The picture above is important to the chapter. At the beginning of each of Alexander's chapters, there will be a sketch that will have been drawn by him (though, all the pictures will be drawn by me, the author of the book. Please do not reuse without giving me credit <3).

"The oxygen, then, is taken from the air through the pores of the lungs and deposited into the red blood cells' hemoglobin. The freshly oxygenated blood, now denoted as red, returns to the left atria via the pulmonary... Alexander!" My tutor exclaims, finally looking up from the detailed diagram of the heart that he had been reviewing for the past hour. I glance up at him, taking my eyes off the picture I was doodling. My heart begins hammering as I, as inconspicuously as possible, place my hand over the small drawing, hoping he cannot see.

"If you have not been making annotations on the circulatory system, how on Earth do you expect to succeed on the examination that will be administered to you in the upcoming days?" Mr. Makario sounds quite fed up with me, as he always does when he feels I am slacking. I look down at the white sheet in front of me, blank except for my name, Alexander Oglethorpe, at the top and the title, Sirculatory System, with a detailed underline underneath it.

"And Alexander!" He exclaims again, rubbing his head, trying to remove the growing pain behind his forehead that I have undoubtedly caused... again. "You did not even spell Circulatory correctly. It is spelled with a C, not an S. We have been over this again and again. And the E faces the outside of the paper, Alexander!" He is now standing over me as we both look down at the paper in shame.

"But sir," I plead, erasing the offending letters and replacing them as best I can, "The paper has two outsides! How am I supposed to remember which one?"

"It should not be hard to recall which side, Alexander! It is the same side every time! I cannot work like this today. Advise the king and queen of my early retreat, I am in deep need of a promenade in the garden." I nod, trying to feign being upset. But being let go an extra hour early? That is the greatest news I could have been given! "And Alexander," he says, turning back to me one more time before he leaves the room, "Next time you begin to partake in such crude primordial symbols that the Rights like to call 'art', cover it before I look at you. And in addition, the left ventricle should be a tad larger, in proportion to the right."

My face flushes scarlet as Mr. Makario walks out of the room and I realize that I must go to my parents and tell them myself what has happened before they hear the story from anyone else. I roughly put my pencils and pens away, shoving the textbooks and diagrams into the sidebag I carry for schoolwork, close the laptop aggressively and throw it inside as well. As I pass the board on the way to the door, I look up at the various letters and words written up there, trying hard, really hard to concentrate on them, make any bit of sense of them. But as I watch, they all seem to blend together, switching sides and sounds. My brain grows tired of looking at them.

Some Left I am.

I walk the long, empty halls of the castle. Though, if my parents were to hear my calling it a castle, they would certainly reprimand me for it. After all, it is nothing of the boisterous and leud castles that I have seen in textbooks describing the Before, where the kings and queens cared more of showing off their wealth than making sure their subjects were well fed. Compared to those, our "castle" is quite modest. The many rooms and halls we have are not for show: There is someone who lives or works in each of the rooms every day.

But whether or not the halls are as long as they were Before does not quite concern me at the moment. They might as well have been three times the size for how slowly I pass through them, dragging my feet against the thick carpets, dreading the audience I was to have with the king and queen. Turning into the hall that holds our rooms, I glance longingly towards the direction of my own, wishing I was heading there where I could lock myself for the next hour and be away from prying eyes and ears. But alas, I continue on past it and arrive in front of my parents' quarters.

I adjust my bag so it sits more comfortably across my shoulder, and I proceed to raise my fist to knock on their door, decorated with elegant designs and swirls that a Right woodworker had carved. Right before my knuckles rap on the door, I hear my parents discussing something inside, their voices rising slightly. They seem to be arguing, which is strange as they very rarely argue about anything. Not wanting to interrupt, and definitely not for any other reason than me simply being polite, I decide not to knock and stand outside the door, overhearing but not eavesdropping. After all, they are conversing loudly.

"No, Leonardo, I am not saying that. I am simply intimating that, perhaps, it would be most beneficial for us to turn a blind eye to this occurrence."

"OCCURRENCE?"

"Keep your voice down, Leonardo!"

"Monalise, you cannot maintain that this is a single instant! It is clearly something that has happened before, reasonably various occasions, and the governors in those regions have neglected to bring it to our notice before now."

"Precisely my case! This is the first time that something this drastic has been done. But we know our subjects. They are good and loyal and loving. We have identified who did it; He was seized in the act! Let us quietly bring him to us, question him hither, and then let him off on probation."

"Probation?! He could've killed someone, Mona! He should be sent to the jailhouse immediately before he causes any more difficulty or his methods begin spreading."

