“Hey, make sure to mop the floor today.” My boss said coldly without even looking at me as he walked away from a day at work that seemed like weeks. I fixed the blue cap that says Janitor on my head and rolled up my dirty sleeves. I went over to the storage room to get a mop in agonizing silence and started making the floor shiny. I was working a horrible job in a stressful place with tiring hours. I shook my head in my daily session of self-pity as I continued to mop the floor, hoping that I could go home at midnight tonight. After the big ancient clock that failed to tell the accurate time hit 8 PM, people in the crowded office building started packing up and leaving. As they passed me, they would purposefully bump into my shoulder as they giggled with their overly-whitened teeth and their overly-applied makeup. Some of them even called me a Zero, the derogatory term for people that couldn’t assimilate with a Spirit, and scored a 0% on the Importance Scale. I chose to ignore yet my stomach was filled with anger. If I dared talk back, I would lose this job instantly. Legally, they would just say they didn’t need me anymore, but everyone knew that if a person like me, a person that has a 0% on the Scale, talked back to anyone with a higher score would be instantly fired and looked down upon, after all, no one wants a Zero in their sight. I mopped the floor with greater force as the last few people walked out of the building, and I was left alone in a slightly run-down establishment that made strange noises at night. In order to keep this job, I needed to make sure everything was spotless. After I had mopped the floor, I started making a circular motion with my hands to clean the dust off the windows. My hair was almost invisible as its reflection blended into the pitch-black night sky. Through the reflection, I could see a skinny half-Easher guy with any muscle or fat visible, covered with rags that fit the janitorial position. I went on with cleaning the windows thoughtlessly until there wasn’t even a speck of dust on them anymore. I didn’t even remember much after that, everything was so monotonous, so…boring that I didn’t even pay much attention to it, my body just did the work. At one point, I looked at the clock to see the clock hands have reached 12:30 AM. I looked back at the room and decided that it was clean enough, I started to pack up, put the tedious cleaning equipment away, and walked out of the building.

Home. That is what I called the apartment my parents rented out for me. The crappy, bedroom-only apartment with barely any light on the ceiling that they threw me to. They said they had to go on a business venture out of the city. A person from the outside would find it quite strange to see the parents of a seventeen-year-old child have been away for 5 years on said “business ventures.” Every month since I was twelve, I have been messaging them, asking them when they would be back. The replies, almost automatic, have always been “Soon”, and I was getting sick and tired of it, if they wanted me gone because of my 0% score, they should have said it to my face. I went into my crappy, barely working shower to get at least some peace of mind. The hot stream of water ran down my face, temporarily washing away all of my problems in life. As soon as the water stopped, the problems rushed back into my mind, putting a great burden on my mind. My eyes were dropping, my body was failing, I lay down on my messy bed, trying to think of a better time, a better place, a place where people like me don’t have to deal with the rest of society.

I was dragged out of the world of dreams by my accursed alarm sound on my phone. I would have thrown it out of the window if my consciousness didn’t remind me that it was a phone that I saved up half my life for. I groggily stood up from my less than five hours of pure bliss, as I prepared myself for the last year of high school. I didn’t have any attachments to high school, I only had to go because the law require me to go. The school certainly did not have any attachment to me either, besides the fact that I seem to be the scapegoat for every single problem they have. School funding went down? Must be the Zero. My boyfriend broke up with me? Has to be the Zero’s fault! It was comical! I laughed at my own situation before I picked up my bag and went out of the door.

I stood before the gigantic entrant with the name Noxious Spark High School circled the top of the pillars in front of the door. Behind me was a statue of Noxious Spark himself, with a sign introducing who he was. Great scientist. Discovered the existence of Spirits. People would think I must have hated this man, and people would be right, I hated this man with all of my existence. I pushed all of the blame for everything that had happened to me on him, I would blow up this statue if it were up to me. I thought he was responsible for creating this society, the society in which some people were born simply inferior to others, and the metric of measuring the quality of a person is simply if that person was born compatible with certain spirits are not. As I was about to walk into the school, a man ran right past me at an alarming speed. Freaking Jordan.

“Get outa the way, Arthur! Freaking Zero.” He said to me in a sharp tone with disgust on his face while showing off his Physical Spirit to his goons.

Jordan scored a 73% on the Importance Scale, so he was one of the most if not the most popular and important students in the school. The law was inherently discriminating, because of his high score, he did not have to pay any tax until he turns thirty, and even then, he would pay less tax than those who scored less. That was just one of the countless discrimination that the government imposes on the lower-scored to make their lives harder as if they believed that Spirit incompatibility was somehow in the DNA. Both of my parents were around 50%, so I could say for sure that was not the case. I kept to myself as I started walking for my first period, Calculus 3. If I had anything going on for me, I would say my mind is the only thing that allowed me to have something above others. Every step I took past the hallway to my class, people whispered, sneered, snickered, pointed, all that stuff. Some of them even yelled out ZERO just to piss me off. If I gave in and snapped, they would have some satisfaction, so I just ignored all of their insults, but on the inside, the rage was building up in me. On the way there, students were showing off their Spirit’s powers, summoning water fountains, picking five people up at once, it became such a normal sight that I was sick by it. I walked into Mr. Boisen’s classroom, and to my surprise, I was not the first student there. Most people in school hung out in the library or the cafeteria or wherever before class started. But Hano Emiko was there, a girl with parents that came from the Easher Empire, literally half the world from where we were. As far as I knew, her Spirit was a Magical Spirit and her Importance Score was around 20%, so she wasn’t exactly having the best time of her high school career either, or life in general. She was, like me, a quiet kid, but she was the only person that was even remotely friends with me. Low-scorers tend to keep to themselves, so I was surprised I had a person I could call a friend, kinda. I sat down next to her, and she showed me a slight smile as she nodded. She had a calm posture, her loose black hair was covering most of the back of her pink jacket. She was wearing old blue jeans and old shoes, looked like her situation wasn’t that much better than mine. I quickly diverted my eyes away as she turned her head, catching my stare.

