Grace for The Fallen

Daetheia Grace      I woke up to the incessant beep beep beep of my alarm on the bedside table beside me.    I groaned and rolled over in my four-poster bed, clapping my hands twice without opening my eyes. The alarm switched off and light flooded the room as my overhead lights switched themselves on. I sighed in resignation and covered my eyes with my hands before opening them and pulling myself up into a sitting position, tugging on my silver feather duvet for assistance. I wrapped my arms around myself in a futile attempt to fend off the morning chill without the warmth of my bed as I stared at the floor, slowly allowing my eyes to adjust to the buttery glow of the lights.    I stood up slowly and shuffled in a semi dream-like state to my en-suite bathroom. I clapped again and the lights switched on so I could see where I was going as I stumbled towards the glass sink. I turned the tap to the coldest it could go as the sound of running water filled the bathroom. I put my hands under the tap and splashed my face and neck, the cold shocking me and effectively jolting me awake. I shivered and blindly reached for the soft towel beside me, drying my face aggressively to try and bring some warmth into my slim body. At that moment my mom, Enaline, knocked on the bedroom door.    “Theia!” She called.    “I’m up, I’m up!” I yelled back.    “45 minutes!” She responded, the clacking of heels on tiles echoing as she receded down the hall.    As I dressed for the day in my school uniform, pulling on the royal blue, school regulation approved jacket, my hands were still slightly clumsy. The only thought running through my mind was ‘Why on Donadas must we wake up at 5:00 am to go to school?’    I went to comb my hair in the bathroom, catching a glimpse of myself in the huge mirror above the sink as I did so. Wavy, still slightly messy auburn hair framed a lightly tanned, heart-shaped face and swept down to my lower back. A slightly pointed nose, high cheekbones, and full lips formed the bottom half of my face, while almond-shaped eyes framed by dark brown lashes and slightly lighter eyebrows formed the top half. My eyes were strange, as no one in the family had the same or even a similar eye-colour. The pupils were normal, but the irises that farmed them were anything but. They were a gorgeous, light gold. Not yellow, or orange, or anything similar but a pure, pale gold, shining like the sun when the light hit them.    “10 minutes!” My mom’s voice shook me out of my stupor. I hastily finished brushing my hair, tying it up so as not to offend the stuffy old teachers who enforced the school policies. As if the small tattoo on my wrist didn’t do that already. I was probably too young to have one, but my parents hadn’t minded when I had asked for one for my sixteenth birthday, so the teachers couldn’t do anything. It’s not like I could take it off anyway.    I wouldn’t get another tattoo again, but this one was important. Necessary. A reminder. Etched permanently over the scars across my ulnar vein from a darker time. I grabbed the school bag, with all my books already packed, hanging over the edge of my bed, and bustled into the kitchen. My mom and twelve-year-old brother, Lucas, were already there, my dad having left earlier for work. I grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the table and ruffled my brother’s hair before sitting down across from him, leaning to the side and pecking my mom on the cheek.    “Really, Theia?” Lucas grumbled, quickly patting down his brown hair again. “You know I hate it when you do that.” I chuckled quietly.     “And you know that's the only reason I do it," I replied with a smirk. Lucas pouted immaturely, his green-brown eyes rounding comically.    “Meanie.” He whined. I stuck my tongue out at him.    “Children, children,” my mom chuckled, raising her bespectacled green eyes to us and tucking her auburn hair behind her ear, “Be nice.” At that moment, the sound of a car horn blared through the open windows and I yelped.    “Gotta go, bye!” I called, grabbing my bag and rushing outside.    “Say hi to Ariston for me!” Lucas called out as I ran out the door to find my school bus, with ‘Haverfield High’ emblazoned on it’s white sides in royal blue, idling by the bus stop near my house. The doors of the bus opened and I stepped inside.    “Morning, Mr Avery,” I greeted.    “Morning, Daetheia.” He nodded formally then grinned. “Having a tiff with your brother again, were you?” I grinned back. “You know him,” I replied, rolling my eyes. He simply snorted and raised his eyebrow at me in response. I scanned the sea of white button-up shirts and royal blue pants – it was too cold for skirts – and my eyes fixed on a boy a few rows down. I made my way to the middle of the bus and stopped when I reached the familiar mop of raven black hair.    “Another day of…” His head whipped up, blue eyes sparkling as he grinned at me.    “Endless t*****e, disguised as education.” He finished, patting the seat beside him. I slid in next to my best friend, shoving his shoulder affectionately. He slung his arm around me.    “Good morning, Tay.”    “Good morning, Tony,” I replied, mocking his formal greeting, then winking. “Lucas says hello.” He chuckled.    “How is the little rascal?” He asked.    "Annoying as ever," I responded.    “Ah,” he nodded seriously, “Taking after his sister, then?”    “Hey!” I protested, shoving his shoulder again, albeit a lot less affectionately. We had been best friends since grade three, bonding over our mutual dislike of the schooling system and love of Greek mythology, even at age nine. His full name was Ariston Nox. Ariston was Greek and meant ‘the best’, which gave him quite a big head at that age. So I had started calling him Tony, which wasn’t much better, as it meant ‘priceless one’, but he didn’t know that and I was content with letting him think it meant something like ‘common one’ or whatever.    Ariston had the potential to be one of the so called “cool kids”. He was tall and tan and had fashionably messy hair that was as black as night, eyes that looked like a summer sky and a beautiful smile. He was smart and talented and had a knack for making friends with everybody. I guess I could have been quite popular as well. I wasn’t too bad looking, and I got the grades. But we both decided, in an unspoken agreement, to go against the norm in high school. We decided that, instead of trying to fit in and hang with the snobby people we didn’t even like, we would find real friends. That also came with the plus of being able to stay out of all the drama.    A poke in my side brought me back to reality. I squeaked then glared at the laughing boy next to me.    “Tony, you know I’m ticklish,” I scowled.    “Yes, I know.” He deadpanned. Then burst out laughing again. People in the rows in front of and behind us turned and smiled at his infectious laugh but I willed my scowl to stay intact, despite the twitching at the corners of my lips. When he looked at me again, I c****d an eyebrow and he fell silent, one hand covering his mouth to try and stifle the remaining chuckles. Tony could laugh at everything and anything, even the slightest hint of a joke set him off.    “Did you want to ask me something? Or did you just poke me for no reason?” I questioned dryly, my poker face still intact.    “Ah, yes,” he paused the wipe the remaining tears out of his eyes, “I wanted to ask how you found the wonderful English assignment Mrs Branger gave us?” The rest of our trip was spent talking about school and laughing over various jokes and memories. An echo of every other normal day.    We were still chatting when we stepped through the elegant wooden doors of our modern school building. Despite the changes that had occurred in the world in the last few years, headmasters and school boards still insisted on keeping a traditional school environment. Which meant that we had to write in books with pens, for crying out loud! I mean, books? Books? Come on! There was a stack of newspapers on a stand near the entrance, so I grabbed one on my way in. I blanched when I saw the headline.    “They found another one,” I spoke softly, trusting that Tony was close enough to hear. “’Male, 13 years old, went to bed and didn’t wake up the next morning. His parents found him with a bullet in his head, two in his chest and a hole in his bedroom window.’” I felt, rather than saw, Tony’s wince as I read the last part. I felt the same. I knew that Elves were vicious and deceitful creatures, but for some reason I still felt sorry for them. Nobody deserves to be murdered like that, without a chance to even defend themselves. He had probably only found out that he was an Elf a few days prior to the accident.    13. The most common time for an Elf to ‘come of age’, as they called it. 18 was also a common time, but less so than 13. They could come of age anytime in between those two ages, but it was not often that that happened. I remembered when I was 13 and people had come to our school, demanding that all of us lined up to be ‘tested’. Even though they hadn’t needed to do that. They had ways to find out if there was an Elf on another continent if they wanted to.    But they fed off the fear. The fear as they approached an Elf with their gadgets, as they saw the look in the Elf’s eyes that said that they knew the end was coming. The fear as the slight hope that they would go unnoticed was squandered by the incessant alarm of the gadget held in front of the Elf’s face. The fear in the Elf’s voice as they were dragged screaming from the building to a fate that nobody should have to endure.    That was the thing that disgusted me most about the Elf killings. The triumph in the newspaper articles, claiming that they had slain another 'beast'. The relentless hunting of the Elf-killers, caring not if the Elves were old or young, if they had taken part in the savage actions of their kind or not. It all disgusted me. Why should the innocent die for the guilty’s crimes? Only because the persecutors were heartless and cruel and scared. So, so scared because the power in the innocent Elves could be used for evil, even if it hadn’t yet. No, rather kill them for something that they might do than risk them actually doing it, right? Ugh, it was so wrong.    "That's terrible," Tony whispered, mirroring my thoughts. He was the only one I had trusted enough to share my views on the matter with. In doing so, I had found that he shared them. But we could never share them with anyone else, for fear of 'them' hearing about it, and finding us. They had ears everywhere. And if it was even suspected that someone could become an Elf-sympathizer… they wouldn't last the day.    "He was just a child," Tony murmured, his eyes betraying the pain he felt for the Elfling's parents, and the guilt he felt on behalf of his race. The guilt that nobody else saw fit to carry. At that moment we arrived at our first class for the day and fell silent as we took our place in the class, both of us trying to pay attention to the lesson. But the image of the dead Elf’s face kept flashing behind my eyes, his bright smile and eyes so full of life and warmth haunting me as I went through the day. Knowing that they would never be like that again.    -Rebecca Underwood