The Princess of Light

Chapter 5.11 (The new nightmare)

When the air alarms went off, the young woman jumped at the harsh sound of it.

What's going on?

Absolute pandemonium followed. Everyone was running into another direction. Mothers were desperately gathering their children as they quickly got off the streets.

In their hurry many past her by only an inch and not unexpectedly finally one ran straight into her.

The impact made both of them stumble and the girl was about to fall over when a hand shot out and steadied her. "What d'you think you're doing?" Some male voice shouted close to her ear. "Why are you just standing there?"

She looked up at him and two starry eyes stared back into hers, filled with concern. The colour of his eyes paralysed her for a moment. Eyes weren't supposed to look like that. There was not supposed to be a mix of green, purple and blue that swirled into a deep dark blue like galaxies. There were not supposed to be specks of gold and silver that resembled stars. Eyes were supposed to be one colour, not a freaking painting.

Did this boy not know that?

She opened her mouth to say something...not really knowing what but a sudden blast of hot air and dust made her jump again.

"Fuck!" Cursed the boy. He looked up and as she followed his line of sight, she saw aeroplanes were flying over them, carrying what looked like...bombs. "Quickly!" Shouted the boy in a panic, grabbing her wrist and pulling her in a certain direction.

Once the shock had gone away she started running for her life too and followed the stranger into a narrow street, next to the bakery.

The boy stopped half-way into the street and pulled open what looked like a hatch to a basement.

He jumped in and held open the hatch for her. "Get in!" He shouted and she immediately did as he said as she heard another bomb fall in the distance.

He threw closed the hatch and ran down the stairs. All the way at the bottom was a room. There were already about a dozen people inside, holding each other as the noise of the bombings was heard, even through the thick, cemented ceiling.

The two made their way to the back of the room and leaned against the wall.

"You must be new around here," said the boy after he had caught his breath.

"What makes you say that?" She said, raising an eyebrow.

"The fact you didn't immediately start running the moment the sirens went off," he said with a laugh, but there was something very dark in his eyes. "We're at war, remember?"

"Right," she said, distractedly, "I knew that,"

"Can't imagine how you could've forgotten," he said, resting his head back against the stone and closing his eyes, "war seems to be everywhere,"

She carefully planned her next words as she said, "I didn't forget. I'm just not usually outside, having to search for a bomb shelter,"

"Ah, I knew I recognised that uniform from somewhere," he said, opening his eyes and looking down at her body, "you're a Rosewood girl,"

"And you are a..." she examined what he was wearing, "grey sack?"

"I'll have you know this is one of the fancy grey sacks," he said, with humour in his eyes, not having taken any offense by her words, "I'm too big for the old ones, so they had to hand-make mine," he closed his eyes again, "after all, we can't all be as lucky in life as you lot."