Snippets

Chapter 4

"I'm your future."

Now I wished I could slap him for real. The urge only grew as that goofy grin of his climbed into place once more. So this was my assignment, per say. I dearly hoped it would be short-lived.

"So enlightening." My tone was flat, betraying nothing, "So tell me, future, what's my future?"

Future grinned at me again, "That, dear Shaffron, is for you to find out!" He nudged me toward the door, casually guiding me by the elbow as we entered into the heat of the day. I coughed at the dust thrown up by the feet of other pedestrians on the broken roads of Fallohn, and my mind reeled in the sudden heat, taking me back to a day so long ago...

"Hurry up, Papa! We're going to be late!" I squealed, squirming from my father's grasp and grabbing my younger sister's hand in an attempt to hurry her. It worked, and soon even the rate of my Father's steady footfalls had increased.

My sister laughed as I tugged her along the pristine new road in Fallohn, excited because today the city would name this road. I memorized every footfall I took, admiring the way the sunlight glinted on the new surface. It was rare for a tiny town like ours to get a new road, and because of that the city council made a big deal of it. Each family was allowed to submit a name to the city. The city elders reviewed the names and chose their favorites. From then on out, it was a game of chance as the mayor pulled a name at random from a jar. The name our family submitted was in that jar. My Daddy told me so, but I'm not allowed to tell that to anyone. The name was on my breath as I walked, its syllables punctuating my every step, making my heart leap in my chest. After all, it was the name I had suggested.

The new road was over far too soon, and along with it the beat I had pumped out with my feet. Dust met my sandals as I stepped into the town square, looking back over my shoulder at my little sister, Eliza. She was grinning up at me, as excited as I was.

Words failed me. I could only return the grin. To an eight year old, having the name they suggested in that jar was the biggest thing to ever happen in their adolescence. Although really, the road in general was the biggest thing to ever happen in any of our lives, except to oldest generations, who had lived through Belarme's various civil wars, economic failures and pretenses at success.

Suddenly, an ear-piercing screech brought me back from my mind-wanderings. I turned toward the center of the town square, looking for the source of the sound, witnessing the town elders' sudden panic to get off the stage set up over the broken town fountain. I watched curiously, registering the feeling of broken glass raining down on my face. Looking up, I noticed a dark cloud bursting above me, revealing blackness. The blackness crawled quickly across the sky, the shards of odd material raining down in sync with the darkness' advance. I noticed the blackness had shiny things in it. Twinkly, bright, white things.

"Stars!" a very old man gasped, tears come to his eyes, and he fell to his knees, weeping.

A sound like metal rain replaced the screeching, and I turned to comfort my sister, who cried relentlessly. For reason unknown to me, I was devastatingly calm as I pulled the girl to me, frowning as she wrapped her arms around my leg, which constricted my movement.

"Sissy it hurt me! Look, I'm bleeding!"

I quickly surveyed her bare arms and face, taking in the tiny nicks of red that dotted her features. I rubbed a hand over my own face and nodded knowingly when I found my hand red with blood.

"Oh hush, Eliza, it's only a little scratch." I patted her arms and face with my best Sunday dress, mentally grimacing at the thought of the tongue-lashing I'd get later for having blood on this prized possession. Eliza whimpered a little, watching as the rest of the sky turned black, leaving us in darkness. A shiny, pale half-disk hung in the sky, looking awfully like a bowl of milk, and seeming to give off the same weak, pale kind of light as the star things.

Yet when we arrived back home only moments later to find all electricity gone, I was surprised to see that after cleaning up, there were no lacerations in my skin, though my dress was covered in red.

Later, I would remember it as the last rain I had ever felt, though if I could call it rain, perhaps I would never know.

Finding my face ground into the dirt was not a pleasant way to come back to the present, and as I spit out the gritty dirt that had collected in my mouth, I was shocked to hear brutal yelling.

"You dare to touch her, you fool!" the voice, which I recognized to be Future's, was laced with barely-controlled rage.

A strong grip lifted me to my feet like a sack of potatoes, and I expected to see the face of Future again, but was met instead with the sleek, grey stubble of my manager at the bazaar, Hawkins. I lifted my chin in greeting, my smile weak at the vicious light in his eyes, and I remembered the words he had spoken to me recently. A traitor, he had called me. My heart leaped suddenly as he opened his mouth to say something.

Something was, fortunately or unfortunately, met with a fist that filled the entirety of Hawkins' mouth. My jaw dropped as his eyes bulged in surprise, jerking to the source of the fist: Future.

My jaw stayed dropped for several moments longer until it my tongue was nearly dry from the speed at which I was being forcefully walked away, Future's hand firmly guiding me.

"What was that about?!" I finally managed after looking back over my shoulder to see a crowd gathering around the fallen Hawkins.

Future didn't reply for a while, then he looked at me, and I was startled at the protective gleam in his eye, "Your blood." He growled quietly. The way had quickly cleared of passerby's, who had given us a wide berth and whispered nonsense to each other behind open palms as we ignored the, and we arrived at the entrance of town in good time. Joining the absent foot traffic on the main 'highway,' if the broken shale-covered ground could be called a highway.

My thoughts turned to his reply as I watched the sun touch the first of the tall red peaks in the distance: why was everything coming back to my blood? Well, where was the harm in asking? "Yeah that's what Kiza seemed to think too. What's so special about it?"

Future glanced sharply at me, surprise raising his eyebrows impossibly high for a brief moment before he frowned, and they furrowed so deeply I almost lost sight of his eyes, "I expected she would have told you about that... but maybe she's saving it."

He seemed to be talking more to himself than to me, but I was curious that he knew who I was talking about. "Do you know her too?!" I asked, suddenly eager. Perhaps... perhaps... so many possibilities! What if he knew my parents? Knew what really happened to them? Wait, why did I think something else had happened to them?

My frantic questions were cut short by his rough laugh, "Know her?" he smiled, and if I were any judge of facial expression, I would definitely say it wasn't a happy smile, "Oh yeah, we're quite well acquainted. Now, move those feet a little faster, I hate being on the highway after dark and we only have an hour of walking time before that sunshine sinks fully behind those mountains. That should give us enough time to get to that shabby town south of Fallohn."

I raised my eyebrows at his knowledge of the territory around Fallohn. For having never seen him in or around town, he seemed to know an awful lot about the town layout and surrounding country, even how long it took the sun to fall the rest of the way past the mountains after it first touched! Deep in contemplation of who this Future could be, I was surprised at how quickly we reached the small town. The evening was uneventful, we boarded in a hostel on the main street (and only street) of the town, and no other words were spoken between us, though I lay up late listening to the creaking of another roommate as they shifted on their thin mattress.