The Kingdom of Light

Prologue—The Journey: Chapter 1

The music rumbled through the speakers, not loud, not deafening, but still crisp and clear. The different voices around me made it hard to hear exactly what song it was, and even more importantly, who sang it. As usual, I was behind the bar, and as usual, it was packed. It was a Saturday, and people had just gotten paid, so the bar was packed with happy patrons who weren’t afraid of leaving a good tip behind.

“Luna!” Brian yelled from the other side of the bar, waving bills above his head—he might as well have been flashing a neon sign above his head, with big, bright letters screaming notice me! “IPA!”

I couldn’t resist the smile on my face, because just as short-tempered Brian could be, just as deep and considerate he could be as well. I grabbed the beer from underneath the counter, popped the lid easily and quickly—the beer opener was always in my back pocket—and set it down in front of Brian. With a smile and a short nod, I accepted the bill from his hand, and with a keep the rest, he moved back down between the dancing bodies.

The pub was a decent place; it was cozy, not nice, and definitely not fancy. The bar was long so that it could hold a lot of people around it. The counter was in a dark, lacquered wood, so you couldn’t as easily see all of the stains of beer, soda, and alcohol, and so it was somewhat easy to clean. The underside of my counter was filled with coolers, where I could keep the beers, sodas, and other odd things we sold.

My hand automatically fell back on my cigarette, which I picked up and placed between my lips, snagging another drag as I wiped down said counter. I let the smoke blow out between my lips before I pulled it from my lips, twisting it between my fingers. You should stop. But that would be boring, and it would be a pain in my ass to quit. And as many other things, I choose to just ignore the nagging voice in my head, and just kept on going, hoping for the best.

I had been bartending for a long time; it was something I was good at, something I could actually figure out to do. Even in my twenty-two years, I hadn’t managed to do anything but graduate from high school. I had to spend my life doing something, but it was tough settling in somewhere. But this job, it was decent pay, great tips, and it gave me something to do. As long as I got out of bed in the morning with a hunger for completing my job, then I couldn’t see a problem with it—even if my mother could find countless.

When I was at work, my thoughts could just flow—they simply floated better in noise. With my hands going on routine, and my extensive knowledge of the patrons, I didn’t have to be on just as much. I could simply just be. Which made me feel, even in this environment, like I had a calm and steady job.

I took another drag of my cigarette. It was stupid to start smoking, but when I was offered one while drunk, I wasn’t able to say no, and here I was, four years later, and still smoking.

The hours flew by as I stood there serving beers and low-effort drinks. I knew that before I could even think it, I would be on my way back home, to where Lucas was. My fiancé.

We met shortly after I was done with high school, and it took me all of four seconds to fall in love with him. His green eyes, his brown, ruffled hair, his muscular body, and his delicious voice. It was easy to love him. He worked a lot and was rarely at home, but when he was, we made sure to spend time together eating delicious meals, watching lame movies, and having amazing s*x. Which only made the work days easier for me, it gave me freedom and not a lot of responsibilities. Even if just a few would be nice.

My mother didn’t like him—obviously—not when I met him, not when we moved in together, and certainly not when he proposed to me. I told her then that I was an adult, that I could make my own decision, and that I was sure this was the right one. It also meant she never visited us when he was home, and when he was, she would ignore him. My mother was the world champion in freezing people out, pretending the problems she couldn’t handle weren’t there.

My gaze caught on the ring on my finger. It was a simple silver band with a nicely sized diamond in the middle of it. As I told him, it wasn’t the ring that mattered to me; it was the intention behind it. The will and wishes behind it. I had known for a long while that I wanted to marry him, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, having fun, doing whatever we wanted, and no one being able to hold us back.

“Are you dreaming about that lovely man of yours again?” Susan slurred from my right side, already sounding way more hammered than she should have been at the time. She shouldn’t be given anymore, but when she was drunk, my tips skyrocketed, and I had a wedding to save for.

“Don’t think I ever do anything else,” I answered her, a smirk playing across my lips.

“He’s just lovely,” Kim gushed, butting into our conversation—always eager to see Lucas. “When are you going to bring him here again?” Ah, there it is.

Lucas hated coming here, but he did it regularly if I was playing. He knew it meant a lot to me when we could share my music. The music I had spent most of my life playing, the music I had been rehearsing and working for so long to master, wishing it could turn into more, but it never did.

