8 (VIII) Mementos

The rest of the day proceeded smoothly. Jackson and the rest of the new children and their information were processed into the Orphanage's systems. After being sorted into their dormitories, each of the children received a basic uniform consisting of a coat, shirt and tie, pants or skirt, and shoes. On their jacket was a pin representing their dorm.

The dormitories were split into The Crimson Lions, The Azure Wolves, The Emerald Bears, and lastly, The Violet Toads. The Children at Saint Mary's were expected to help The Climber's Association through various menial tasks that climbers couldn't bother completing outside of God's Tower.

Since the children couldn't enter God's Tower, they were tasked with errand running, document retrieval, and other chores within Duskgate. This meant long hours, 24 hours a day, and no pay. The tasks were received by Miss Dena and then assigned to each of the houses.

The most popular dormitory, The Crimson Lions, received requests only during the daytime hours, and they were the easiest to complete. The Azure Wolves then received slightly more challenging, physically demanding tasks but remained within the walls of Duskgate.

The Emerald Bears started to receive the slightly dangerous tasks, running outside Duskgate to the various farmers and hauling loads back into the city, never straying too far, but the dangers remained nonetheless.

The Violet Toads were the outcasts within Saint Mary's and were disposable in the eyes of anyone within those walls. These kids received the most grueling treatment and faced the most danger, frequently taking trips out to nearby villages that sprung up.

Despite the terrible treatment that The Violet Toads were subjected to, Jackson was glad to have the additional freedom of running errands outside the walls of Duskgate. He himself had never stepped foot within the walls until recently and preferred The Wildlands.

Since he had only just joined, Jackson and the other children remained within Saint Mary's walls for the first week, being instructed on how to behave appropriately to maintain the appropriate image.

After a grueling week of aptitude tests, competency tests, physical evaluations, and mental assessments, Jackson was cleared to receive assignments. He had been planning his trip back to his grandmother's cabin the entire week.

There were numerous trinkets and baubles that she had instilled importance in him that he wanted to obtain; additionally, he wanted to grab the books that had been passed down through his family since before the appearance of the towers and the destruction of Terra.

At last, he received his first task from Tara Le Doux to travel to the north to a village called Larkinge to bring back sacks of barley that had been harvested. It was a short thirty-minute trip by foot each way, and he would have to make ten trips to haul twenty sacks back to Duskgate.

'If I could freaking carry two sacks back!' Jackson thought to himself as he walked back to his room from her office, his mind recalling the warning he had just received.

"Now, Jackson! These need to be delivered before sundown. If you cannot complete these by then, you can continue working, but it is highly perilous! Please keep in mind that you will need to return tomorrow for the next harvest, so you must finish promptly so you can rest." Tara said with a stern expression across her immature face.

Jackson opened the door to his room, gathering his dorm cloak and wrapping it over his shoulders, rolling the order slip into an interior pocket as he quickly ran through the Southern Gate towards his home.

After sprinting for an hour down the dusty road through the forest, he returned to the cottage, dropping to his knees and panting heavily as he looked at the wreckage in the clearing, 'What happened here..?' He thought.

The doors and windows to the cottage were blown open. The outhouse was missing, the pen was destroyed, and animals were slaughtered. Jackson cautiously stepped around the debris flung throughout the grass in the clearing.

Slowly approaching the doorway to the cottage, he peeked in, witnessing even further destruction as the furniture was flung haphazardly, dishes and clothes strewn across the floor, and small decorations smashed.

His heart began racing as he ran into the room, searching through the clutter. After frantically searching the cottage, he collapsed onto his feet on the mattress on the floor.

In his hands was the binding of his favorite novel, a collection of stories written through several first-person accounts of the fall of Terra. Several sections of the book had been ripped from the binding and thrown around.

He felt a lump swell in his throat as he gritted his teeth together, fighting back the tears. He repeatedly wiped his face with his sleeve as his lower lip quivered, staring down at the book's cover. He knew every word in the book his grandmother had read to him every night for the last four years, but its destruction hit him harder than the young boy could have ever imagined.

After sitting there longer than he should of, Jackson stood up, returning the mattress to the bedframe and placing the remains of the book on it. He searched around, grabbed a large satchel, and flung it over his shoulder.

He went into the small adjacent closet and dug through the mess, grabbing a small metal frame and placing it into his bag before climbing into the fireplace and standing up, reaching his arm into the chimney and around to the secret compartment, grabbing a small glass globe, blowing the soot off it as he stepped out and placed it into his bag.

He looked at the ground, smiled at the rug still underneath the broken chair, and grabbed it as he tossed it to the side, revealing a trapdoor.

Jackson exclaimed happily as he grabbed the handle, flinging it open to reveal a small crawl space filled with crates of dusty scrolls, a small stack of four books covered in cobwebs, and a small, locked chest.

He crouched down, jumping into the crawlspace as he grabbed the chest, lifting it out and placing it onto the ground and grabbed the four books before putting them into his bag and sitting down and searching through the scrolls.