Chapter 1 - Melt

"The rain is quite heavy today."

Hi, My name's Melt. I'm 16 years old.

Right now, I'm living under the main bridge in a city called "Slug" on the planet called Sedaya. Most people would call it the planet of Crime.

The weather is very harsh on this side of the planet. It's always raining and it's damp and wet every day.

I've been living here for a year and a half or more now, and my issue is that anything before a year and a half or more ago, I can't recall, or to be precise, I don't have any memories of anything before that point of time.

All I remember is that I woke up on the city's Interplanetary Transport Station, or ITS.

I woke up fully dressed with a new and clean blue jacket and a large sling bag full of consumables like water and food. I was confused at the time because I don't remember anything but my name.

In my jacket's pocket, there was a crumbled piece of paper of what might've been a clue. It was a map when unfolded was very large. It had shown half of the whole country including where the city I'm staying at.

On the map, there was a red line that was drawn out by the one who might know about my situation. The line started from the city I was in, to the capital city of the country, Gas City.

Gas City was so far away it could take me weeks to get there. I've been finding a way to get a ride in one of the buses but I can't get through security.

That's actually the main reason why I'm still stuck here for a long time now.

However, today, I got a plan, and I hope I'll be successful.

Every lunchtime, security gets a bit weak because, you know, lunch.. and the number of people who line up gets increased because people need to tend to their jobs in other places, and it gets so busy at times that people would push away from each other, sometimes it would cause in a riot.

When that happens, the security would try it's best to control the crowd at the same time get distracted by their hunger. All I just needed was the perfect time to get busy, and that time would be the holidays.

I found out a week ago that today was a special holiday in the capital where everyone would celebrate the creation of their city called the Air Festival, I think...

Anyways, many people here come to the festival to celebrate and I think it's about time for me to start...

"Everyone line up properly. Please do not cut off or push around other people. Please be patient, you will all be going in soon!"

The operator then proceeds to let people enter one by one, and slowly it's filling the bus. I can't let this opportunity slide or else I'll wait another year for this!

I know what I'll be doing is wrong, but I need to go!

"Hey, sir!"

I called a random guy out loudly and pushed him aggressively as soon as he saw me so that I can mess up the line. It wasn't good enough so I did the same to other people on that line as well.

When I got the guard's attention, I dropped down on all fours and quickly crawled behind all the people lining up.

Before the guard could notice, the bus door closed, and I finally got inside on time. No one else really noticed me inside the bus, they probably thought I was just a last-minute passenger so they brushed it off, thank goodness for that.

"That was.. so close."

I was heavily breathing after such an act... Well, it was worth it, I guess. Gas City, here I go!