Fate Project

Phase 3 | Don’t

RHINE

I blink, uncomprehendingly, unable to process the sudden turn of events. Time lost its essence as I feel everything comes to a halt and George has to snap me out of my shock because I am rendered ceaseless when I should go, move and act before it's all too late.

Another clunk on the storage and I flinch.

Panic officially finds its way to my mind and sets itself into my body. But only a fool can afford panic to cripple his actions, so I dare to move and plan my escape. I allow myself a full minute to figure out the situation I'm dangerously stuck.

Rebels are an element of danger. It terrifies the villagers and put any town in danger. In all the villages they planted their bases, the regions they declared as theirs, with them comes the scent of death. The haunting battle, the horrible c*****e, and the imminent catastrophe of facing the regulars.

And worse, so much worse, is when they allow the people to get caught up between the hell they wreck in confrontation of the devils, negligent that the demons they are battling are regulars. So they became demons theirselves in order to fight them.

Then, they claim they fight for these people they robbed of their lives and hope, that they risk everything for the equality and justice while enslaving others and treating lives as if they meant less than theirs, as if it meant nothing, and then, they dare to say that it is but a sacrifice for the greater good. The nerve.

They are not rebels, not even an irregular and certainly, not our saviors.

They are monsters. Those that live side by side with us. Those that lurk among us. Those that hide behind their lies.

The monsters that killed my old man, killing a part of me in the process.

"Live."

Those were the last words my old man said before he disappeared just for his stiff freezing corpse to appear in the river bank, carried by the river's stream, the following week. I was ten when it happened. Old lady cried everyday as she hid from me, during those desolate nights she would flee from our little room just to bury herself in too much work in the Farms because she couldn't bare to look me in the eye and give me an answer when I would ask her, "what happened?"

So I resorted to asking others, even though I tend to separate myself from any company and it was so hard for them to hide their affliction and aggravation the first time I dared to utter a word to the adults. They were all too familiar and satisfied to my indifference back then.

It was a kind of begging I forced myself to do because I just cannot let it be. I had to know. I had to do something.

Matron Lind, Moor's only doctor, gave a grunt and said it was cardiac arrest that ended my adopted father's life as she hurried me to her doors after a checkup. I didn't know what it meant back then, and it wouldn't matter because it was a lie she told me. It was a lie old lady chose to believe, a lie they all chose to remember my father by. It was Alice's slip of tongue that revealed me the truth behind that lie.

It was by accident that Alice happened to eavesdrop a conversation between her Father and old lady. And I know it was fate that led me to her, and to the truth she tried to spare me.

The rebels wanted Moor. It was plain and simple. My old man refused so they killed him and silenced him forever. That's why he told me to live, because he knew I had to keep living, now not only for myself but for him as well.

And it was unfair of him.

It was unfair of the irregulars that supposed to be our kin.

It was unfair of this world to take everything and leave my life grave and ruined.

And then, it was here that it finally sank to me that it wouldn't matter, it didn't matter.

So I tell myself, win.

I tell myself, live.

I can lose but I will not.

I know, there's only one option. Run. Go away as quietly as I can manage. Before the rebel in the storage finds out about me. If I don't quickly act now, it's not a question that I will lose my life. In the back of my mind I knew the rebel had already known that someone is here, that's why he's been reloading his gun with bullets. He must've been alerted because of George's actions.

In just a matter of seconds, I know, somehow, he will burst out of that storage, guns in hand, a bullet in my head. But it doesn't happen. Nothing happens, really. The reloading of bullets just continue, mingling in the sounds of animals here in the barn.

It's here that Alice choose the time to check up on me.

"I hope you're done already," calls out Alice as she wrenches the doors of the barn.

I'm lost for a moment, surprised by what just happened, as Alice enters briskly, oblivious of the danger that is waiting not only for me, now for the both of us.

"Come on, you lazy—" but something stops her cold. A c**k of a gun. For a single nanosecond our eyes lock with each other, and I know we share one common thought in our minds. But it was futile really. Alice, barging in here, even calling out for me, had given us away. The rebel has known that someone is here. Someone he needs to kill.

Somehow, Alice manages to move and gather her wits, process the events. She's the first one to act before I can know what's happening. In a matter of seconds, she cuts the distance between her and the storage and in one swift move, she picks up the chains discarded in the ground and wraps them in the handle of the storage's door, then turns to me. Find the lock. I see the plea in her face so I screw my eyes open, peering hard through the ground and when I see the silver glinting covered by dirt and dust, I jump for it.

