When Secrets Hinder Love

Chapter One

They surged into the room after the horrifyingly familiar sound. They all knew it. Something was wrong. Sure enough, as they ran in they found the white, luminous tiles slowly being corrupted by a growing pool of dazzling red blood. The body – they recognized the body.

Oh, the trouble they had gotten themselves into.

 

***

Mara walked. Putting a foot in front of the other, she walked. She looked up at the clock on the JumboTron by the street: 7:40, the glowing numbers read. Twenty more minutes to curfew. The ridiculously bright JumboTron seemed so out of place compared to the clustered, littered streets and the old, battered houses. Once again Mara wondered why the government had wasted precious resources just to put it there.

She was on her way to Adelaide’s house, just a two minute walk away from hers. They both lived in the slums after all. Adelaide was Mara’s best friend in the whole wide world. Yet she had kept a secret from her. Mara felt guilty every day, but Mother made it clear: it was too risky to tell anyone.

Mara was on her way to Adelaide’s house to say goodnight, like they always did. In the slums, there really wasn’t much to do at all anyway, but to talk to people. The slums were so slummy that the Regianites didn’t even bother naming it. It was just called ‘the slums’. Sure, the government sometimes rationed food and water and other supplies, but really, it was only because they didn’t know what else to do with them. The rich people seldom hired those from the slums, and even then they were only jobs for menial work. From what Mara had heard, the rich people treated them like poop heads. Those snobby brats.

As Mara reached the doorstep, she knocked softly and waited. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a guard patrolling the area, eyes on her. That was rare; they didn’t often see the guards. The expression on his face was full of disgust – not even the guards and people who gave out the rations liked them. That was probably why they only bothered to send one or two guards at once to make sure the people kept to curfew and the other rules. After all, the slummers had long resigned from trying to break the rules. At least, that was what the government thought. The door opened, stopping Mara’s train of thought. By the doorway stood a girl with fiery red hair and hazel-brown eyes.

“Hey, Mara,” she said, “come in.”

Mara obeyed. “Sorry I haven’t been free all afternoon. We had a huge amount of housework to do. Mother was working, and we haven’t cleaned up in a long time.”

“Oh, no worries,” Adelaide grinned, showing yellow teeth. “I was walking around, and you won’t believe what happened.”

***

Adelaide walked. She was so bored, like she always was without Mara.  It was late afternoon and the guards were nowhere to be seen, as usual. She wove through the houses, looking down at the dusty ground that was littered with wrappers of rationed food, other flotsam and jetsam and… was that a blob of human dung?

As Adelaide walked further, the smell wafted into her nose and it confirmed that yes that was a piece of dung. She half-snorted, again wondering who would plop a crap just there, but she was so used to seeing such things that she didn’t bother even wrinkling her nose. Just then she spotted, about fifty meters away, a figure that was not common to the slums as everything else there was. It was a person, tall and thin, sporting clothes all black – including a hood. It was walking towards her, looking down at the ground. She continued to walk towards it, quietly. As they neared each other, she opened her mouth to say, “Hey, I haven’t seen you round before. Who are – ”

Just as she spoke, the figure seemed to look up, suddenly notice her, and it broke into a run. Not before she caught it by the arm though. Its face was still covered by the huge hood.

“Hey,” Adelaide scowled, “it’s rude to ignore people like that. Us in the slums, we gotta stick together against those rich snobs.”

The figure tried to tug its arm away. When that didn’t work, it sighed and said, “Sorry, ma’am, I’m in a hurry.” The voice revealed the figure to be male. It sounded familiar.

“No you weren’t,” Adelaide said matter-of-factly. “You only started running when you saw me.”

He tugged against his arm again to no avail, and seemed to begin to protest, when Adelaide quickly used her other hand to pull his hood away. She gasped at what she saw. She’d seen that face so many times before on that blasted JumboTron. It was the President’s son.

Thayer Vaclav.