Traveler

Artist

Heart pounding, I shoved the piece of ragged paper under a book. Not a moment later, a girl burst into my room, short brown hair bobbing.

I sat back, pretending to be relaxed. In situations like these, there wasn't much choice but to lie.

"Hey," I greeted her. "Something wrong?"

"You'd better not be..." she leaned closer to hiss the word to me melodramatically. "Drawing."

I pointed at the book in answer.

She gave me a disappointed look, or as much as she could, as a girl of hardly nine or ten years. "You know Ma and Da don't like it."

I sighed with something between regret and exasperation. "I'm very aware, Jaiye. That's why I read, remember?"

She looked skeptical. "Yeah, but..."

"But what?" I asked, a bit annoyed and more than a little defensive now.

"Come on." She rolled her eyes. "We both know you don't read half the time you're in here."

I shook my head resolutely. "Yeah, I do."

She shook her head right back at me. "The sooner you stop, the better for all of us."

I stared at the book until the sound of a shutting door told me that my adoptive sister had left.

My 'Ma' and 'Da' were a couple who had taken Jaiye and I into their already-busy family of three. Before, we'd been roaming the streets on our own, just two little girls who depended on each other for survival. Jaiye'd adjusted well to life with a family, bringing in money for Ma and Da from her little jobs. I would've done just fine, were it not for a nasty little habit I'd developed during those lonely nights on the street.

I drew.

I drew the cityscape, and what I imagined the sky'd be like without its polluted glow. I'd heard of stars, but had never gotten the chance to see them. So I drew them.

I drew Jaiye and myself, begging for food and jobs on the street, and I drew our new family once, just to please Ma and Da.

It didn't work.

They lived for things that were practical, and drawing was simply not. It didn't bring in money for the family, and it cost money to get the paper and pencils. I'd argued that I could use coal on rocks. They said it'd take up too much time. I said I'd do it during my free breaks. They said I should be reading. 

So I “read”.

Jaiye, the little traitor, agreed with them. She hounded me just as much as my "parents" did. A couple of times, she outright snitched on me, and those were the nights that I refused to let her sleep with me for refuge from the nightmares.

I always let her back into my room the next night, because I had them too.

She'd stopped snitching on me after a while, but that didn't mean she didn't constantly remind me that I wasn't supposed to be drawing. I could have sword that girl had some sort of telepathy. She always knew.

I sighed and pulled out the piece I'd been working on before my adoptive younger sister had so rudely interrupted me.

It was the train.

As far as I knew, there was no true government where I lived. Some cities set up temporary, tentative governments, but nothing gained power or stayed for long. So our railroads were run-down and rusted, still running on the same technology they'd been running on before the Splitting Wars.

My picture showed the train in all its run-down glory, and I could almost hear those squealing tires, metal against metal, nearly drowning out the signal bells.

A long time ago, the trains were used to carry cargo. Not anymore. Now they carried people. Sure, there were the actual passenger-cars, but more often than not the normal boxcars were filled with runaways, outcasts, and travelers who simply didn't have the money to travel legally.

Luckily for them, “legal” and “illegal” were practically the same thing here.

I'd heard of cities, big ones, further along the tracks, but honestly, I'd never been brave enough to try to find them. Rumors said that these other cities had technology so much more advanced than we could even dream about here, and a society that fit together perfectly. It was heaven, they said.

I decided to draw it. My hand moved along the page, the lead tip of my pencil sketching lines, circles, and dots. Slowly my fantasy became real.

White buildings kissed the sky, which was tinted magnificent shades of indigo and deep blue in my head, but was just dark shades of gray on the paper. On the neatly paved, clean streets, people walked, laughing and joking to each other. Being happy.

The things that struck me most, though, were the stars. Little specks of white in the dark sky. I stared at them for a while, imagining what shapes I could make of them just like little girls did with clouds. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of stars dancing across my landscape like glittering diamonds in the sky, but they were so much more beautiful. 

Finally, I drew myself into the landscape. I was alone, but I was happier than I'd ever been in reality. I stared up at the stars, leaning up against the wall of one sleek white building. There was a pad of paper in one hand and a pencil in the other.

Suddenly I just needed to see the stars. I didn't care how long it took me, how far I would have to travel. I didn't care how much I'd have to lose.

I wasn’t a metaphorical, deep person. But I needed to go. I needed to see.

~*~*~*~

Me again! Hey, guys! Thanks for reading yet again, and thanks in advance for your wonderful follows and reviews!

You've now met our third protagonist, and next in line is the Reader, whose chapter should be coming super duper soon!

If you ever have any questions, just shoot me a review or a PM. I'll respond!

Please review, follow, and vote for me! I try to return the favor.

By the way! I have not been leaving off with true cliffhangers, as you've probably noticed. Well, that's because these begining chapters are to introduce my main characters. Starting with chapter six, I'll give you guys some real action and cliffhangers. Just give me a while. Sorry, using five POVs really takes longer than I'd thought...but it'll work out!

Well, thanks again for staying faithful and reading about Traveler, which you should be finding more about soon. I'd love any tips you have for me, and hope to talk to you soon!

Keep reading!

~Raine