Chapter 1: Falling down

“He disappeared a few weeks ago. I’ve been taking over control.” I choke down a sob as his hand touches mine. I pull away and start at a heightened pace towards the entrance as if I could outrun my troubles.

Outside, it looked like hell. Every building crushed and crumbled, and ten feet of fog on the ground, I cannot see even I fingers in front of my face. The boy starts to lead me towards where a newly felled building lay, and I pull him back towards me as the stinger of a king Kazvin, a human sized Kazvin with the ability to speak, swings right where his person was only moments before. We fall down a huge chunk of upturned concrete, him landing on his back and me landing on top of his legs. The spider legs of the creature click and clack as the Kazvin comes towards the two of us.

“Vanille, please. Why do you stay with the rebels?” the voice of the creature is that of my older brother, who runs districts one through five. The creature’s hand lowers to me and I flinch as it calls me by the nickname my father calls me. “Please, Val?”

I grab the strange boy’s hand and a half sword and swipe at the Kazvin’s face. The sword slices through the skin like knife through semi melted butter. The creature lashes out in pain, slashing my midsection and runs away. The boy grabs his sword back from me. “Do you have some sort of death wish?”

“Let’s just go.” I head off towards section nine, where Dacree spends most of his time. The boy is walking behind me silently. He hasn’t noticed my wound and I won’t bring it to his attention.

∞ ∞ ∞

“Hold up, we’re almost there.” The boy is very tense and uptight. All emotion has been wiped from his face. Now, we have left the ten foot fog wall and now only small patches reach higher than our knees. I have taken my cloak out and put it on to hide the wound from the sight of any and all. The boy slides his sword into its casing as we climb over a small piece of concrete that leads to the entrance tunnel to district nine. The cement holding the entrance up was thick and had a musty smell to it. The lights were dimmer than what was necessary for a district so close to the surface, but that is Dacree for you. The boy’s hand brushes against my lower back and I shiver, only because I’m not up to hiding what I feel.

“You okay?” The boy stops to look me in the eyes.

“’M fine.” I push past him, unwilling to say the truth.

“Really. I sense a lie” The boy stops me. He motions to the cloak. “They’ll think you’ve a weapon.”

“Let them.” I pull it tighter to my person, but he pulls the cloak away.

“Vanille, please?” He pleads, and winning over, pulls the cloak from me. He immediately notices the three large gashes across my midsection. “Holy Hell, Vanille, why didn’t you say anything?”

“I told you I’m fine. I am.”

“Seriously?” He gently folds the now blood soaked coat and puts it in my loot bag, over the books. “You need help if that’s your okay.”

I chuckle, then push past him, and closer to the entrance gate. The boy walks up to the gate, the iron bars seemingly like the bars of a jail. He yells out a name, Salvador or something and about ten guards come out and into the open. One of them, obviously female, sizes me up and down then stands in front of the gate. “Pharah, please?”

“Why should I let you and that good for nothing lost case enter Dacree’s district?”

“Lucarius demands it, Pharah Williams.” I speak up, and the boy shifts in discomfort.

“Who the Hell are you to speak for him?”

“I, Vanille Justine Fellcroft, speak for Lucarius Herak Fellcroft.”

“Pharah, you can’t disobey the Queen’s orders. Let them in or I will” A male, about in his late teens, early twenties demands of her. She steps back and tosses the keys to the man.

“Thank you, Kellen.” The boy by me says, barely audible.

“C’mon Salvador, we gotta take care of you… and that one Hell of a wound she got.”

Salvador chuckles and shepherds me into the gates, his hand on the back of my midsection. I’m too exhausted to give a damn about who touches me. I follow them into a small room as Pharah locks the gate back up. In this room are four cots, five chairs, a huge dresser of what I’m guessing are medical supplies. They seem to let many people in…

“Lay on one of the cots, and Salvador, lay on one by her. No ‘if’s ‘and’s or ‘but’s. Got it?” Kellen motions to the wall of cots and I gently sit on the one closest to the medical cabinet, which Kellen is now looking through. He pulls out a brown bottle of alcohol as well as a bunch of towels and sets them beside me, on the night table to my right. I swing my legs onto the cot as Kellen brings a second round of bandages. “When’d you get this?”

“Uh, about an hour ago, in front of the library on Elmwood. A king attacked and Salvador was being oblivious, so I had to save his a*s.” I allow him to remove the cloth from the wound, and I wince as it rips some skin that has been stuck to it because of the blood. He whispers a sorry and turns to the alcohol and pile of towels. He piles a tile on both sides of my midsection, then lays a thin towel on my midsection. He uncaps the alcohol then pours it on the thin towel. As soon as the alcohol enters the wound, I feel a coppery taste in the back of my mouth as I clench my jaw closed. Even though it hurts, I will leave it be. Another sorry is muttered and I nod to say “it’s okay”. Salvador is sitting on the cot behind Kellen and he is chuckling, no, he’s laughing. Kellen gives Salvador a sideways look and he shuts up.

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