"But you are missing the more prominent picture, Leo! No one was ever harmed! Honestly, the fact that he could have performed so much worse but elected not to shows me without a shadow of a doubt that he did not intend this to be perceived as an attack."

"I agree with you there, Mona. This was no attack. It was a warning. You say we know our subjects, but if you are true to yourself, you would concur with me: We know those in the Left sector, but the Rights are unruly and unpredictable. We will never be able to understand them."

At this point, forgetting my manners, I burst through the door and look at my parents standing before me. They both turn towards me, my mother with her finger still pointed towards my father. My father is frowning slightly at her, his jaw set and eyebrows furrowed. It is clear I have intruded on a less than pleasant conversation. My mother is wearing a simple gray dress that hugs her snugly around the bosom and waist before flaring out. My father is wearing a suit with a tie in the same shade of gray. It is rare that a Left will dress as extravagant as the Rights will, with their multi-colored shirts and patterned skirts. It is much more logical to dress in non-assuming colors that will keep others' attention on their own tasks and not on fashion trends.

Speaking of keeping attention...

"Alexander," My mother turns to me, not dropping her finger and instead, turning its accusatory point at me. "What are you doing? Skipping lessons again? We have talked to you multiple times about this now."

"No," I swear, quickly, "I am not skipping. Mr. Makario let me go an hour early!" Though this is, technically, the truth, I do not wish them to question further because I know they will be disappointed by my answer. But of course, wishes are simply desires that statistically very rarely come to fruition.

"And why is it that Mr. Makario has decided to take his leave an hour earlier than was previously agreed?" My father too turns his anger quickly from my mother to me, and I realize that I should have been able to foresee this outcome before I interrupted them.

"Well... truly, it was a misunderstanding. He thought I was not paying attention to him simply because I was not taking notes, but this is not true at all. I have learned much information today about the circulatory system," I reply, holding my head high and keeping their gazes.

"Information," My mother says, "That you will promptly forget this time tomorrow. Come now, Alexander, you know the statistics! Writing what you are learning..."

"...Means you have learned twice." I finish for her, rubbing the same spot on my forehead that Mr. Makario had been nursing just ten minutes earlier. "Yes mother, I know. But, I got confused about the way certain words were spelled and he was moving so fast that I concluded if I stopped to try and understand the correct way to spell it, I would be missing more notes."

"So you resolved to just listen," My father sighs, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Though that was a logical procedure and I will compliment you on that," He turns towards my mother, who had given him a hard look when he seemed to approve of my decision to simply not take notes, "That does not mean you are being relieved from your duty as a student to not only learn but absorb the information being given to you."

"You need to attempt more harshly to pay attention and study," My mother says, shaking her head in slight disappointment. "I feel as though I sound like a broken record about this."

"But mother," I say, about to launch into my explanation once again on how it is not a choice, but an actual physical problem, but she cuts me off before I can.

"Yes, Alexander, I still remember your research on the dyslexic phenomena. But that was Before. No Left since those times has been found to not be able to read. Now, go find Mr. Makario and tell him that we would like to have a word with him. It would seem fit to remind him that your struggles to learn are not to be discussed outside of the castle grounds. Now, if you will excuse the king and me," She says, already turning to face my father again, "We were in the middle of an important discussion."

My father's jaw sets again at her use and emphasis on his title instead of his real name and I recognize my dismissal. But I do not leave quietly, slamming the door slightly on the way out. I have been, once again, reminded that my inability, or in their minds, lack of desire to learn could cost the family our status if I am not able to be elected to have a Coronation next year on my twentieth birthday.

Though the King and Queen are monarchs as they would have been perceived Before, they are in fact elected to be coronated first by the population, not necessarily passed down through bloodlines. Though, usually, it does occur as such since the princes and princesses of the Kings and Queens have been trained since a young age to rule Carris. Another difference from Before is that both the King and Queen must be elected. Though most times they are, the monarchs are not required to be wed; There have been generations where two families lived in the same palace together.

I storm out of the familial hall with no end in mind, simply stomping and acting as the child they obviously see me as. They did not even attempt to share with me the news that had them both so frazzled, did not ask for my opinion on the matter. No, all that mattered was the fact that I did not take simple notes during my tutorings today. I continue to grumble my annoyances under my breath, roughly readjusting my satchel whenever I come across a person to express my mood and deter them from coming near me. Soon, I find myself in the middle of the garden of the palace.

