Prologue

My family have been suffering from poverty for twelve straight years. My father could never find a decent job, so then my mom got frustrated and divorced him. So after that he stopped looking for a job and stayed home all day doing nothing but drinking. He became an alcoholic and a smoker, he also stopped caring about me and my little sister, Anna. Anna was always coming to me, asking me when mom was going to come back, she was just 2 years younger than I was, she was ten years old the first time she asked me that. I always told her that mom would come back soon. I was lying, I knew mom would never come back, but I didn't wanna break my dear sister's heart. When all our money really got exhausted my father forced me to go into the markets and steal food as well as pickpocket, whenever I couldn't find anything he beat me up. But that wasn't a new thing to me anymore, often times he'd use me as a punching bag to let out his anger and frustration, but what could i do?, I was but a child. My sister always watched the beating session while crying her eyes out, and I always told her I'd be alright, and when my dad hit her I consoled her.

When my sister turned twelve my dad forced her to go into prostitution to raise more family income, many times she came back home crying, "I don't wanna do this anymore". She always said. One day the brothel manager called my dad, he told my dad that my sister was killed by one of the customers because she refused to engage in intercourse with him. My father couldn't care less about the situation, only that his second source of income was gone, but me?, I was devastated, it was at that moment I realised that my father had become the very source of my grief, not the situation, and so I took everything I could find; money, food, clothes, and anything else I would need, and then I ran away. I was looking for a job I could get but then I eventually realised that a teenager as young as I was with no education or special skill may not be able to get a job anywhere. Eventually, Child Services found out, they questioned me and then took me back to my father who took our his rage on me mercilessly. At that point I was disheartened, shattered, I had to keep on living with that man for the rest of my life, at least that's what I thought until something miraculous happened, a glimmer of hope, an experience that'll forever change my life.

One day, government officials arrived at our house, I guessed they must have noticed how poor we were because they came to tell my father about a special government-funded school for the poor and less privileged such as myself, it was a high school. My father wasn't interested until they told him about the huge cash prize which was always handed out to the best graduate, 1.2 billion dollars, and better yet, had to pay nothing to enroll me. It was the moment he heard that that it piqued his interest. Just from the looks on his face I could tell he was having mixed feelings; He was finally gonna get rid of me and be alone, he was glad to get me out of his hair for a while, but at the same time he was sad that he was gonna lose his punching bag. Honestly I was the most excited, and I couldn't care less about how my father felt about it, as long as he let me go. I could finally leave that house *_and_* my father, even better, I could finally go to school and be educated free of charge, plus, I could freely be around my peers, it was a dream come true for me. My father didn't even bother hearing anything else about the school, as long as I was gone and he didn't have to pay a dime. I didn't have many belongings so there wasn't really much of anything to pack, and so we left effective immediately.

I was so excited to go there, I was only hoping it wasn't just some orphanage home. When we got there I was shocked with awe. The school was massive in size, and there were so many buildings too, it was like they just fit in a whole city in there. Since this was a school for the less privileged there was so entrance exam either. There were so many places you'd see on a street everyday as you pass by like restaurants, supermarkets, pharmacies, arcades, even shopping malls. After we got there I was given a room and a key and signed in, I was also given other things like my uniform, shoes, socks, notebooks, textbook, stationary items, and other things I'd possibly need for school. Once I got to my room I layed on my bed, still trying to process all that happened to me that day, I was exhausted, exhaustion turned to sleepiness, and then I drifted off, but this time was different from the other nights; this time...I didn't have to cry myself to sleep.