“Did the homework yet?” She asked me in a bored tone. I shook my head.

“Didn’t have time, got home at around 1.”

“Fair, but I don’t think Mr. Boisen is going to appreciate that.” She said, still didn’t seem to care that much about me. I didn’t pay attention to her words either, if I ate a zero for the homework, then I guess I just had to take it. People were walking in as class was about to start. Mr. Boisen, an old man in his seventies got up and away from his stack of assignments to grade and prepared the digital board. The class went on normally after that, we were listening in class, taking notes with our phones while Mr. Boisen steered his fingers across the hologram board, and people talked crap behind my back. It was funny, it was literally behind my back yet they said it loud enough so I could hear it. I put my head down on the table, pretending to not hear it.

The rest of the school day was ordinary, it was boring, and it was monotonous. I walked out of the school with my head down after such a tiring day, trying to not make eye contact with anyone. Immediately after school, I had work, so I had to hurry. As I was walking out of the school’s proximity, someone hit me in the guts.

“Where you heading, Zero?” Jordan and the rest of his friends were in front of me by the time I looked back up. “Going home without saying goodbye?”

I didn’t attempt anything but look at him. He gave me another cross to my face before strolling off with his gang. I could see Hano staring at a distance with a boring look that seemed fixated on her face. I didn’t pay her any mind as I punched myself up from the ground and continued going to my work. I couldn’t afford any type of vehicle, so I had to walk there. After hurting my hands punching several street lamps and traffic lights, I finally got to where I work, the Pinnacle Communication Center, the same place I went to every single night. I walked into a restroom to change out of my school wear into the janitor’s uniform without any incident. I sighed as I reminded myself that the first place I was supposed to clean was the boss’s room, the cranky, arrogant, I-am-above-everyone boss’s room. He scored an 84% on his Importance with a Magic Spirit, so there was no doubt he was indeed above most people, according to society’s standards that is. His life was set when he got that score, with free offers to private schools and universities, an endless amount of social benefits, and an unlimited amount of people envying him. I was sick with envy when I thought of the benefits, but it was soon replaced with anger. I was knocked out of my train of thought as said boss tapped my shoulder, yelling at me to get to wipe the dust off his room. I reluctantly walked to that his room, a room filled with achievements, certifications, and awards on the wall, a room so important that there had to be security guards standing in front of the door. I took out the wipe and the disinfectant and started wiping. The boss walked in and turned the TV on to the news channel. The headline was Is crime related to Importance Score?

After fifteen minutes or so of complete silence but the sounds of the boss making calls with his business partner, he came to me and asked. “Why are you still here?”

“Pardon me, sir?” I asked back with a questioning look on my face.

“Shouldn’t you have finished about an hour ago?” He said with a smirt look on his face.

I realized he was trying to mess with me, but I couldn’t really say anything to disrespect him. “Sir, I clocked in not twenty minutes ago.”

He circled back to his desk and took out what seemed like a crystal ball. “You see, when I first ordered this very fine crystal, they gave me one with a slight crack in it.” He slowly walked to me. “But, it was imperfect, it was so…sad, so… broken. So I smashed it, and demanded a replacement.”

“Sir, what does this have to do with me?” I asked him, but I already knew where this was going. He smirked and punched me in the guts.

“Just like you, it was imperfect, an annoying sight in my eyes.” He turned away as I got on my knees by his magic-empowered strike. “You don’t know your place, a Zero like you shouldn’t even get paid. I only hired you because no one else was going to take the job. So how about this, I am a merciful man, I will let you keep your job, but your paycheck will be cut by half. You should be grateful as a Zero to get paid at all.” He started laughing out loud as I said that.

“You are not the perfect crystal ball either, you are not 100%!” I snapped at him as I couldn’t hold my anger in any longer. “You are still INFERIOR to many people above you, there are people above 84% you know.” I kept on snapping at him while he slowly approached me.

He threw a punch at me, a magic-infused punch that was so fast I couldn’t even see it. He dropped the crystal ball and threw a kick in my face. I got down onto the ground, the crystal ball slowly rolled down to where I am. He kept on kicking me while I was on the ground, and then he stopped.

“Get out of my sight, you are fired!” He said to me. Something snapped inside of me, and anger so great that I have never felt before brewed inside my guts. I picked up the crystal ball and smashed him from behind. He must have felt it because he turned around, but it was too late. The ball broke as it came in contact with his half-turned-around face, as he fell to the ground, screaming. The security guards walked in to see my hands red from my own blood, with the boss holding onto his bloody face. They pushed me to the fancy carpet floor and cuffed me in the back. I was most likely going to jail, but I didn’t care, smashing that man’s face in was the best thing I did in my life.