Chapter 1

      "Long ago what was to become our beautiful Ameliorate, was a society that was disorganized, a free-for-all for the common citizen, ruled by fools--"the audience booed at the has-been society, everyone except me, "where rebellion was encouraged. This was where our ancestors thrived, in a society filled with greed for every type of power, stealing from brothers, sisters, and anyone who could fuel their need. This began the war." I turned my back to the speaker, standing on the make-shift stage, at the mention of the war, but continued to listen. "The war killed billions, not just soldiers civilians, there were no heroes--" a lie. I felt anger building within my small frame, beginning in my empty stomach. "The war made everyone murderers," he was yelling now, as was the majority of the audience, "rebels fueled by greed today are becoming murderers each and everyday, and we don't stop them!" The crowd around me began roaring, deafening my ears and pushing my anger to my head.

      I began to ignore the speaker altogether, only to not allow myself to leave. I'm waiting for him. He said he would meet me in the square, in a place where I would be proud of his actions. I wasn't. Once the speech ended I began to walk away, but I heard fast moving foot steps heading my way.

      "Lise! Lise, weren't yo--" I cut him off.

      "Analise," I said in a monotone voice as I turned down a small, uneven, dirt ally off the square and he followed.

      "What?"

      "My name is Analise," my voice becoming more uneven, "and no I am certainly not proud. How can you stand there and make a fool of yourself, accusing our ancestors, our ancestors John of being murderers, trying to convince others to go to die for the war going on now." As I spoke I avoided his big brown eyes covered, slightly, by his shaggy blonde hair; although, I could feel those eyes of his searching for mine.

      "I thought you liked me....Analise?" My full named dripped off his tongue like acid. He stopped me from walking any further." I thought we believed in the same things, wanted the same things, wanted each other." John sounded, both, dejected and angry speaking to me.

      The truth? John and I had been drifting apart for many weeks. The last one drilling any feelings I had for him out of my heart. We used to believe the same things, we believed we could get a partnership contract, get permission to have a child or two from sayers. We used to want the same things, happiness and the ability to do what we could to provide for our children. I used to want him. "Not anymore, John."

        John lifted is hand, as if to shield the setting sun from his eyes, and brought it down with all his strength against my face. His slap forced my face to the side and made my eyes water, but I did not shed a tear. I looked back up to John's face, soft features of kindness had hardened over the weeks we've separated.

        "We planned our future together. We planned for kids together. I joined the troops to support those kids," John screamed in my face, drawing a crowd to the  tiny ally .

       "We never got permission to have children, we never tried for children, and I don't plan to have children; at least not with you," my voice was calm as I spoke, but my anger is a raging storm within myself. While John's anger swirled about though his body language. "You didn't join the troops to support our future children, you joined to better yourself. You did it to gain the power you didn't and still don't have because you are a greedy b*****d."

      I waited for his hand to slam against my cheek once more, but the pain never came. John just gritted his teeth, glaring at me. A moment later he shoved his way through the crowd gathered around us. I sunk to the ground, against the cool stone wall as the crowd dispersed. The crowd left quickly leaving dusty foot prints as the only sign they were there. I looked directly in front of me at John's foot prints; they were large and imbedded deeply in the soft, dusty dirt.

     Carefully I stood up, making sure not to mess up my own footprints, as I did so. I stepped away. My prints were small and barely visible, almost as if I never existed. In John's eyes I wasn't visible, so I re-began my trek home. I looked at the tiny slits for windows used only for ventilation within the tiny apartments each family lived in. I looked at anything I could to avoid thinking about John, which wasn't much.

      Nothing around here was much. The beautiful Ameliorate we were force to learn about as children was not so beautiful. Everything was a dusty brown, the dirt paths, the stone buildings, the uniform we wore, even the people had a thin coating of brown over their skin. My family is the exception. The typical citizen of Ameliorate had blonde to light brown hair and brown eyes. My family had hair like the night and my eyes, mine only, were a bright green, the color of the tree from my father's History of Ameliorate book.

      The same book he held as I walked into our dingy apartment at the end of the ally. "Analise, your home," he spoke softly to me while setting down his book and looking me in the eyes," is everything alright?" Father stared deeply into my eyes, analyzing the emotion within my eyes with his own, brown eyes.

      "You know it's not, father, and before you ask it was John. He joined the troops, father." Tears finally began to fall from my eyes. My father reacted immediately, stepping two paces to close the gap between us and envelop me in hug. "He tried to say if was for the children we were going to have..."I trailed off, sobs shaking my small frame against my father's tall one. He pulled away from me.

      " Analise, I think it's time," father sighed," it's time you leave." We'd planned for this; I should have known it was coming. Father was from struggle land when he met my mother. They met in secret for a year and my mother got pregnant. The council found out about them then. They brought my father in to Ameliorate and waited for my mother to have the child, me." You know what to do?"

      "Yes."

      "Then go, climb the wall were I showed you and run," I turned to leave, unable to take anything," and Analise, I love you." New tears dotted the corner for my eyes.

      "I love you, too," I said as I walked out of the open doorway. I walked briskly towards the square, as if I left something there and didn't want to be in the dark. The square was desolate when I arrived, so I continued forward down another ally, identical to the one I just exited from. The wall of Ameliorate came into sight at the end of the ally and so was a tall figure. As I got closer I realized that they weren't going to move from the wall. I stopped at the end of the ally to study the figure. It wasn't just a normal guard, it was John.

