NAOMI
When she finally arrived at her stop, Naomi exited the train and saw the gray attire of the Warden Agents stationed at the transit. She could not resist the urge to scrutinize their uniforms, judging them based on the exactness of their emblem and epitaph measurements. Of course she rarely found the neatly trimmed guards lacking. In fact, the agent's acknowledgment of her arrival were the most pleasant parts of her day.
After she descended the stairs from the transit, Naomi simply boarded the bus, dozed through the long ride, and hopped off near the main road that led to her neighborhood. What awaited was a path that wound through the landscape until, upon entering a well-gardened stretch of road, Naomi saw the entrance to her community.
When Naomi passed the gold colored signage and entered a large gate, she stepped into what most might have considered a paradise. The sidewalk she walked upon were wide, and they gave way to small, cozy manors that could be seen along roads of cobble. Each home was preceded by an acre of land, and every inch was tended by laborers paid in the prestige alone. Thanks to their tireless efforts, no plant remained unpruned for too long, but the same could not be said for the greenery outside the property line.
Fertilizer was often applied to keep the lawns lush all year round. This meant that seeds seem to burst like nature bombs. The plants that bloomed were then shaped by daily trim, but not every seed took root on claimed land. Unkempt growth filled the space between homes and the green had become so thick that shadows loomed beneath the neighborhood forest. These shadows were so imposing that stories would crawl from the darkness. The Dark Wood was an easy name to remember and, if parents were to be believed, phantoms from far beyond their borders dwelled beneath those branches, ready to gobble up disobedient children.
Naomi heard these stories for years and heeded the warnings inherent to their narrative, at least for a time. That was long ago though, before the day she dove into the fabled darkness hoping that the phantoms would take her too. It was a desperate time, and her reasons may not have been entirely sound, but what she discovered behind the veil was not some magical demise, but a place of peace. This was years ago now, and, since then, Naomi had gained a familiarity with the thicket. Even as twilight took the sky, her vision obscured, Naomi stepped off the paved path and into the dark woods.
Indeed. Naomi did not go home upon entering her prestigious neighborhood. First, she would pay a visit to her secret space hidden beyond the forest.
Naomi walked her usual path until she reached a light at the end. From the darkness cast by the standing trees, the girl would enter a scene atop of a verdant hill. The grass along its slopes was tall and it danced to the songs of the breeze. Among those green straws stood a lone oak that grew atop three cresting hill. It too was an outcast, but such conditions gave the solitary tree the room to grow without restraint. The girl smiled a small smile at the sight, and she pressed her forehead against the old oak with an unspoken hope to follow its example. Alas, a wanting sigh spoke more to Naomi's faith than any amount of words.
Miles away, into the distance, Naomi saw York's Divide, the gargantuan wall that spanned land and sea. It was within those walls that this city existed, the Shining City of York. Both were colored a slight hue of purple by the twilight, but the metropolitan glow made the scene a symbol of its namesake. Even now though, as the value of her homeland was laid bare, Naomi continued to peer into the encroaching night that crawled from a world beyond the ocean. Again, she wondered, but the grass soon made a disturbing noise.
What was that? An animal? Naomi fearfully thought.
The snapping of twigs and falling branches were familiar to her. The strange noise that stole her soul now was different. Rustling was the word, but this kind of rustling was not leaves rattling in the wind. Something was here.
The twilight had become an ever-darkening mesh, and, in the midst of the mystery, Naomi felt her heart bash against her ribcage at a hastening pace. She could barely see, so, as if on instinct, the girl choked down her angst, fixed her trembling eyes and listened. She heard nothing. Soon the animals and insects of the night played their nocturnal songs and, eventually, all seemed right.
Was it a trick of the ear? Maybe the slack of her backpack had brushed against her uniform in a weird way. The sun-kissed girl resigned herself to that conclusion the longer the peace went undisturbed. She took a breath and bonked her own noggin before giggling at the needless intensity.
"Well, that's enough daydreaming for me today," said Naomi. She was going to leave, but, before she did, Naomi gave a gentle touch to her chosen tree. "See you tomorrow, Mr. Oakenfield. Don't go anywhere while I'm gone."
The rustling began again!
Naomi ducked and her bright eyes nearly bulged out of her skull. Something is here, She thought. But what? This was her spot. Her secret place. The neighborhood kids would have been far too frightened to come here, especially at the cusp of night. Could it have been someone more her age? No, they would never do as she did. Not after all the things they did and said to her. A burglar! It had to have been a burglar! Maybe even a monster!
No. The monsters she heard about were simply out of the question. Or were they? No! It was a person. It had to have been. Monsters weren't real, Naomi thought. It is a person. Someone I can fend off.
After convincing herself, Naomi mustered the moxie to drive off the culprit she envisioned. Instincts whispered into her ear, commanding her to stay low while she covertly unsheathed the metal bat from her backpack. She crawled to her feet afterwards, the iron rod tight in her grip, and poised herself to swing. She stalked along the broadside of her tree as the sounds of the stirring grew. She could hear it slithering, this unseen snake, until she finally caught a blurb of its feet. Its pants would follow, then the wrinkled rags of a-- "A boy," Naomi thought aloud.
