The Clockwise City

Chapter 1

Ryden stopped, turning around to face me. He crossed his arms over the OAHF uniform, wrinkling the thin, bright orange material. "Then come with me," he said, sighing dramatically.

I jumped up and down giddily with my hands in the air, squealing. It was too dull of a surrounding for him to be so sullen, so I had tried to perk it up.

"Shut up Kaila!" he screamed at me in as much as a whisper as was possible, showing his anger.

I cringed, afraid of his temper. This was why my mother told me it was a bad idea. She knew of his anger and feared for me, but I loved him and only him.

A minimum of the white lights are left in our quarter of the city. Only a single line hasn't rotated to the other quarter. Once it moves over, there will be a four hour break until it starts moving back to us again in its clockwise ways.

Ryden's light brown eyes softened. He wrapped his arm around my waist. "Come on, my little girl. I know just the place," he murmured, just as the white stars were completely replaced with the red.

Darkness flashed into my eyes as soon as the last bright lights were turned out of our quarter of the city. Within moments, my eyes adjusted. Blackness with a blush of red lighted the corner rooftops of this aging end of the city.

He pulled me around buildings, his arm pressed into my back to guide me. I felt a chill go up my spine at his touch. He asked if I was cold, but I just shook my head.

 People were gone from the streets, unlike daytime. The black, cracked paved streets were oddly empty. Street corners were clear with the exception of the lonely trash or empty bins. The emptiness was something new to me, considering it was my first time out after the red lights shift to my quarter of the city.

"Can we please slow down, Ryden?" I asked him, trying to dig the heels of my shoe into the ground to make myself stop.

My heel caught on a crack in the ground, making me nearly fly forward. I felt Ryden's arm wrap completely around my body, his strong hand pulling back on my stomach.

He pulled me back, lifting my feet above the ground for a few moments before placing me in front of the crack that had tripped me moments before.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness. I could see the outline of one of his rare warm smiles. Ryden's arm snaked its way back, stopping it right above my hips.

"Thanks." I said to the shadow of Ryden. He grunted in reply, leading to my guess that his smile was now gone.

Finally, we came to an alley, so thin that I could almost feel the walls pressing against me already. "Do...do we have to go in there?" I asked him. Any courage left in me now shriveled to nothing.

"Yes. On the other side is a big area, very private," he replied, his voice rough from whispering for so long.

The alleyway was pitch black, no red lights seeped into the tight place. No light showed on the other side of the tunnel-like alley. I saw the outline of the two buildings that were nearly pressed together, so close that my front door wouldn't even fit in between if it tried. Heck, half of it could not fit in the alley.

Ryden's hand pressed on my lower back, pushing me forward an inch. I stumbled forward, my shoulder brushing against the side of one of the buildings. The rough wall scratched the side of my arm, the uneven edges digging in to my skin. I tried to move my other arm to feel for any blood but I found that the arm was wedged between the other side of the wall and my body.

Immediately I began to panic. Squirming, I heard my heart beating, increasing in speed the more I panicked. I felt my heart rise to my throat. Taking a deep breath, I held it, hoping it would make me disappear.