Fight

It was suffocating. Every step, he, my father, walked right behind me. Where I was, he was. The announcement of the participants that had passed the test had placed him in a good mood for the first time in recent memory, because my pseudonym was among them. I could only catch a small glimpse of Gika across the room, but she looked pretty ecstatic as well.

"I'm proud of you!" My father said, "I was terrified when I found out you spent your time not studying, but luckily it seems that thanks to my help-"

"Excuse me, mister, sir." A womanly voice interrupted him. My father shot back with an irritated glance.

"Tell me, what is the problem, miss?" He said, his tone of voice not nearly as inviting as the words he spoke.

The woman, a lady with short brown hair dressed in common clothes, seemed vaguely familiar. She took a step back, caught off-guard by my father's antagonistic reaction. Her anxiousness was clearly visible, and most likely not helped by the clear difference in social class between them.

"Have you perhaps seen, or heard of, my daughter Julia?" She said, gathering all her courage, "She's a brown or dark haired young adult who doesn't like speaking Magranpolian."

That's where I recognized her from! She was the lady in Gika's painting. Her 'mama'. I vaguely remember my mother mentioning it, but had she run away from home? Should I… tell her mother where she is? The woman looked so desperate and confused, I felt terrible not saying anything, but I assumed Gika ran away for a good reason, I had to trust her.

"I don't know any Julia's." My father answered.

"Oh, I'm sorry, excuse me for bothering you." She said as she walked off.

My father let out an irritated "tch", then continued walking with me.

"She was just trying to find her daughter," I said, "you don't have to be so rude."

My father turned to me with a mix of shock and fury plastered on his face.

"What was that?!" He said.

"I said that you didn't have to be so rude to her!"

"How dare you speak to me that way! We're Saggia's, if someone from a lower class talks to us we- I can talk as I please!"

"Why? Why do you pretend like we're better than everyone else?"

"Because we are the ones that have it in them to make sacrifices in the name of attaining perfection. That's true of me, that's true of your mother, it will be true of your siblings, and it should be true for you as well! We are the ones that spend our lives laboring away to become Uomo Universale, so we get to reap the fruits of our work. That's only fair."

"In what way did you work hard? You've never had to take these tests, you just sit at home all day telling us what to do without understanding how it actually feels for us! I don't care anymore about becoming an Uomo Universale!"

"You're making a scene, we'll take this home, you're hurting our family's reputation like this."

I looked around. Everyone on the streets was staring at us. My father accused me of making a scene, but he was the one that started it. I felt dizzy. I felt lightheaded. My vision went blurry. My throat was dry. My legs became weak. The sleepless nights, combined with my fury and fear, caught up to me. I needed strength, or I was going to fall.

"Focus! Focus on something." A voice in the back of my head shouted.

Gika. I wanted to see Gika, and I definitely didn't want to be with my father. I didn't know why, but she ran from her mother who seemed a lot more concerned about her wellbeing than my father seemed about mine. If she could run away, surely I could too. I took a breath, regained my composure, then turned to run away. I shot forward, my first step being more of a leap, but I was pulled back by my father grabbing onto my right arm.

"What do you think you're doing!?" He shouted, pulling me even closer to him. A mistake on his part, as I used the momentum of his pull combined with a turn to face him to launch a balled up left fist at his face. It wasn't something I meant to do. Like an animal, once my option to flee was taken away from me, I instinctively turned to fighting instead. The punch connected, throwing my father back accompanied by the sound of something cracking, either my hand, some part of his face or both, I couldn't tell. I wasn't the most well-built physically, and in this life I'd never fought before, so it never even occurred to me that physical violence was an option. In a moment of pain and shock, my father let go of my hand, falling to the ground as he grasped at his face. Around us, a crowd of shocked looks encircled us. My heart was racing, and so were my thoughts. Between my father's moans of pain, I could make out a single word, a question: "Why?"

Why? Why? To escape from him of course. Escape… from him…

My focus returned. I had to run. Both because this was my only chance at escape and because the city guards might come here soon. I began to run through the baffled crowd. I didn't have to push through, people seemed almost afraid of me, an unfamiliar feeling. I quickened my pace. Through the city streets I ran, filled with a consonant alternation between manic adrenaline and desperate regret. I don't think my father would have me arrested for this, though I honestly wasn't sure. I would be allowed the right to partake in the tests even if I was in prison, so I wouldn't put it past him. Either way, I would need a place to stay, and I knew where that would be. I made my way over to my destination. I went to Paolo's studio.