Chapter 1: Last Words
"I love you too..."
Those were the last words she said to me. The sound of my 21 year old sister's body hitting the ground would play in my head for the rest of my life. I knelt down next to her. A bullet hole pierced the back of her head. Her once lively blue eyes turned a sickly gray, and her rose tinted cheeks, now white like the snow falling from the sky.
Warm salty tears started streaming down my cheeks and onto her chest. I brushed my fingertips over her dull eyes, closing them forever. I stood up from where I was, my blood now boiling so hot it could melt the snow beneath my feet, and glared at the man who shot her. That man would haunt me for the rest of my life whether he was alive or dead. Vlad Strastokov, who smiled as he lowered his gun. I went to charge at him but I was stopped by a sharp needle that was jabbed into my neck.
My eyes fluttered closed as I fell into the darkness.
When I woke up, I was in a room, but it wasn't mine.
My eyes scanned the room, there was a bed on my left and another on my right, there was a bathroom, and clothes at the end of my bed. My eyes jolt to the large metal door as I see a tall blonde headed girl walking through. She looks around my age, maybe a year older. She looks at me with cold stern eyes, but behind them is a look of sympathy, almost as if she is apologizing.
"You should get to bed." She says in a thick Russian accent.
"Hm?"
"You should get some rest, you're gonna need it." she repeats.
"Oh."
I stand up from my place on the cold cement floor. I look at my wrist to the the numbers 381558 printed there. A look of panic sets across my face. "It's so they can keep track of you, there is also a skull on your neck to symbolize the skull agents."
She says reassuring me. "Why don't they just use our names?" I ask.
"They are trying to strip away every peace of our identity away." she explains.
"Oh...okay."
"I'm Araya, Araya Kostakov." She says.
"Oh, um...I'm Katya Ivanov." I tell her.
"Nice to meet you Katya, welcome to the skulls." she says her tone dripping with sarcasm.
She throws clothes at me. "Put those on they are your pajamas." she tells me.
I turn my back to her as I put on the foreign clothing. After I put my shirt on, an alarm goes off making me jump. "It's okay just get in bed quickly." Araya tells me.
I lay on the stiff narrow bed as a guard comes in and straps my ankles to the bed. I look over at Araya in panic, she just nods her head telling me to hold still and I'll be fine. Once the guard finishes he goes over and does the same to Araya. After the guard left another alarm sounds.
"Lights go out in five minutes." Araya informs me.
"Ok."
"Listen, tomorrow you need to listen or you will be killed." She says in a serious tone.
I look at her with fearful eyes. She looks at me, but not with the cold look I was expecting, but with fear herself.
"Normally I don't care what happens to my roommates but for some reason it's different for you." she says.
"Oh um...thank you?" I say confused.
"No problem, tiny." she jokes.
I roll my eyes, that's not going away anytime soon. We lay there in comfortable silence for a while until another alarm echoed in the halls and the lights turned off.
