Dark.
His eyes stare into hers through the screen.
His lips move as his olive green gaze pierces through the glass, so intense that she can almost feel it land on her. He moves slowly, like a predator, seemingly aware of everything around him, not needing to divert his gaze from the lens. The self-assurance of someone who's never had anything to fear oozes off of him as he speaks, the restless tapping of his finger on the lectern being the only indication of a slight nervousness.
"It was brought to my attention that Asher Markberg was unfortunately found dead last night," he says, the name rolling off his tongue with rehearsed ease. "I want to reassure the citizens of Northfair that, although it seems to be confirmed from early investigations that no foul play is involved, every step will be taken to ensure the safety of everyone in the city and outside."
She scoffs. She won't be won over by an elegant speech and a suit as dark as coal, a strategic performance with no reason to exist if not to trick the population into believing his words.
He's good. He's so good, she knows that, and it makes her so angry. She can almost believe he cares. Almost.
His stare is still, and if she didn't know better she'd say he's reading the sentences he lets out. But she knows he isn't. He's too talented for that, too manipulative to ever give the slightest hint of his lack of sincerity.
He takes another breath, but before a single other lie can come out of his mouth the screen turns black, and so does the world around her.
"Alouette?" A shaky silvery voice says in the darkness.
"I'm here," she replies, standing up from the bed and checking under it, letting out a relieved breath when her fingers touch the cold plastic of the torch hidden under there. She pulls it out and turns it on, illuminating the dark chocolate brown eyes of her little sister of a warm golden light.
Amina looks at her, a sulky but surrendered expression on her face. Even at her young age, she knows that neither shouting nor crying will make the light turn on again.
"Stay here, okay? I'll go see what's wrong," Alouette tells her, putting the lightened torch in her smaller hands. "Don't wander outside, I promise I'll be back as soon as possible."
The little girl sighs but nods, so the older girl stands up and carefully walks to the front door, a hand in front of her not to crash into anything in the dim light.
She makes it to the door and opens it, quickly stepping outside and closing it behind herself. The silence in the corridor is deep, a deep red light the only source of illumination, making Alouette feel like she's in Hell. She wouldn't be surprised, if that was the case.
She shakes her head, willing the unpleasant thoughts out of her mind, knowing they're the last thing she needs in that moment, and walks down the corridor in the red light, so dark that for an instant she wonders if it's actually giving her a better view of what's around her or not.
She takes a couple of turns, trying to move as fast as possible, not wanting to leave Amina alone for too long. Many of the doors on her left are open, the residents of those rooms have wandered out as well, but she doesn't meet anyone.
The silence becomes more and more feeble the closer she gets to the generator, until it disappears completely in a mixture of loud voices and clinking sounds. She takes one last turn and walks towards the metal door quickly, but it opens before she can reach it, and a young man comes out.
"Elijah? What's going on?" Alouette asks him rapidly, a worried look into her eyes.
He sighs. "The price of electricity was dramatically raised again and the representative didn't pay, so our area was cut off," he explains, closing the door and putting a hand on her arm, encouraging her to walk away. "Don't worry Al, we'll fix it tomorrow."
"We'll just hang on until then," Alouette replies, biting the inside of her cheek to calm herself down. "Fuck, what an asshole. What does he even need the extra money for?"
Elijah rolls his eyes. "Probably another one of his jets," he jokes, scoffing. "On a honest note, it's probably payback for trashing the railways in the south-east."
"What, those things still work? They've been there for centuries."
His face breaks into a devilish smirk. "Well, not anymore."
Alouette chuckles. "He only used them to bring in what we produce, they won't be missed."
"Tell that to the electricity," he mumbles. "Hey, do you want to go on the roof? You can bet Dacran is fully enlightened tonight, it'd be nice to go there for a while before hiding into the darkness again."
Alouette hums. "Sometimes I wonder if we're people, or mice," she comments, but follows him anyway as he walks through the corridors, bathed in the red light.
"Do you really want to know what he thinks of us?" Elijah replies, looking at her from over his shoulder. "I bet he's sure the only reason we exist is to run on his fucking stupid wheel."
She sighs. "I miss before." They reach the set of stairs on the east side of the headquarters and make their way up quickly, not wanting to be seen by anyone.
They've always done that. Even when they were younger, they loved to run away from the control of their parents at night and go on the roof, the only place where they could have an appearance of freedom, where everything didn't seem so mechanical and soulless. But they weren't allowed out there, so they had to make sure nobody could see them sneak out every single time. Those moments were one of the most thrilling experiences Alouette could remember.
They get on the top floor and Elijah pushes the door open with some difficulty. It doesn't even open completely before they're thrown into the light of Dacran.
The city isn't even that close to their building, many miles separate them, but its bright lights are perfectly seeable from where they are, illuminating the night like a lighthouse in the middle of a storm.
Alouette sighs, walking to the end of the roof and sitting on the little wall, a moth on the floor on one side of her, an overhanging on the other, that ends on the asphalt of the street below. "Look at that, fully powered," she murmurs, glaring at the shiny reality in front of her.
"All the major cities are," Elijah replies, defeat in his own voice. "Dacran, Pans, Greenside... Northfair, too."
"Of course he keeps his beloved Northfair well enlightened at night," Alouette mutters. "It's easy to do that while he does nothing but raise the prices everywhere else. How can he even think people can pay that amount? The majority of us can't find jobs or make a decent amount of money. And then the government gets surprised criminality is the highest it's ever been."
"Such a fucking bastard," Elijah says, sitting next to her and crossing his legs. "I can't wait for the day he'll be deposed. Styles will be the death of this country."