And there's the banging in the storage's doors again. I jolt in surprise while Alice almost jumps out of the doors way but she grips the chain hard, so hard I think she's trying to etch a chain's mark in her palms.

I quickly toss the padlock to her and for a second, her one hand lets go of the chain to catch it. She makes a fast snatch for the lock, hooks it in the chains and with a click, she accomplishes on locking the storage's doors with the rebel inside it. She turns to me grinning, but then another bang in the door comes and she quickly distances herself away to the doors. Side by side, we wait for another bang but we are not expecting for bullets to rain from the storage.

It's chaos.

The series of firing is blasting my ears off and all we can do is to crumple on the ground to avoid the bullets firing blindly everywhere. I vaguely wonder if the animals are okay. The firing seems focused on the doors and I feel so elated by the fact that the chains are still there and no matter how much this rebel shoots, he will remain locked inside the storage. Until he rots, I hope.

Just then, the shooting stops, he must be out of bullets. We hear the loud thuds and banging inside, the storage giving a brief quiver every strike. Then, another bang in the storage's doors and it finally stops, suggesting his frustration. His blind shooting did nothing to release him, neither his attempts to break the storage's doors down.

Then, that's when it happens.

The golden strings hitch in a beat. Then, a sword, the tip of it, suddenly juts out of the gap between the double doors of the storage. I have no idea why I knew—knew that we needed to run, to dodge—but I yank Alice and set out to run away from the storage, from the barn as fast as we can. We are so close in the lattice of the barn when we hear a great searing s***h.

The sound of solid metal cleaving, the rattle of chains as it lands on the ground, and the bang of the storage's doors as it flies open. I will run if I can but I can't feel my legs and Alice is shaking beside me. My eyes fall at the cut on the ground trailing in the right lattice of the barn which has been cut also. A cut so long it even reaches the lattice, only inch away on cutting us. I swallow hard. Rebels? What the f**k—there's no way rebels can do that.

A figure looms inside the storage and I cannot look away fast enough that our eyes lock with each other. Strange. What kind of eyes shines like that? In the shade of the storage room, the eyes of the person appears somewhat flashing in a color I cannot make out. Gray, silver? No, it's so clear to be silver and too much to be white. Glass. The color of a glowing brimming star. I should look away, or atleast try to stop staring but something in those eyes held be captive. Held me so strong, I feel like I've dive, fallen so deep I have no way of resurfacing again. The beauty is drowning me.

I try to decide if it's fear or curiosity that captivated me from such beauty.

As the clear glass eyes flashes to blue, the figure moves, steps out of the storage, a sword at hand and I feel like I just stop breathing. A girl, no doubt just our age, walks out of the storage, limping. We stare at each other for one long moment, nearly stretching like forever, furtively yet carefully observing and weighing each other's movement.

I don't know what I expected. A separate being. An inhuman creature. Or an omniscient individual. But definitely not a girl. A girl who can't be much older than me. A girl who has ineffable beauty. A girl who bears such formidable ability. And a girl who strangely enough, finds her way here.

Because the way she looks, the way she moves, all the way to how she holds herself conveys it all.

Her dress, a skintight piece of black shiny long-sleeved tunic that covers her from the neck down reaching just below her hips. A bit more and you can almost see her tight black shorts or it could be her underwear entirely because it's too short to be even pass as a shorts. High-heeled black ankle boots, a pair of black gloves that fit her hands like its entirely her skin and the collar in her neck imbedded with a familiar symbol—like strings weaving to form a sphere.

Her movements so calm, calculated and effortless. A stance that shows confidence, strength and might—power, it's beyond intimidating. Chin held up high, back arched upright and shoulders tense yet squarely set. She stands there, as if she is above all else, trampling over the world, to reign and to prevail.

Her appearance renders words of its meaning, snatches all my breath from freeing. She looks transcendent, like a different entire being from another dimension, another world. One that cannot be fit to describe, one that even words cannot imply. It's like being in the presence of absolute power, or better yet, of absolute terror.

And then it hits me, there's only one place where this girl came from. Where clothes shines, styled and fashioned to meet the high-technology advancing—modern and futuristic as it can get—and eyes flashing of impossible grandest colors you can ever see. And apparently, their people can either look frighteningly beautiful like a goddess or just simply frightening, like the demon itself.

She's from the Capitol.

"A—a regular—" breathes Alice, earning my attention and so as the girl's. But she doesn't leave me unchecked, she watches us steadily, calculative, and mindful to our actions. Like we can move or act in this situation.

"Don't," says the girl.

"Do not move, do not shout," she orders, so effortlessly powerful and threatening. I can only try to remember how to breathe again. "If you do not want to lose your life, that is."