All Of Us - Part 1: Summer

Chapter 12 - The Opening

- Evangeline -

"Here you go. Now trace an "E"."

She takes the stick from my hand and traces an "A" in the dirt.

"Aline, that's an "a"."

I stifle a sigh. We have been doing this ever since her arrival - around three hours ago - and she is still struggling with her vowels.

"This, this an E. Now, is this an upper-case or lower-case e ?"

She bites her lip and hesitates, before answering: "Upper, 'cause it's big." She barely hides her smile. "Yes, yes, that is exactly it," I encouragingly reply.

"Lower-case 'e'... That'ld be..." She takes the stick from my hand and draws a letter in the dirt.

"Exactly. That's it."

WIthout bothering to dissimulate it, she grins and leans back.

"Alright, that's good fer today, I think. So, whatta ya wanna hear ? Whose story ?"

I hesitate. "I am not certain I want to hear someone's story today."

She cocks an eyebrow. "But our deal... ?"

"I would rather like to hear what you know about the Opening. If you agree," I add hastily. I know I need to be careful around her - she is the enemy, after all - but I've increasingly been letting my guard down. And I can not do that.

She rubs her hand, pensive. "I ain't got much. Just know the bare minimum." She shrugs. "But I can tell yah what I know, if yah want."

I nod. "Please."

Coughing once, she begins to speak. "Well, I dunno what yah know and what yah don't. So..."

"Just start from the very beginning."

"Alright. Uh, the Opening is a time, not long ago, when people from the Continent began to come to Methron."

The Continent. I have heard of it, of course, but I've always seen it in my mind as a faraway fairyland, a place of myth and legend. People, back at the Castle, told me as a child that Methron was a piece of the Continent which had drifted away, over time, like an untethered cloud. They explained that compared to the Continent, Methron was a tiny island, a speck in a boundless sea. I didn't understand how my country could be so unimportant. Even though I often felt trapped by its small size, it was after all my home. I never asked for further explanation, and they never bothered to give me one. So the Continent, with its four countries far, far away, faded away in my mind. Especially as I began to have other problems to deal with.

"Must have been, what, twenty years ago ? There still are people who lived through it. But they ain't many, and no one are allowed to talk 'bout it."

"Why not ? Sorry," I apologize quickly. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"No biggie," she says, dismissing my apology with a brush of her hand. "I'm not sure how the whole thing began, but it ended because of your father. The Ruby King." An ice chill goes through me. "What do... What do you mean ?"

She bites her lip, embarrassed. "Dunno. Ain't got the details. There was an incident - with an Untamed, I think - and he just sent the ambassadors and stuff out."

"Untamed ?" I shake my head. "Those are legends."

She shrugs - "Who knows ?" - and looks at me with those deep green eyes. In the color of her irises I see the luxurious shade of the forests in which the Untamed, according to myth, are supposed to live. The monsters have been part of Methronian culture for generations, their origin lost to time. It is said that they are blood-thirsty, ravenous mutts, a particular hybrid between a wolf and a bear, and that they only come out of the forest to the sharp stench of blood. Only a commoner would believe such a story. I look back at Aline, back at her sun-touched hair and freckled nose. Suddenly, she doesn't seem so common at all.

"Aline ? Yah can leave now. My turn."

The girl looks up in time to see Ian appear. She twists back to face me, panicked. Opening her eyes wide, she looks into mine, then stares at the dirt on the floor. Then she looks at me again. What does she want ? Suddenly, it dawns upon me. The writing ! She wants me to erase the letters we traced for Ian not to see them.

Too late. Ian notices the dirt. Squatting down, he prods the dirt with his finger, then turns to Aline.

"Wha's this ?"

She starts to devour her lip, all the while sending looks in my direction. She looks desperate. I need to intervene.

"Aline brought me dirt. I was feeling bored."

Ian still seems skeptical. "Why did you trace these symbols in it ?"

Wait... Does he not know how to read either ? I blink.

"So ? Yah gonna answer ?" His tone turns harsh. He usually waits till Aline is out of earshot to commence his monologues of threats, but who knows ? Maybe he could begin right now, in front of her.

"They are drawings." I quickly look at Aline. "Mere drawings." He squints and twists his head. "Shitty drawings," he decides aloud. He is convinced. Aline's chest heaves with relief, and she looks at me briefly. "Thank you," she seems to say before she gets up and walks away. Ian sits in her place and stares at me. Since I asked him for his past, he has been threatening me less. I am grateful, but I have no idea as to why, and it worries me. Is his silence a sign that I have angered him even more ? Is he focusing instead on an assasination plan ?

As for my plan to escape, I still have not found anything concrete. Any draft I think of must immediately be discarded. The camp is a closed cave - there is only one way out. That equates to me needing to go through the entire hallway of rooms, the gargantuan cave with that lake, and then to find a way to get the mechanism to work and open the rock. I sigh out loud. How am I going to get out ?

Ian stirs and I instantly grow wary. I need to keep my mouth shut around him. He leans forwards and looks intently at me.

"A problem, princess ?" he snarls, threat underlining his voice.

"No-no. Not at all."

He snorts and sits back. Crisis averted.

I slouch into a more comfortable position and grab my book. Flipping to the right page, my fingers brush the paragraphs and sentences, till my right index stops at one word. Opening.

I try to focus on the book and do get past a page before my thoughts drift away, back to what Aline told me this time. The Opening... There is so much I do not know. Entire periods of history - like the Opening - were hidden from me as I lived inside the Castle. But I am catching up - every day, Aline tells me a bit more about her Methron. About the real Methron.

And every time I close my eyes, my mind castle seems to crumble a bit more.