CHAPTER 1
The day was overcast and grey. Death littered the landscape as the graves littered the graveyard. Every day was like this. But somehow, cliché aside, this day was different. He looked up at the sky from the broken bench he precariously perched on. The grey had a shade of red mingling into the permanent rain clouds. Of course it did, Lover Boy., he told himself. That’s the colour of her hair. He still remembered her vividly. Her fiery hair. She was the only colour he had ever seen in this dark land. Red and grey. How they lightened his world. Grey was a colour ha had come to love. It meant home. It meant safety, the norm. But oh! In a colour-blind world, she was a Phoenix. A brilliant and radiant eternal bird. Of course she was, Lover Boy, he told himself again. For that was her name. And he was Aerrow. Aerrow of Nall. She was Phoenix of Nell. He was destined to join to her sister. No love was allowed in the lives of fear each and every one of them lived. Just as there was no colour. Colour had the power to inspire people, but love… Love could do far more than that. The One forbid it. No one on his land could have spirit. He took everything away. He took away those who loved. He removed them. Yet, somehow, they were still present. How much of hell would it be to live in one of The Ones created clouds, watching as those you loved fell apart? It had happened to his father. His mother was removed, and Aerrows father broke. He broke and couldn’t be fixed. Eventually, he couldn’t bear it and he removed himself to be with Aerrows mother. And Aerrow was to be joined to her sister. Her sister. Despite this horrible fact, the day (or night: One could not tell after so many of them) still seemed beautiful. He hopped down from his bench and stumbled through the downpour that had begun a few moments ago. He reached his father’s grave. He knelt down and, as he always did when it rained, washed it. Content with his job, Aerrow stood and went to his house; it was a small and cosy hut he had built when he was young. He had no one, but that did not matter to a boy over the Age. He could move into town with all his distant relatives, all the people of Nall, or he could move far west to the deadlands and to the people of Nell. He felt no incline towards either place, so he lived where he wanted to. The One did not mind, or else he would be taken to the Black and be shown. The Black was a horrible place. Aerrow had been there once, the day his father died. The One had played his sick little mind game and moved his pawns about, and before Aerrow knew it, he was to be joined. Sometimes he felt as if The One knew everything, and used that to hurt his people. He only felt this sometimes because it was true. The One did know everything, and that included when you were thinking un-faithful thoughts about him. Aerrow took of his hood and placed his cape in the hole in the mud brick hut. He stooped down to shove it in tightly. His home was quaint, but it needed a little help resiting to rain. Aerrow stood and started to make himself a warm cup of water. Clean water was hard to come by, so when it rained, he drunk it warmed up to keep his health and body heat, and leave room for more water in the tank out back.
There was a knock at the door. The only one who ever knocked was someone of Nell. The Black Takers, The Ones little pawns, never bothered. They just swarmed in in ghostly form and took you. Anyone from Nall wouldn’t come to his house in the first place. They would be glad when he was Nell, as was customary when you joined to a woman. You adopted their community, religion, and name. Aerrow put his cup down and went to open it. There she stood. She was shivering from the cold, and her hair was drenched to a dark blood colour and sticking to her back. Aerrow stood back and adopted a gracious and worried smile, and gestured for Phoenix to enter.
She nodded and forwarded into my home, muttering “Gracious.”, as she placed her coat in the hole in the wall.
“Gracious, Phoenix of Nell. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Aerrow asked casually, though his head was feeling nothing of the sort. Phoenix blushed at this. She did not like it when she was reminded of her heritage, but it sounded so charming when he said it.
“Just Phoenix, please.” She corrected. She walked herself into the kitchen and poured herself a warm glass of water. No one from this world ate anything. If they did, it was always bland and tasteless. The One had taken away all life’s little pleasures. So why did she find pleasure in talking to Aerrow?
She turned around and saw him leaning against the wall, looking at her with a frown on his face.
“I wanted to talk to you.” Phoenix clarified in answer to Aerrows unspoken question, and the spoken one too.
He nodded and went into her bedroom to find a blanket to wrap her in. He was so confused. What did she want to talk about? Did she just happen to end up at his house after being caught in the rain?
She had lost sight of him. He had walked up. Did she upset him? Of course, she could only naturally assume that. Worrying was her second nature.
She walked forward and placed her cup on the floor. She had a view of what he was doing now. He was getting out some sort of sheet from a hole in the wall. She flicked her drenched darker-than-its-usual-colour red hair out of her face, smiling to herself. He was getting her a blanket from the rain. Smiling wasn’t someone anyone around the place they lived did very often, let alone city folk Nell people.
They were always frowning. Every year, they would try again to build their cities out onto the salt plains separating the two cities. Not this year. This year they had a ruler. A selfish man if you ever did meet one, and Phoenix would know. He was her brother. But she had severed all connection s with her family years ago. They wanted nothing to do with her. They had kicked her out, tossed her on the street, because she was bad luck. She was colour. Her hair was why everyone hated her. She took pride in this fact, and no matter how much her family begged her, she wouldn’t cut it off. The One knew this. It was all part of his sick little game. But she could not erase her title. She would forever be Phoenix of Nell, and this would forever haunt her. This moment her people were plotting to overthrow Nall. Phoenix despised every one of them. For years they had left the ‘lesser’ (according to everyone who was of Nell) people on the other side of the salt plains alone. And now her idiot brother was starting a war against them. He was clever, though, playing everything exactly right. One push from The One and the war could fall either side.
Phoenix snickered. It was the only evil kind of laugh anyone had heard for years, and she didn’t know any different. She ran for Aerrows back, jumping on it like she used to do with her brother when they were little. It was a sign of affection where she came from, so she wasn’t exactly sure where it came from. She barely knew this man.
Aerrow felt the pressure of her on his back. What on Darkeira? He was not familiar with her cultures, so he knew nothing of what she was doing now. He lost his footing and fell to the floor, face first. A strange sound rose to his throat. It was happy, bubbling, and completely alien to him. She was making the same noise. Somehow, it felt good. He felt happier. Was that possible, just by laughing? He realised what it was. It was laughter, but not the kind of evil smirks and snickers he was used to. This was something different. It was instinctual when something funny happened. They lay on the floor for several minutes, just laughing. Laughing because it felt good, and laughing because they were laughing. That, in itself, was odd.
