“People aren’t born equal.”

Those words were forever ingrained into Gryff’s very being after an imperial soldier uttered them to him, his hands bloody from killing Gryff’s parents as part of the “culling”.

It happened four years ago, when Gryff was just five years old. The practice had been going on for nearly a hundred years at that point. “To appease the gods,” the colored hairs would often say.

You see, Dermitas weren’t considered human. They were at the very most, creatures in human skin, things with faces that could somehow speak the human tongue. Of course, that’s not to say it was entirely true, in fact, Dermitas were just as human as everyone else. It was their curse that stripped them of the right to call themselves human.

***

“Piss off!" It was feeding time and the inmates of district 12 were going into a frenzy to get what little scraps they could. In the process, Gryff, had been pushed into one of the enforcers watching over.

“Man, I swear district 12 has the worst of them. Why do we have to watch over these creatures anyway?” complained the enforcer as he dusted off his attire with a disgusted look on his face.

For a split second, that disgusted look turned into one of frozen fear. He did a quick search of his pockets, before quickly scanning through the hungry crowd. The dust created from all the stampeding made it difficult for him to see very far, he could just barely make out the figure of the kid who had just bumped into him.

“Fucking rat!” With those words, the enforcer’s eyes blazed a brilliant green, followed by a radiant light that illuminated his entire body.

“What are you doing?”

“The little rat stole my watch!”

With this, the enforcer flew over the crowd, causing a few of the residents to fall over in fear. However, their hunger seemed to be the stronger stimulus as they went back to fighting for scraps right after.

“Fuck!” Gryff turned around and found the enforcer flying straight for him, a dreadful feeling weighing down on his chest as he saw a green light collect around the enforcer’s hands. A split second later, a strong force knocked him to the ground, the hard, dry sand forcing its way into his mouth.

“You fucking Dermitas, we feed you and this is how you repay us?” The enforcer was steaming, the intensity of the green light in his eyes growing stronger with every step.

“I-I I’m sorry,” sobbed Gryff, his body curling up into a fetal position.

“Sorry’s not going to cut it, you know what we do to thie-“ Before the enforcer could finish, a blanket of sand was sent hurling towards his eyes. The pain was unbearable, the crystal-like sand particles felt like needles in his eyes, and the rubbing only made it worse.

Gryff ran into the enforcer again, his hands nimbly fishing into all of the enforcer’s pockets in a flash. The enforcer sent gusts of wind out in his blinded fury, creating a massive cloud of dust around them.

The other enforcers arrived a few moments later, however, under the cover of the dust cloud, Gryff had already fled into the mess which was district 12’s residential area. The enforcers tried looking for him, however, due to the cluttered and unorganized nature of the district’s housing arrangement, it was nearly impossible to find him.

***

“An imperial watch, a photo, a necklace, and a communication’s amulet, huh?” murmured Gryff to himself, throwing the photo away before placing the watch in his right pocket, and the rest of the items in the left.

He quickly turned down a narrow alleyway, a puddle of dirty water standing guard in front of a rusted old door, behind what looked like a makeshift building. In fact, all the buildings seemed that way, they all seemed to be put together in a rush using scrap material.

Gryff knocked on the door in a sequence, repeating the pattern three times before waiting for a reply.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s Gryff.”

The door creaked open, and a large white-haired man stood on the other side, his free hand open in gesture for Gryff to hand over whatever he needed to.

“I want to see Ryzen,” demanded Gryff, his scrawny hand gripping tightly onto the watch in his pocket.

“Listen kid, just hand over whatever scrap you collected and take your pay. The boss doesn’t have time to talk to rats,” replied the large man, motioning for Gryff to hand over whatever he had.

“I guess I’ll just leave then.” As Gryff said this, the man began closing the door, but before it could fully close, Gryff squeezed himself through, dashing straight in.

“Hey, what are you doing!” The burly man ran after Gryff, but his massive size slowed him down, so much so that even a malnourished nine-year-old could outrun him.

“Who let the kid in?” laughed one of the several intoxicated men within what looked like a drug den. A few scantily dressed -and somewhat beautiful- women were snorting a purple substance off one of the tables, however Gryff didn’t stop to admire them.

The room was cluttered with odd metal articles, some of them looked to be in working condition, however, a vast majority were rusted brown. Either way, everything in the room looked to be of little importance, trash at the very best.

He ran straight for the metal door on the other side of the massive room, ignoring the stares that all the men were giving him.

“Stop the kid!” shouted the burly man from behind, already out of breath. However, it was too late, Gryff was already barging through the door.

“And who’s this?” The voice didn’t sound particularly angry, in fact, it seemed a little playful, as if the person were intrigued by what stood in front of him.

{Is this Ryzen?}

A lanky purple-haired man sat behind the only table within the room. A smile on his face as he stared at Gryff in amusement. Although his mouth made a smile, Gryff could sense that the man was anything but happy, his eyes seemed to be painting a different picture, a picture that Gryff was almost certain he didn’t want to see.

“S-Sorry boss, I’ll get rid of the little rat immediately,” apologized the burly man, before dragging Gryff back by the hair.

“W-Wait, look,” said Gryff quickly, ignoring the splitting pain that radiated from his scalp as he fished the watch out of his pocket. The man who had been pulling him stopped and stared at the watch in a mix of both amazement and greed.

“Ahh, an imperial watch. And I suppose that’s why you barged in here?” asked the purple-haired man as he stood up from his seat. He wore a black shirt underneath a waistcoat of the same color, and a pair of jet black dress pants to match- a tad too fancily dressed for someone in the districts.

{He has to be the boss.}

However, as he crept closer, Gryff noticed a few… holes in his style. Two nails were missing from his left hand, leaving the tip of his fingers a throbbing red color. A single thin line ran from his left eye, all the way down to the right side of his lower lip, it seemed to be an old scar, perhaps a childhood accident.

“How did you get that?” asked Ryzen as he crouched over to look Gryff in the eyes.

“I pocketed one of the enforcers,” replied Gryff, holding the watch closer to his body.

“You’re quite gutsy for a kid. You know what they’d do to you if they found you right? They’d probably cut your fingers off and feed it to the others, or maybe they’d leave them on and still feed it to the others. I can’t imagine anyone would mind if they were still on your hands,” mused Ryzen.

“The watch seems good enough, I’ll give you two vials for it. However, I’d like to ask, how much are you worth?” As Ryzen asked this he stared at Gryff’s hair. It was quite an oddity, whereas everyone else in the building -except Ryzen- had white hair, Gryff had black hair with wisps of white in between.

“Excuse me?”

***