Let Them Eat Cake

Finally I recalled the stopgap solution of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: "Let them eat cake." Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The mansion was almost at the edge of the city. It took us less than five minutes to reach the concrete walls that separated us from the woods. The walls were covered with vines that hid electrifying plates. In theory, it would kill those that tried to trespass or escape. Noah led me into the thick bushes in the corner. The tall grass concealed a small hole, big enough for a person to maneuver through. 

"What?" I thought out loud.

"What do you mean what?" Asked Noah.

"A hole?" 

"Yeah," Noah said, as if it was something that I was suppose to know.

"There is a hole in this wall all these time?"

"Yeah." Replied Noah. "How else are we suppose to get in here? Through the main gate?"

"So this wall," I asked, "Is how some of the slaves escaped?"

"Yes." Said Noah. "This is also how we got in."

Noah went through with ease, and then it was my turn. I flattened my abdomen, slid into the tight hole and crawled myself through the dirt until l I reached the end of the really thick wall. I propped myself up and brushed off the dirt from the white suit I was wearing. Trees, lots of them- not the ones we had in the city, stood like armies. I recognized them, they were called ponderosa pine trees, we learned about them in school. They got bark that helps them to distinguish them from other species. The mature to over-mature individuals have yellow to orange-red bark in broad plates with black crevices, while younger trees have blackish brown bark, referred to as "blackjacks" by our ancestors. Instead of ordinary leaves, these types of trees got needles, long ones too. Our teachers used to give us samples of it and we'd used it to poke each other. And one time, a boy's right eye was poked and he went blind, half blind. The green blinding needles as we used to call them.

It wasn't my first time in the woods, we visited the woods once in a while back when the school was still functioning. But this one was different. Maybe it was the excitement of escaping the city for the first time ever, or perhaps it was due to the fact that I am a criminal now, roaming with Outcasters and escaping without being authorized. Everything seemed different, even the ground I stood on was. It was softer, the dirt. Every single step I made, sunk into the ground much deeper that it would back in the city. 

"Here!" Said Noah as he pulled a metallic rod, around the length of a pencil, from his bag and threw it to me. It slipped right into my grip and transformed into a spear. 

"What the hell?!"

"Programmable matter," Said Noah, pulling out another one, "Able to change its physical properties and capable to transform into almost every single weapon in existence."

"Where did you get them?" I asked, 

"The Annihilators." Noah said without hesitation. His rod slowly turned into a liquid like substance, metallic in color. It kind of looked like mercury. Drops of the substance started to spill from his hand and onto the ground. The substance jumped back up at him, and formed a spear just like mine. 

"The what?" I scrunched my nose and furrowed  my eyebrows, 

The rod in his hand suddenly glowed bright red, as if it was trying to warn us of something and then again turned into the same liquid-metal. The material slowly attached to his body, it swirled around his arm and then his torso, doing God-knows-what. After a couple of seconds, it solidified. But neither Noah's shirt or his jeans were to be seen, even his packed full bag was gone. Noah was covered with shiny armors, with red glowing stripes marking the joints and pieces. On his forehead was a silver crown. On the crown, marked the symbol of the Deus, a bundle of wooden rods, meaning strength and unity

I still remember how ugly we were every year on S-3 day (around summer). Every school in the nation must present twelve boys wearing nothing but wooden rods around them and their under-wears, the girls got lucky. We will then be sent to the capital, to perform or to reenact the "heroic" acts of the Deus. I saw nothing heroic about them, but what could we do? Saying anything bad about the Deus was illegal and carried the severest of penalties regardless of your social state. My teacher would always pick the same people to go, and that includes me. And the worst part about it wasn't the clothing, it was the fact that everything will be broadcast live to every home in the country. There was a time, when one of my friends' wooden rods dropped and he was seen in his pink underwear, everyone saw it live. He never came back to school after the summer break. 

The symbol glowed bright red and an axes blade thrust through the bundle, forming the Fasces symbol.

"The Deus..." I said, rubbing my hand along the smooth canvas of the pole. "They let you?" 

The spear I was holding also flashed in red, a red like the one flashing in my parent's bedroom. A red, that insinuated of bad luck. The spear in my hand then dissolved into the same liquid-metal and flew towards me. It twisted around my body, moving upwards every turn it made, and then gradually turning solid again, becoming a bow, a metal bow hanged on a bag behind my back, carrying metallic arrows.

"Not without a fight." Said Noah, aiming his right hand at me. "Duck!"

I jumped out of his aim and he blasted some sort of red energy at me. It didn't hit me though. The projectile went straight through a tree.

I am dead. This guy is gonna kill me!

I gulped in the million ways of how he could kill me in my heart, and prepared for the worst. There was no way I could survive. But then I thought, if he wanted to kill me right then, why did he tell me to duck?

"What was that?!" I said ferociously. 

"An Annihilator." Said Noah, face still as calm as ever.

I turned around and saw a dead body behind the tree that Noah blasted through. The corpse wore armor, similar to the one Noah was wearing, seemed a little bit weaker though. On the corpse's head was a crown with the bundle wooden rods symbol. He was a Deus. 

Author's Note

I've been really busy. Sorry. I hope you enjoy. If you do, please leave a review. :)
merci beaucoup.

Reviews

[Xavier Lee]

What? "The tall grass concealed a small hole, but big enough for a person to maneuver through. I never knew that there was a hole. No wonder I never saw the walls in action before." First of all remove the 'but'. Second, I don't even know how to phrase the question the last two sentences gives me other than "What the hell are you talking about?'
"Noah went through with ease, and it was my turn." replace the and with " and then" though that could just be a typo.
Please, please, oh please for the love of God do not be offended by this but, is English your second language? Reading through this, I can't help but wonder if it is. It would explain the poor grammar and odd word choice.
I feel like you ripped off the Hunger Games with the Deus competition thing.
penalties and punishments: these are synonyms.
Corpses are dead peoples' bodies. Dead corpse is redundant.
Despite all that, I am still curious to see what happens and I will definitely continue reading. Thank you for posting this but dude, for the last time, step it up.

[David Ung]

Thank you for the review, I will try to change those parts. Yes English is my second language, I am a Cambodian.

[David Ung]

And the Deus competition thing is not a ripoff of the Hunger games. It is a national holiday, and 12 young boys from each school in the nation must go to the capital to perform. I don't see how it is a ripoff of the hunger games.

[Xavier Lee]

I can forgive some of your language misuse then. But 12 boys from each place going to the "capitol' to perform a battle? 12 girls and it's exactly the Hunger Games.

[David Ung]

The S3 Day is actually inspired by the 12 Chinese Zodiac great race, not the hunger games.

[David Ung]

Thank you for clarifying anyway. Hope I will get better at it soon.

[BryanCX]

Bravo! A good chapter my friend. I found some area where I would really want you to explain more clearly like ''how the hole in the wall gotten?''. The area where you mention '' blasted some sort of red energy at me.'', at me, and could you explain more about the energy ? I know that it doesn't goes through Alex but using ''passes alex'' and you can cancel the '' it didn't hit me'' part out. Anyways a great chapter to read, a bit frenchy this time. Merci Beaucoup!