Empyrean

Chapter 26

Chapter 26-Serena

Imperial Jail

Almost three days after lunch, 27th of Pachon, Year 612

            The guards haven’t come to stop my plan and I am almost ready. The way I plan to escape is by getting a guard to come into my cell, knocking them out, and then taking their keys. I’m sure others have tried, but Mentor didn't train them.

            I have meticulously stayed up day and night for the past three days catching rats, killing them, and putting them in the corner where the slightest bit of sunlight reflects off of the other wall and hits to have them bake in the sun. I have twenty-three dead rats now and the smell is unbearable, just as I was hoping. Now all I have to do is get into position. I throw four of the rats into my shirt and crumple up into the corner where I left the all to rot and then, I wait.

            I wait for two hours before I hear another sound. The guards have opened the door to the hallway. By the irregularities of the footsteps I am able to count three guards. That is more than usual. Before it was only two. This doesn't disconcert me so I just stay in position trying to make it look as best as I can like I am not breathing. Soon the footsteps stop in front of my cell door and I hear the swoosh of the lunch in their hand. After I don't respond they tap the bars. Soon the voices come. “Hey, missy! Wake up!” A first voice says.

            “Ugh! What is that smell? They don't usually smell that bad. Do you think maybe…she’s dead?” A second voice questions. I dare not open my eyes, because it seems as if my plan is working.

            They whisper to themselves for a little bit and then the happiest creak ever resounds through the hallway. After it follows a silence so dead, if a fly were to hiccough I would hear it. I still don't hear any footsteps, so I don't move. Then I hear two of them walk inside the cell. Shit! I think to myself. Now I can’t knock them all out.

            “Oh. Bloody hell! This is definitely the stench of death!” Says one of the guards who entered the cell.

            “Yup.” The second one is nonchalant about it. I assume this has happened to him before. They get closer, and closer, and closer. I can now feel their heat, and if they were paying attention they would probably be able to feel mine, but I know that they aren’t.            

            I spring up flinging dead rats in every direction. The first guard drops to the ground. But the second one seems unfazed. I take a stance and run at him. He blocks the first few punches and kicks without too much difficulty, but my agility is too much and I land a solid knee to the head and he is out like a light. The second guard still hasn't gotten up so I just grab him and bash his head into the wall. He will definitely suffer from a concussion, may even die, but I really don't care. There is even an audible cracking sound. I look outside the open bars to see the final guard. He is standing there, contrapposto attempting to look kind of relaxed. It takes me a second, but I realize that he isn’t even a he. It's a she, but not just any she. It’s Lucy.

            “Lucy?” I say as I step outside the cage for the first time in seventeen days.

            “Yes, it’s me. Are you going to kill me?” She has her hand on her gun and I know that these might be the last words I can say to her as a friend.

            “Of course not! We are friends, aren’t we?” I close the cell door behind me and step away from the bars where the men inside could shoot me if one of them happened to wake up.

            Her grip on her gun tightens and tears form in her eyes. “We will always be friends Serena. But after what you did…I really don't know if you are trying to cause something here.”

            “What I did? What do you mean?” The Prince has obviously been throwing propaganda around while I wasn't there to defend myself. I wasn't even planning to help the Zenith until I learned about the true nature of the City of Light, until I learned of how evil both the Prince and Orion are.

            “On the day before our graduation ceremonies, which never happened let me say, you started this war.” I roll my eyes and she continues with a louder voice. “You told Orion that both the old Emperor and Empress had died in that horrible accident and that now was a perfect time for the lower classes to rebel against their leader.”

            “None of that is true Lucy. The Prince—”

            “Emperor.”

            “The Emperor has just been putting all of that shit into your head so that you will turn against me and have a reason to fight with him.”

            “Why would the Emperor have reason to say anything that isn’t true?”

            “Lucy!” I scream. I know the other cells can hear this with the way that the sound carries. I lower my voice. “You are one of the smartest people I have ever met. You must understand the motives of people are often guided by things that they will never write in their holy book, never say aloud, never acknowledge, maybe even to them to themselves. But I have never known a person who follows a set of rules such the ones we lay out for our rulers. Lír has raped, murdered, and starved those people from times before he was Emperor. I am aware that Orion may be no better, but Lír needs to be deposed. They are elephants fighting on a plain. And right now only the grass is getting hurt.” I sound like Mentor, but I think I like it.

            “I understand what you are saying. But what is Lír’s motive?” Her hand isn’t even close to her gun anymore.

            “I…I really don't know. Power maybe? I am telling you though Lucy. This war is not going to end without more and more bloodshed. Both sides are lead by a person who has the ability to fight, but has nothing to really fight for.” I don't even believe what I am saying, but if it gets her to at least let me go, I will say it.

            “If I am to help you Serena. We need to get both of us out of here alive.” She has pulled her gun out, but it is not pointing at me. It is just at the ready. “Follow me.”

            “You believe me now? That I didn't conspire against the City of Light?” I ask ecstatic that I have one of my old friends on my side.

            “No. You are definitely conspiring against the City of Light. But if Lír is really how you are depicting him, a malevolent despot, then the City of Light deserves to be conspired against.”

            She leads me back out the way that the officers came. We don't pass any of the other cells, but I don't forget them. “Wait. What about the other prisoners? They could help us.”

            “We can’t risk it.” She warns me. When we are down here all three of us are supposed to check in with a voice scan, but the other two will not be doing that anytime soon. So we need to get out as soon as possible.”

            This doesn't sound quite like Lucy. She would have never forsaken lives she thought were innocent. But if these check-ins are required than this might be the only way. I follow on her heels to the brighter, larger main corridor at the top of the flight of stairs that lay in front of me.