as the snow that fell on his head, he was the very description of gloominess.

He was lost in his own dark thoughts until he heard his name being called.

“Hey! If it isn’t the little Odd, ” a boy the same age as the white haired boy jeered. ” Oddball Doll, why are you moping about here? Go back to your pig sty where you belong. You are tainting this beautiful place with your presence.”

Doll, the white haired boy glanced at them with a freezing glare. He was used to being made fun of and also being taken advantage of. Despite that, being reminded everyday of his status of being an Odd was tiresome.

An Odd- a person who was unable to host a system. Someone destined to forever be at the lower rungs of the society, being trampled upon with no chance of redemption or relief. To the society, the existence of an Odd was almost akin to sin.

For millennia, the people followed a set system. They did everything orderly and routinely without breaking any rules. They were happy with their lives laid out like a pre-programmed device. To them, an Odd was a wild creature that was unbound by any procedures and defied the laws laid out. They were untamable and ignorant of the rules of society. Garbage. Unneeded.

Doll wouldn’t have minded his status had he been birthed in an area with other Odds. But the problem was that the country he lived in had no more than two cases in the past hundred and fifty years. Currently, he was the only Odd in existence within a country that housed a total of four hundred million people. The odds of a person being an Odd was lesser than 1%.

He was quite the famous figure. His parents had abandoned him at a doorstep right after birth after they found out that he was an Odd. The orphanage nuns were quite shocked at first but still took him in as the media had lost their marbles over him. He was, afterall, the only Odd within the country at that time.

At first there was a lot of sympathy and pity but that waned over time. People had other things to do. Slowly, little by little, as the child grew up, he was met with hints of scorn and verbal abuse. He was weak and slow as compared to the other children. He also couldn’t grasp concepts as fast as others who were aided by their systems. What took him three hours to finish memorizing was done within a few minutes by anyone else. Quite often, he was relegated to do menial tasks.

At first, he couldn’t understand the reason behind the difference in treatment. It wasn’t until he was five that he learned of the existence of a system.

“Che, ” he spat. He was already in a bad mood and the arrival of the other boys did nothing to lighten it. He pushed himself off the wall and silently walked away. He wouldn’t be able to beat them in a fight. Once he was out of their sights, he took his hand out of his pockets and blew on them before rubbing his face to warm it up.

“Ah! It’s time for my daily mission! Bye, I’ll see you later!”

He often heard these conversations. From what he learned, the systems gave a set of daily missions or long term missions that the host had to complete as soon as possible or there would be a punishment. The punishments could range from dizzy spells that ended with being paralysed for an hour or electrocution, all the way to death or torture.

It was a common occurance to hear about fatalities in the neighbourhood. Some missions were unreasonable and often brought despair to those who were unable to complete the missions. That was also why the type of the system a person received at birth was very important to know. If a person received a dangerous type, he or she would immediately be put under control regardless of age. Some people who had a [Gangster] or [Evil Overlord] type were immediately put down.

He remembered one if his roommate having a [Tyrant] type. He was taken by the [Justice] system type authorities who had put him down with a single injection. Even the funeral was dismal with very few attending. Doll wasn’t sure if he was happy or indifferent to his death. That was because he found out that bullying him was also a part of that roommate’s daily missions which that person would carry out with glee.

As Doll reached the end of the street, he kicked a stray pebble out of the way and sighed. His breath came out leaving a little white cloud in front of him that disappeared. He kept walking till he reached the edge of the suburban areas. In front of him was a high fence that demarcated the borders of the city and the woods. No one bothered coming here.

With practiced ease, he swiftly climbed over the fence and entered the woods.