A Couple of Zeros

Jacob was an autistic young man with a child-like mind, cared for by his sickly mother, who stayed with him in their tiny rundown apartment. Mia was a kind and spirited girl who lived across the way. They were a couple of nobodies from a small Southern town, living at the outer edge of the suburbs in a decaying housing complex. Their neighbors were the frail and forgotten, the elderly and the lost families who were all too familiar with the strife and struggle of keeping food on the table and trying to make ends meet.
Jacob’s mother lay dying, and nobody knew what might happen to him when she passed away. One evening, a shiny black car rolled up their dirt driveway and the boy heard a sharp knock at his door. Little did Jacob and his friends know that fate had come calling and would turn their small world upside down.