As the moon began to light the intruder, Naomi saw the him clearly. He had a cloak unwound in its knitting and clothes she could only describe as worn. His skin was dark, far darker than she was accustomed, yet he had smooth features that marked their closeness of age. Despite their shared youth, tired bags had begun to imprint beneath his eyes and his jaw was pronounced by how tightly he held it, even when asleep. As her bright eyes followed his contours, they soon captured the prominence of his harshly arched brow and the two-pronged scar that had been sliced into the left one.
Naomi looked at the abrasions then back to the slumbering boy, and her expression glowed. Despite the underlying roughness about him, the stranger ignited a peculiar liking from her senses. Moreover, he was an outsider in her confined world and Naomi could only imagine all the things the dark boy knew. All the things he had seen. She took a gulp as her freckled face began to fill with light red. The boy rolled over, nudging her knee with a foot, and she felt her heart flutter.
Naomi bolted to her feet and squeaked in fright. The warning from the train rang as clear as school bells, and, for an instant, all her wonder melted into a well-ingrained fear. What am I doing, she thought. This is dangerous. She stepped away and her freckled skin suddenly drained of color. The common senses of her city pressed for a swift exit and demanded a dogged search for the nearest Warden Agent. The subliminals seized control of her person, and the girl found her feet hurrying toward the wood line. She was on the cusp of revealing the dark boy and her secret sanctuary all at once, but a slithering feeling gnawed at her heart and pinched at the very muscles that no longer seemed hers.
A reemergence followed and that spark, that slither of her, reclaimed her form. Naomi turned away from the forest edge and the moon bore witness as her knees buckled. She took a breath, made a prayer, and approached the sleeping boy with a cool head ready to properly assess what she saw. When she walked the bend of the large tree and saw him again, Naomi bit her quivering lip. I didn't notice this before, but what's that dark red stuff all over him. I-it can't be. She loomed over him to confirm her grim suspicions. Then the boy's eyes burst open.
Naomi saw a pale gaze and her very soul was struck. Stupefied, confused, and a scared beyond words, Naomi could not react when a great force pushed her away. She tumbled, up, and down, then all around before she was slammed on her back. The thud sent a shock riding up her spine that not even her stuffed backpack could negate. Her school supplies splattered on impact, but her bat remained wedged between the her body and the hard ground. She then felt pressure against her jugular. It was as hand. His hand, crushing her throat.
"You really thought you could sneak up on me," hissed the dark boy. After tackling Naomi, he smashed her head against the grass, knocking her brain into a second fit of confusion. "I may be a little tired after ripping through your goons from before, but I can still hear." His menace was palpable
Suffocation. Strangulation. Death. These words ran through Naomi's mind in capitalized letters of red as one hand struggled against her assailant and the other reached for salvation only God could offer. "Wait," the girl gagged. Her desperate utterance was not very audible, but the boy heard the hoarse plea.
"What?" The boy loosened his grip. "What the? W-who in the world are"--
Bang went the bat against the boy's skull. Naomi did not know what she had grabbed, but, without the time to care, she simply swung. The force sent her assailant flying, and she quickly climbed to her feet with panic causing her to convulse. Her hands clammed and her breaths were too short to matter. Even her bright eyes trembled as they lingered on the body before her.
"Oh no," Naomi whimpered. "No. No-No. No!" She crawled to the body, but the blood that began pouring from his head quickly fell into her hands.
"D-don't be dead," Naomi pleaded. "Don't be dead!" When no movement followed, Naomi could no longer breathe. He was gone. She was a murderer.
Tears rolled down her freckled face, and, in an attempt to repress her mounting distress, Naomi fled the scene and the ghastly sight. The snapping of sticks and the thrashing of leaves could be heard as the girl stole off into the thicket, but it was all just racket to the dark boy. A guttural groan ripped into the forest, following the sun-kissed girl as she fled. When his growls met her ears, her stride extended.
He's a monster, Naomi thought. The conclusion came with an exponential increase in speed and Naomi flew through the shadows as a line of flickering fire. As for the boy, he dragged himself upright like a kid on a school day. He grimaced in the direction of his attacker l as the indention in his skull slowly buffed out. He poked at what had become a mere abrasion and sucked his teeth from the immediate sting.
"That actually hurt," said the moon-eyed boy. He then looked at vanishing girl, far in the dark distance. "She's actually pretty fast too." It was all a genuine shock, but not for long. "Well, whatever," said the dark. He then noticed the mess left in the stranger's wake and rolled his eyes.
"Hey! Don't leave your junk here," he shouted. His ears were losing the sounds of her footsteps. The girl was gone, but her belongings remained. Now fully awake, the mental image of the bat-swinger soured his bitter mood. The boy fell back, rolled to his side, and scoffed. "...Dumb bitch."
. . .
Achim is young, but he has been through a lot. There's a lot to be said about how his experiences has effected him and, when writing him, I often wonder who he would be if he had a different background. In the very least, I image he would smile a lot more.