Upon seeing the bushes and trees, my eyebrows, which had before been drawn together in a determined knot, begin to smoothen and I can feel my body relaxing slightly. Here, under the open sky, suspended above the whole of Carris, I can feel a smile coming to my face. The garden is the only place where Rights are allowed in the entire palace, though I doubt they would much want to be anywhere else. They come to tend to the flora and fauna of the garden, trimming the hedges into magnificent shapes and creatures, making sure the flowers growing are of the most aesthetically pleasing kind, according to the scientific notes of the Lefts that study botany. Both the Lefts and the Rights that have had a hand in creating this living masterpiece have complained to my mother and father about the way the others have ruined their vision. But in the end and despite their grievances, the garden has flourished.

Here is the only place I am allowed to be myself.

I know that Mr. Makario is out in the garden as well somewhere, but as I am currently annoyed at my parents, I decide not to try and find him. Besides, I would not want to interrupt a man during his much-deserved promenade. So instead, I resolve to sit upon one of the cobble benches and look out, past the perfectly symmetrical garden to the horizon far beyond it.

As I keep my gaze trained towards the sun, now making its descent to make way for the night sky, the Right sector is directly in my line of sight. The scene in front of me, with the ways the leaves of the trees reflect the few remaining rays of sunlight and the sky is directly in between the brightness of the day and the darkness of the night, I itch to draw it. But I cannot. Not only due to the way my drawings would be looked down upon by my parents and peers but because I know I would not be able to give it justice. I could never claim to see the world as a Right does, to be able to know how to blend the colors and lines in a way that it seemed realistic. No, I should just stick to my small sketches, the ones I draw semi-illegally in the margins of my papers and on napkins that will be thrown away.

And even then, I still cannot find quite the Right way to produce the pictures I have in my mind. The boy I sketched earlier... one would have to be told before realizing it was supposed to be of my own likeness. No matter how much time I wasted trying to draw a self-portrait, they all come out looking childish. I am unable to show the way my brown hair seems to not be able to decide between curls and waves. I do not possess the knowledge of colors to sort out which colors my irises truly are, though I know they are a mix of blue and green. Whenever I attempt to draw the single dimple I have, it seems to ruin the picture, making it look tacky and unnecessary. And how am I supposed to show in a portrait of just myself how tall I am, which is to say, not very?

Now thinking of the Rights, my eyes are pulled from the sunset to look over their side of Carris. Already, with the sun still technically in the sky, I see people begin to make their way back from jobs that certainly cannot be as important as those the Lefts have. It is because of this unimportance that they can retreat to their beds so early in the night. Why it can only be nearing nine o'clock in the evening, and yet, these men and women walk back to their homes to tuck in their children and wish each other goodnight. It makes no sense. Studies have shown that staying up later into the night and waking up at around ten the next morning makes for a much more productive day as it disrupts the workflow much less.

As I continue to ponder the strange habits of the Rights, I notice something that does not sit correctly with me. I approach one of the half walls that surrounds the garden and strain to look through the deepening darkness, hoping to catch the movement again. Though the streets of the Rights are relatively empty now save for a few stragglers, out of one single house, there seems to be exiting a gaggle of people dressed in dark clothing. The group would have surely gone unnoticed had it not been for my scrutinizing of the Rights at that particular moment. But as it was, I had noticed them and I continued to follow them with my eyes. They moved like a dark splotch of ink on paper, together, slowly, darker than their surroundings and somehow leaving their surroundings darker as they passed.

The house they had come out of was near the unofficial border between the Lefts and Rights, a river that runs relatively straight through Carris. They approach one of the many bridges until they all stood at about the center. I blink, waiting for them to make their next move. But it was in that blink, in that fraction of a second that I dropped my guard and failed to keep my focus on them, that they disappeared.

Knowing that logically, this is impossible, or at least highly improbable, I scan up and down the streets that I can see from my perch above them, both the Left and Right sectors, leaning out as far as I dare. Finally, after about five full minutes of searching, I know I have truly lost them.

"Blasted!" I say, cursing my luck to no one in particular. I kick a pebble that was unfortunate enough to be in my path at that given second and it rebounds off of a statue in the middle of the garden. The statue is of a crown and scepter, reminding all those that come into the garden of its belonging to the current King and Queen. Suddenly, I get an idea. My heart begins to accelerate and I laugh as I remember Mr. Makario's lesson today on exactly why it does that not even a full hour ago.

What was it my father said earlier? That whatever had happened was a warning to something much bigger, something the Rights seemed to be planning. Perhaps this was a sign as well! Perhaps these unruly and unpredictable Rights, as my father so put them, were doing something much worse at this current moment! I know I should not be this excited about that thought, but maybe, finally, my parents will see me not as their charge, but as a prince.