“He’s the one who landed an amazing woman,” Peter yelled from across the bar, grinning at me as he winked at me.

Sure, I was a pretty girl to look at. Wide hips and muscular legs made sure I had to buy jeans with a stretchy fabric so that I could actually move around. I had what Peter had called an ample bosom, which made sure my back was strong and gave me a great posture. Luckily, my boss gave me oversized t-shirts that I could wear, because drunk men could be bastards. My hair was blonde and was starting to lighten even more, reasoned the impending summer. It was cut short, so it just reached my shoulders. But the best thing about me, if I had to say so myself, was my sky blue eyes, which could either shine with happiness but also strike lightning with my rage.

“Now, Peter,” I grinned right back at him, shooting him a wink as well, “you know your compliments bring me to my knees.”

Peter’s middle-aged face lit up in a beaming smile, making something warm spread inside my chest. After many years of hard work, his body had suffered, and he looked a lot older than he truly was. But Peter was soft as butter, sweet and caring; he just needed someone to talk to. His chuckle always made me smile, and his shaking shoulders made me feel like his day had brightened just a little.

**

As the night progressed, there was a shift in patrons. The older patrons went home to grab a bite to eat, to relax with some television, and to go to bed early. Then the younger ones started to fiddle inside, and as usual, it was entertaining to watch. The young women who came through the doors—who were actually still little girls—looked like deer caught in headlights. They came in quietly and calmly, looking around all confused like frightened animals. While the men came bustling in through the doors like bulls, all loud and boisterous, the only thing that was wrong with the analogy was that they were on the hunt, like a lion searching for its next prey.

It was a dance between predator and prey, a dance of how much the prey could entice the predator. The predators swelled up, inflating their muscles, trying to show how big and strong they were, scaring the others away. A comedic dance that always started around this time of night and would carry on until I locked the doors.

I observed a young man, one I hadn’t seen before. His hair was pitch black, his clothes just as dark—if not more—and his smile looked all wrong. The women who were dancing up against him were trying to gain his attention, doing whatever they had to do to get it. But something about him just seemed… off. Even if he looked at them, it didn’t seem like his attention was actually on them. He didn’t look like someone who was from here, not someone I could recognize. What rattled me the most was why all of those girls seemed desperate to get his attention compared to anyone else.

My head spun towards the doors where three men walked in. I couldn’t see their faces as their dark hoods were drawn down, shading them from the light. They were walking straight towards me, straight towards the bar, straight towards the register.

One of them stopped right in front of me, raising his gun right at my chest. “Give me the cash!” His voice boomed across the bar, the certainty in it making a shiver run down my spine.

I hurriedly directed my eyes towards the floor, slowly raising my hands above the bar, so that they could see them. I remembered my training on how to act if something like this ever happened to you. Don’t look at them! For everything holy in this world, they couldn’t think that I would be able to pick them out of a lineup. They needed to see my hands, so they knew I wasn’t contacting the police.

“Give me the goddamn money!” he yelled once again, making sure everyone noticed.

“Okay,” I answered, nodding my head slightly, keeping my eyes downcast, my hands high. “I need to grab a plastic bag for the money.” So goddamn slowly, I reached down towards the trash bags.

“Hurry up!”

I ripped off a bag, turning around to walk towards the register. My entire body locked down. Everything hurt. f**k, f**k, f**k. It felt like my life was flashing behind my eyes. Pull yourself together! The register dinged as I opened it, my hand immediately starting to empty it into the bag. Behind me, I could hear the three men forcing everyone outside and the door slamming behind them.

I closed the bag tightly and turned back around. The three men were still standing there, one of them still holding the gun tightly.

“Here,” I answered, trying to stay as calm and direct as possible.

The guy with the gun grabbed the bag. “I’m sorry about this,” he mumbled, before they turned around and hurried out of the pub. The door slammed shut behind them.

Darkness took hold of me, locking my mind down, trying to calm me. My breathing got quicker and quicker as I was starting to hyperventilate. My eyesight turned smaller and smaller as pure rage flowed through me, the darkness trying to pull me into the lull I knew it provided.

My hands turned into fists as I clenched them as hard as I could; I could feel my fingernails cutting into my palms. My mouth opened, and through it came a scream; a scream I had never heard before. A sound so full of power, so full of numbness, so full of pure pain.

What a shitty f*****g life.