      "Where you going Analise? You don't go for night walks," he said quoting me from weeks ago when I rejected his offer of walking the wall. John was still very angry. He stepped closer and closer to me; I wanted to run but, I needed to escape Ameliorate. "I know what you're doing and I won't let you leave. You need  to stay here..with me and have my children." John was directly in front of me, looming.

      It was then that my back hit a stone wall, I hadn't even realized I had been backing up as he advanced. I made eye contact with him, and John smiled.  He had an idea. He gripped my wrists, tightly, and forced them over my head. John held my arms up with one hand, while I attempted to fight him off. I was too weak. With his other hand John grabbed something from his belt, I couldn't see what. He brought the item in front of my face and I froze. It was a dagger.

     The small amount of light in the ally glinted off the blade and I knew. I knew John would kill me tonight. Taking the dagger from my face, John lifted the top half of my uniform. I open my mouth in to scream, but with a single thrust the dagger was imbedded with in my flesh. I tried to continue to fight back, unfortunately any movement of the muscles in my abdomen caused me to wretch the bile from my empty stomach.

     At my increasing stillness John began to remove my uniform. I couldn't stop him and tears began to pool in my eyes. Once it was removed John started to speak, "You look quite appealing, Lise." His hand gripped the hilt of the dagger and slowly pulled it out. I groaned at the action. He looked down at the blade before bring it back up to my face. "Look at your beautiful blood, Lise. Have you ever seen anything like it?" I agreed with John on this, my blood was a teal color that seemed to sparkle in the tiny amount of light.

     I always thought blood was supposed to be a brilliant red, maybe I'm wrong. John trailed the dagger across my collarbone and back down to my stomach. I knew what was coming. Another thrust and the blade had returned to the flesh of my abdomen. I released another silent scream into the air. "Ready for the true fun, my Lise, besides I thought you always wanted this, you should be filled with joy." John began to disrobe one handedly, his other hand holding me up instead of keeping me from fighting back, but stopped when I tried to speak.

     "N-no n-no, p-pl-please," the words fell off my lips desperately." J-just k-ki--" I was distracted by the thump that seemed to echo in the space around. The thump sounded from a tall figure that jumped from the other side of the wall. I saw this as a chance to escape John's grasp but he did not turn, so I tried to scream. "H-help. H-hel--" John interrupted my shall voice for help.

      "There is no one to help you and no reason to call for help," the stranger cocked his head to the side and stepped forward a couple of steps.

      "Stop," the stranger's voice a deep and sharp, but he did not yell," set the girl down gently, leave, and all will be well." John laughed and turned to look at the stranger cloaked in darkness, but continued to hold me.

      "You think a simple command will stop me from making my beautiful children? You should return to your apartment civilian, I'm a soldier. If you don't leave I will arrest you." John didn't hear this man hop the wall; I didn't know if that was a good or bad thing. The strange straitened his head and reached over his head, as John turned back to me and gripped the hilt once more. Simultaneously, the men pulled blades out, John pulled the one imbedded within me, making me groan, and the man pulled a long double-edged sword from, possibly, a scabbard behind his back. Before John could stab me again the man was holding his sword across John's neck.

     "Let her go," he said as I studied the features visible under the cloak he was wearing, not visible before, "now!" He looked muscular, but not overly and the his voice held a forceful tone. John released my wrists and I fell; as I hit the ground a small scream erupted from within and I curled in to a ball. "Give me the dagger." John complied. "Leave and if you turn around I will kill you, you're lucky I'm not going to now," the man shoved John in the direction he wanted him to go and watched him until he was out of sight.

     "T-thank y-you," I tried to say, but it came out garbled. The man kneeled next to me

     "Shhh, don't use anymore energy than necessary," he dug in the pocket of the pants he was wearing and pulled out some gauze, "I'm going to try to dress your wounds alright?" I nodded while trying to look under the hood of his cloak. I felt his hands hover over my stomach then move away. The movement caught my attention and I watched his hands grasp, then pull his hood back. "I want you to stare into my eyes while I do this, it will help distract you from the pain." I nodded again already analyzing his previously hidden features. His hand returned to my stomach and began to wrap the gauze around me, but I felt no pain. His eyes looked blue, yet I couldn't figure out what shade, his nose had a small lump, as if it had been broken once, and his jaw was strong and clenched as he worked. It felt like, at least, one hour until he was done, but was more realistically a few minutes.

     He stood up and took off his cloak completely," You're all done. I'm just going to wrap you in my cloak, your clothes are in pieces, and take you home, tel--"

     "No, I w-was trying t-to l-leave," the stuttering had returned. The man nodded and proceeded to wrap his cloak round my bare figure. I didn't care about my nudeness at the time. His cloak was soft and warm from being against his body.

     "Would you rather me bring you with me?" I nodded and he picked me up in his arms. "The trip will be long so, try to sleep unul meu rănit," he spoke softly to me, barely whispering the last few words, which I did not understand. I could feel the movement as he walked. The gentle swaying lulled me to sleep, an image of him engraved in my mind.