I wake up to the comfortable sound of silence. I know for a fact that my mom has left for work, and judging by the faint smell of chocolate and pancakes, she has made me breakfast. She always does.

I push myself off the bed and rub my eyes. The floorboards squeak, a detail I hadn’t noticed until now. I tap the floor with my toes and hear that squeak again. Grabbing a pen and notepad from my bedside table, I stand up and make my way down the stairs.

I hop off the last step and head for the kitchen. As I walk, I write down ‘Repair: floorboards’ on the notepad. I see the plate my mom has prepared for me and grab a pancake off the tall stack. I bite into it and relish the taste of chocolate chip pancakes. It’s delicious, of course. It’s always been my favorite, no matter how many times I eat it per week.

I rip the note off the pad and slap it on the counter. I place a pen on top of the note just in case it decides to randomly fly away and grab another pancake before I enter the library.

Yes. We have a library.

And we don’t call it library just because it’s a room with books. It’s not ‘just’ a room. Heck, it’s not a room at all. It’s a freaking corridor. It’s a grand hallway that connects the east side of my house to the extension we recently established.The extension is our guesthouse. There is a bathroom with a porcelain tub, shower, and sinks; two bedrooms with identical queen sized beds and accompanying walk-in closets; a sunroom; and a small kitchen crafted in the likeness of the one in the main house. The wallpaper used in the bedrooms is paneled, and each side is lined with white gold.

White gold is everywhere in our house. It’s not used in copious amounts; rather, it is used as accents in certain furniture, like the wallpaper, or the handle of a sink. Although we can afford large amounts of this substance and can easily exaggerate our wealth, my mom scarcely brags about the opulence she only won through inheritance.

I grab a book as I walk along. The books surrounding the place where the one in my hand once was move to accommodate the emptiness. A low murmur echoes behind the brown shelves and slowly dissipates. I look down at my book and run a finger over the black, grainy spine. I flip the novel open. The pages are light gray, and the ink is cobalt. Plain, but I’m accustomed to it.

Bright colors are not permitted in the Argent region. Color is a symbol that represents one’s lifestyle. Because it’s an estate located in the Argent Region, everything in my house possesses shades of gray, black, white, and on some occasions, browns. White gold symbolizes our social standing. Copper is the third social standing in the Argent region. Gold is the first.

The Brass region uses bright colors – abundant amounts of it. They try in vain to achieve the interest of the Government, hoping that if they stand out from the crowd, the Government will hire them. It’s a ridiculous notion, but it’s a belief to which the Brasses hold. They religiously paint their assets an electric color that will undoubtedly capture the eyes of passerby. This classification of rank is one of the few things they whole-heartedly believe in. In a sense, pursuing that action is the only way they can convince themselves to persevere. Grabbing the Government’s attention is their life goal.

There are very few people who are allowed to use non-neutral colors. The Government uses them, but they use a variation of those colors that is more saturated and less vibrant. According to my mother, the buildings of the Government are as bleak as a gray sky on a rainy day. They’re all grays and blues and whites, with dashes of subtle yellow and fading purple.

The Institute uses color, but only on their logo. Their logo, which is an outline of the shape of an eye, carries a dilated red pupil. The red is a dark, burning color that resembles dried blood. Everything else inside the Institute – according to the common knowledge of the public – is silver.

This is the Government’s way of segregating us. Brasses, the people of the poorer regions, manipulate colors in hopes that the Government will alter their lives. The Argents use neutrals to showcase their impressive social standing, and the Government uses a mix of these colors to declare their power.

I’ve never known it to be any other way. Whenever anyone in any region hears talk about people rebelling against the Government’s absurd rules, they are immediately shunned. It’s heretical to even think about changing the Government. It is what it is, and there isn’t anything anyone can – or should – do about it.

I walk into the sunroom and sprawl across the divan. I lie on my back in a way that isn’t physically beneficial to my body and throw my legs over the armchair. I come in here every day just to read. It’s the only place my mom allows me to forget my social status.

She’s extremely scrupulousabout how I act. She knows I have a sharp tongue, so she never invites me to dinner parties in fear that her colleagues might discover that I am not as vocationalas she. I have a proclivity to say what’s on my mind, and while my friends can appreciate my logic, the Government has a distinct lack of admiration for dry humor.

I don’t mind. I don’t want to go to dinner parties, anyway.

Because my mom rarely invites me on outings, I stay home often. The only places I’ve been these past five years are my house, my yard, my neighbor’s houses, their yards, and the Market. If I want to eat at a restaurant, I call for take out. If I want to watch a movie, I simply ask my friends if I can visit them. Most of the time, I just read books. I don’t mind. It’s what I like to do, anyway.

I have never been out of the Argent region. I don’t think anybody here besides the Government workers have. That’s why the news of Hara sneaking into the Institute made such a big splash not only in our region, but also in the Brass region and the Government. She was reprimanded. She was chastised. But they could do little to punish her, when she was already in that pitiful state of being half-severed. One can only do so much to a cripple.

But she’s not a cripple anymore. It’s been one month sin