The Famoux

Chapter 2

Most of the time, I look for Cora.

Today I find her where she usually is: On the steps of the abandoned building where a rusting sign informs that it used to be a church, whatever that is. It's just another remnant of the place before Delicatum.

We don't know much about the geography of it; only that Eldae used to be called North America, and that Betnedoor used to be Asia, and Notness, Europe. Old globes tell us there's much more of this planet to be discovered, but no one has the desire to. I'm located in what was once Louisiana. We learn about it all the time in school--Trulivent used to be known as the French Quarter, Red just outside of it. Clarus is part of a much larger body of water, what they called the Mississippi River.

In the dead middle, the overwhelmingly large Eldae is where our government resides, in a sector all its own. They call themselves the Establishment, although most would call Eldae a country with no establishment whatsoever. They're really just a long row of rulers who barely lift a finger at our cries for help. The only thing they do is warn us when the next Darkening will happen.

"Hey Emilee," Cora greets as I walk up.

"Hi Cora," I reply, sitting down on the step below her.

Cora Loress is the closest thing I have to a friend. A friend, in its loosest terms. She sees the world through pessimistic, age-appropriate brown eyes. I'm the twang of poorly executed, barely honest optimism that sparks all our pointless banters. She'll see something negatively, and I'll try and find the better in it until I give up and agree that the world is pointlessly painful and purposely poignant. It's almost a game we play.

For a whole year we didn't speak to each other at all, but as time progressed we became what we are to the other: a person of safety; a person to rant to. She still ignores me at school, but I don't really blame her. I'm a freak of nature. Even for a girl who dislikes her peers, I'm not exactly the greatest picking when it comes to companionship.

"The Darkening's tomorrow," I say.

Cora runs a hand through her not-age-appropriate inky hair and nods. "Yes," she says. "I wonder how long it'll be this time."

"The Establishment predicts a few weeks," I answer.

She exhales. "The weather works in strange ways, eh?"

I grab a small rock from the ground and toss it from one hand to another. I always feel the need to occupy myself with something when I talk to her. "It surely does."

"We have a war to thank for that," says Cora, a sting of anger in her voice, although there's no use for it. I don't understand why, but no one likes to remember why we have these Darkenings in the first place.

It was the catastrophic war that ended the people before us. It ended up taking a toll on our weather patterns. Radioactive chemicals were shot into the air when they dropped bombs on each other, and it looks like those chemicals never really left. Sometimes we have no rain for months. On other occasions it won't stop. And then there are Darkenings. The thick particles of some chemical even intelligent topnotch scientists from Notness cannot decipher decide to bunch together every once in a while and cover the sun for as long as they please.

We live in complete darkness those days. All of Delicatum does.

Well, almost all of it.

I avert all my attention to my stone as it hits my palm and is hurled to the other. It doesn't hurt me, its edges are smooth. "I guess we can't be bitter about it," I say. "How were they to know they'd mess up the weather for the next people? I don't think they ever thought a new race would begin."