Alouette nods, even though she knows the chances of it happening are close to nonexistent. "Did you listen to his speech tonight, by the way?"
Her friend shakes his head. "I was at the generator with my father, I missed it. What did he say?"
"Asher Markberg is dead," she tells him, not missing the shocked look he sends her way. "He said there was no foul play involved, but how much do you wanna bet that he killed him?"
"Wouldn't be the first time," Elijah murmurs menacingly. "What else did he say?"
"I don't know, the power was cut off."
He hums, pulling his phone out of the pocket of his trousers. "Let's check," he says, unlocking it and quickly searching up the date of today on the Internet, clicking on the first video that comes up.
"It was about halfway through," Alouette instructs and he nods, moving the little dot on the bar and pressing play.
Those damned green eyes fill the screen again, a magnetic force in his stare as he speaks in an harsh but steady tone, and Alouette isn't even paying attention to what he's saying anymore, even though she's pretty sure he's threatening the Revolution.
He knows they're weak with Markberg dead and he's taking advantage of it, trying to turn the rest of the population against them. He chooses his words carefully, threading every statement after the other like a pearl necklace built towards their demise.
She hates it. Studious behaviour rehearsed in hell.
"Who do you think he's talking to?" Alouette finds herself asking. "Because for sure the Revolution doesn't pose a threat to the citizens."
Elijah hums, locking the screen of his phone after the speech ends. "I fucking hate him," he says venomously. "You know this will start a war, right? Markberg was our last resource, and he killed him. Ezra has already scheduled a meeting for tomorrow."
She groans, looking up to the sky. The only positive thing about not having electricity is that she can see a multitude of stars above her head, little spots of fire in the dark blanket of the night. "I'll have to ask Elodie to watch over Amina, so I'll be able to attend as well."
"I'm sure she will," he replies, and she nods.
"I should go back, Amina is waiting for me in our room." She stands up again and jumps back onto the roof, offering her friend a little smile before walking back inside.
While she walks back to her room the power comes back all of a sudden, a bright fluorescent light substituting the red one in the shard of an instant, almost blinding her.
She blinks a few times, trying to get used to it as she walks into her hallway, walking to her room and opening the door slowly, peeking inside.
Amina is still sitting on the bed with the light on, where she left her, and she smiles brightly at her as soon as she sees her. "Al! The light is back on!"
Alouette smiles. "The power was only cut off for a little while, it wasn't anything major," she tells her sister, covering the truth with half a lie as she walks inside, frowning when she sees the television is back on as well, showing images of him. She turns it off quickly, feeling like she might start breaking things if she sees his face one more time.
She turns her head, discovering that Amina is looking at her with an unreadable look in her eyes.
"Why does everyone hate him so much?" she then asks, surprising her, and she raises her eyebrows, not really knowing what to reply to that question.
"You see," she starts to say, a bit unsure, sitting next to her sister on the bed, "he isn't a good person. Everything was so much better when he wasn't here. Now he's doing many bad things, making life very hard for many people."
"That's scary," Amina murmurs, hugging her little stuffed toy. It's a white bunny, one of the last presents their father got her, and she can never sleep without it.
"No, no," Alouette says, realising that she'd inadvertently scared her. "You don't have to be scared. We are safe here. We are hidden from him."
The little girl widens her eyes. "Hidden?"
Alouette nods. "The bad people don't know where we are, we're fine. He can say a lot of bad things about us and our friends on the television, but we know they aren't true," she tells her. "Dad founded the revolution to fight against bad people, not innocent ones, as they make it out to be."
"Dad is gone," Amina says lowly, and Alouette can feel her own heart break.
"It was a bad accident," she replies quietly, trying not to let her voice break as she speaks. "It was no one's fault."
"I miss him," her sister murmurs, hugging the bunny tighter.
Alouette blinks a couple of times to get rid of the sudden wetness in her eyes. "I miss him too, Ami," she whispers. She stands up, clearing her throat, trying to push back the sudden wave of emotions that washed over her. She can't seem upset in front of her little sister, that would only make her sad. "You should go to sleep, it's late. Brush your teeth first, though," she instructs.
Amina nods and runs into the bathroom, but it isn't long before she comes back out. "The tap doesn't work," she says in reply to the confused look her older sister sends her.
Alouette frowns, following her into the bathroom and turning it on herself, furrowing her eyebrows when no water comes out. "Bastard," she mumbles under her breath, walking into the bedroom and taking a bottle of water from the nightstand. "You can use this," she says, giving it to the little girl, that takes it and disappears in the other room.
When she comes back, Alouette tucks her into her bed and shuts off the main light of the room, turning on the torch they'd left on the blanket and taking a book from the nightstand before going to sit on the windowsill.
The glass was painted black a long time ago to keep people from looking inside, but to this day she hasn't been able to get rid of her nighttime habit.
She brings her knees to her chest, grazing the old and ruined cover of the book. It's a collection of poems that belonged to her father, one of the few items she still has that remind her of him.
The pages are fragile and yellow, and she really doesn't know why her dad loved that book so much, but she could never throw it away. It's still a piece of him, after all. Over the past couple of years she matured the habit of reading a poem or two before going to sleep, just to feel closer to him for a little while.
She opens the first page, frowning at the sentence scribbled at the bottom of it. She knows her father wrote it there, but she could never understand what it means, so she always wrote it off as some kind of passing thought he decided to impress on the piece of paper. She passes a finger over the letters, rereading it in her head for a few times, as she developed the custom of doing.
Run from the silence.
Alouette sighs, shaking her head and opening the book to a new poem.
Some necessary settings before the start of the story. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. x
Miki