Adrenaline now coursing through my veins at the prospect of finally being an object of pride and not a disappointment, I burst through all the doors in the palace that stand in my way, running up the halls, ignoring procedure just this once. Because, for just this once, I have a genuine reason to do so.

Finally arriving at the carefully decorated door again, I skid to a stop in front of it, adjusting the satchel on my shoulder, flattening back down my hair, and catching my breath. When I have decided I am calmed enough to be seen by royalty, I inhale slowly through my nose, and rap lightly on the door.

"Enter," my father grunts in response. I hesitate at the tone of his voice as it still sounds slightly miffed. But then I remember the dark shapes outside and, with renewed confidence, I reenter the room I had only recently been dismissed from.

My mother is studying some papers at her desk and does not look up as I walk in. My father is seated on the bed, as far from her desk as possible, trying to look busy I am sure, but he is presently just staring at the wall. He turns to face me and the look he gives me makes me feel like a child who was caught doing something wrong instead of the prince I had come in here to prove I was.

"Alexander," My father says, coming to meet me at the front of the room. At the mention of my name, my mother's eyes glance up slightly, and she sighs, putting down the papers in front of her and folding her glasses she had put on to read. "I see you have returned without Mr. Makario in tow."

All three of us glance behind me as if maybe, by his own will and at his summons, my tutor would have appeared there. Alas, it is not the case, and so I turn back to my parents, steeling myself before I start my explanation which will surely not be enough for them.

"Your observation is correct, dear father."

"And why is that, Alexander?" My mother asks, coming to stand closer to us. The distance between them is still apparent, however, and it draws my attention. Their argument must have continued for a time after I left and it seems to have as of yet gone unresolved.

"Because, mother of mine, I saw something just now in the Right sector that I felt the both of you might find more pressing than my tutor." My remark of the Rights seems to have piqued their interest, and they both turn to each other, making eye contact for the first time since I had entered the room. This gives me the courage to continue. "I was looking towards the setting sun when I saw a movement down below. There was an assemblage of maybe five or six Rights, dressed in all black so as to go unnoticed in the dark. They came out during the time the other Rights had already retired to their dwellings, most likely so that there was even less of a chance of being seen," I chuckled slightly, "An effort that required an amount of logic that would be applaudable for a Right if it was not used in such a diabolical manner.

"They moved as one dark mass towards one of the bridges between the Left and Right sectors of Carris, coming to a rest in the midst of crossing it. I blinked, and in that duration of about 150 milliseconds, they vanished. I remembered what father had said earlier about the Rights planning something and I discerned I needed to hasten to the both of you and inform you of this development."

"Alexander," My father begins, almost at a growl. It suddenly dawns on me that I should not have mentioned that I had been a silent witness to their argument. "Whatever it is you thought you heeded or detected tonight..."

"You do not grasp the more significant picture of this portion of the puzzle," My mother finishes, now standing side by side with my father. Because of course, no matter what fight they might be going through, they can always chastise me together. "How can you even be sure they were Rights?"

I open my mouth to rebut her but then close it recognizing my defeat. Though they typically are not happy about it, many Lefts work in the Right sector of the city, working with Rights when they absolutely have to. It would make logical sense that they would need to return when the Rights were going to sleep, no matter how prematurely.

"It is that kind of prejudice that drove those of Before to want to kill innocent people. We will not welcome it into our society and certainly not in our decision making. It is what I was trying to tell your father earlier when you were not supposed to be listening." I rouge slightly at this accusation, but quickly shake off the feeling and find my resolve.

"Then," I begin, trying my very best to control my temper and tone, to prove to them that I am not a child anymore, "Let me listen in."

"Would you care to explain, Alexander?" My father replies though I notice a faint smile coming to his lips.

I straighten my posture and speak clearly, enunciating every syllable as I have been taught to do when speaking to the people, "I am the prince of Carris. I am quickly approaching my twentieth birthday and I believe it is high time I get the chance to prove to the king and queen, to our subjects, and to myself that I am fit to lead. Allow me, my majesties, this chance. I am not asking to take over all responsibilities at this moment; I am asking to be allowed into discussions and for my word and opinion to mean something. Perhaps there is a small division that you can allow me supervision."

My parents look at each other. I hold my breath in anticipation, which of course is illogical. My ceasing to breathe will not change their decisions. In fact, if I fall unconscious due to a lack of oxygen, they might decide to never give me that chance. And yet, against my will, I find myself unable to breathe.

Finally, after what seemed to have been an eternity but was most likely only twenty seconds my mother looks to me, smiling slightly as well.

"As it is," She begins, "There is one department that would fit your demands."