Branded Souls

Chapter One

I sat on the edge of my windowsill, looking out over the city I was born to. Andromeda. Yeah, the name sounds fancy and futuristic, but it's just any old city. No flying cars, no hover boards or anything like that. Just me, myself and...

"Rubin! Come're! "

Kassandra. Great, what does she need me for now? I slid off the sill and shuffled over to where her voice came from in the other room, my feet dragging tiredly over the carpeted floor. Now, if you look up 'perfection' in the dictionary, you'll see a picture of Kassandra plastered right next to the word. She has perfect hair, perfect features, a perfect face, and an even more perfect body. Two D-Cup breasts that, frankly, I was a bit jealous of. Long, wavy brown hair that was the perfect length. I'll admit, I'm a very pretty girl, but I'm nothing compared to her.

"Hey, Ru, come look at this!" She waved me over to where she lay stomach-down on the couch, with her phone in her hand. I shuffled over to her and glanced at who she was texting. I saw a name I didn't recognize, and it had a couple of hearts next to it.

"Kassandra, who is this? I don't recognize his name." I kept my voice steady and calm, despite how nervous I was. I've learned first hand that you couldn't trust anyone in Andromeda.

"Oh, that's because I met him just last night!" She chirped back. "When our eyes met, I knew it was true love!" She explained how they met, and it sounded like something out of a fairytale. I couldn't help but wonder if this fairytale would have a happy ending.

Despite my gut feeling, I decided to play along.

"So... Where did you meet him?" The one thing she didn't bother to include in her story, which I thought was weird to be frank.

I guess she didn't pick up on my seemingly uninterested tone, because she giggled happily responded, "In a club last night! He was so dreamy... Like the Prince Charming to my Juliet..."

I don't know how I'm still alive, but at that moment, it felt like my heart stopped.

The club. That's what she left out.

I asked, "Kassandra...which club exactly...?" I prayed she wouldn't respond with what I was pushing away in my mind. I prayed to... What God? Is there even a God?

"Club PAINT, of course! Did you know that PAINT is an, uh, acro...acron...y-um?" She responded with the cheerful, ditzy manner she always had.

Club PAINT, huh? I guess there is no God.

I kept feeling that pulling in my gut, telling me something was horribly wrong. I knew I would regret pushing away the feeling the first time I felt it.

And I did.

"Kassandra. May I check your arm for just a second?" I didn't want to, at all, but I needed to know.
"You mean my Lifeclock? Oh, sure." She rolled up her sleeve to reveal that she had five minutes left to live.

It felt like time stopped. I watched as Kassandra covered her mouth and started to cry silently. Slowly at first, but then she started to shake and sob. She whined my name, but I just stood frozen in horror.

Then I sighed in broken up breaths. This had happened before. She'd made a wrong move, and her LifeClock had flashed from seventy years to ten minutes. I'd fixed it, though. It's not hard, just go back and fix what you had done, if it's fixable.

I took a deep breath, and tried to speak calmly, though I couldn't keep my voice from shaking. "What did you do, Kassandra?"

She responded to me in small, choked out breaths. "A-All I did was t-text the number the g-guy in the club gave me..."

"Is that it?"

"He asked for o-our coordinates-"
I interrupted her, "You gave him our coordinates?!"

She may be the prettiest color in the box, but she's not the sharpest.

Just then, the door burst open. A grown man stalked in, seeming all calm and casual-like.

I knew I couldn't fix this. I couldn't help her cheat death this time.

Though as I studied him, he looked hesitant, like he was thinking about every step he took. He walked over to Kassandra, still sobbing at my feet. He pulled her up forcefully by her arm, and took it in his. Then he pulled out a knife. Kass started struggling, but the man held her  arm tighter, refusing to let go.

I just stood there. Helplessly. I wanted to do something, anything but...I couldn't.

He stared at me. He stared into my eyes. Then, without breaking eye contact, he killed her. He killed Kassandra. He slit her throat, and blood gushed out of her neck. She fell to the ground, limp and unmoving. I was covered in my best friend's blood. Looks like I couldn't help her cheat death this time. The red numbers on her right arm were all at zero.

The killer...he did something unimaginably stupid right then and there. He let himself fall to his knees onto the bloody floor next to her, then he lay down and put one arm over her body. Then he started crying. He murdered my best friend, then had the...audacity to cry?

I saw the bloody knife right there at my feet. I could have killed him, what with what I felt towards the killer right then. But I didn't. Instead I ran out of the apartment room, shouting for help the whole way. Several people peeked out of their apartment rooms, but none of them bothered, or even dared to leave the safe haven they call home.

I burst through the doors of the apartment building, and ran down the block. I didn't bother yelling for help, I knew no one would, and that would only attract unwanted attention.

'What now? Where do I go?' That question kept repeating in my head, and quite frankly, I had no idea how to answer it. That small apartment room had been my home for six years. I didn't know what to do. Then I started saying it out loud as ran. I should have kept quiet but, I couldn't help it, it just burst out. "Where do I go? What do I do?!"

"I can answer that for you." Suddenly, a gloved hand reached out and covered my mouth. He had a deep, soothing voice, that also had a bit of an edge to it.
"Rubin Itami." He kept speaking. "What an American name for a Japanese person, and a boy's name, nonetheless. Humph, were your parents trying to get you looked down upon?"

His voice was also cold, discomforting. I couldn't help but wonder...would this be the day I died? And I had no idea what he was talking about. 'American, Japanese'? I didn't recognize these words. Then he uncovered my mouth, and before I had a chance to scream, he covered my nose and mouth once more, but with a cloth. I started to black out, but not before I heard the footsteps of several people. Another voice spoke, cheery and slightly high-pitched, although male. I heard his words just before the darkness consumed me.

"We've finally got her!"