Prologue

14 1 0
                                    

It was at least forty feet down... Not that high up, right? I mean forty feet down to the next platform. Over seventy gravity-defying platforms mill around the room, they have nothing better to do. The walls close in, faster and faster, and even though this is just training, they don't stop creeping closer. I glance down at my shoes, illuminating like galaxies in the blue-lit darkness. The space seemed to be drunk with movement. No light came in - not a single sliver. To put it in perspective, if you have ever been in Star Lab at school, where you learned about all of the constellations under that suffocating dome whilst the world spun around you with haunting lights, that is basically what this is like. I know, spooky, right? Either way, that only makes it that much harder to calculate how far you have to jump, and the force you have to jump at, and how quickly you have to leap, and the amount of time you have before you land, and then you get to plot your next move.

My leggings clung to my ankles with sweat, we were going on our fourth hour of Trials. Before I knew it Jem had lept to the next surface from behind me, and the only way you'd be able to tell is that the walls are covered with very slim light beams, and she was able to block out a cluster. Once again, think "star lab". The dazzles inch inward closer and closer, letting you know that you have a limit on the amount of time that you have before you're crushed. In hopes you would think that those little beams would give you some way to see, but no extra light came in. It was just cluttered, stuffy darkness. The Devines made the air in this compartment subsidiarily thick, in terms that it felt like it was lubricated with mugginess whenever a gasp would slide down your throat like poison.

My legs outstretched behind me, I take an elegant leap, I have mastered this course. But I do have my special advantages... Then again everyone does. My chilled hands slide along the cold tile, feeling for the direction of movement. When inside the Dome you sometimes can't tell if you are going sideways or front to back. In a car, you could see where you were going. But in here, you have to feel... for me, I listen. There is a gentle hum warming my feet as I crouch, fear shoots up my spine as a gust of freezing air whizzes right under my neck... Arrows again. Steadying my breathing I continue to listen to the deadly silence. 3... 2... 1... I leap once more, landing in a hollow doorway. Still pitch black, I crawl forward on my stomach and elbows - the doorway is only around two and a half feet tall, thusly, I crawl. Leaning forward my face tingles with the fingers of cool air. A blissness overwhelms me and I have to take another deep breath. On my stomach, I press my face against the floor and it slowly, gently, consumes me from the shoulders down. When you live here you would soon learn that portals are blessings - and luckily this is the last one for the day. The light pierces my eyes like bullets, but I am out.

"Excellent as usual, Brailyn." Cue says.

"Does this shock you?" I say with sarcasm streaking my voice. "Not exactly my first run."

"Point taken, smart-"

"Don't cuss." I interject.

Jem collapses through the portal. "Son of a gun, of course you are already here."

Why does this surprize so many people?! I am always first. At this course anyways. "Could you not talk so loud! God, you would think you were trying to talk to Frank." Frank is dead by the way. One after the other people start filing into the exit hall. ¨Why can't you, just once, go through that portal without acting like a beached whale, huh?¨

"Because, Brai, some of us actually have to try to make it out of there with our lives. I know, shocking, right?" She has always had a way with words, making other people feel as though they were wrong. But Jem has calloused me up by now, never take things personally from her.

"Enough banter you two! Brailyn, we need to talk." Commander Loxard gestures for me to follow him. I have to, no slit throats for me. His hands are meaty and they look clammy and pudgy and anything but what a commander's hands should look like. They should be coarse and rough and look like they've gone through sixteen wars - as they have. The wars were very small and unpleasant, but they were wars none the less. Here we call them the Sub-wars because they were mostly handled in the water, or that is where all of the good legends are held. That and they were just pieces of one large war which is still being handled. We are starting to commence War Nine.

The door gently closes behind us as we enter the guarded tope office. Loxard reclines in an office chair behind his desk causing it to squeal. "What do you need, Commander?" I formally inquire.

He shoos the guards out of the room like pests with his grubby hands and closes the door once more just to return to his chair. "Does there have to be a need for me to see my Star Combatee."

"I don't think that was a proper sentence, and yes, there usually is a catch to these things, Loxard." I say sarcastically. Having learned long ago when I first arrived that the commander has a soft spot for "Star Combatees" I can manage to talkback.

"Smart one, you are." He huffs. "Well, yes my dear, there is a catch, but nothing that you can't handle."

"Oh god, you complimented me, what are you implying I have to do?" I smile and he returns the grin.

"It would sure help if you were trying to be serious here, missy." I glance at the many pins that he has so proudly earned, now crested to his chest. "There is a newbie comin' in, you know?"

"I'm aware."

"Guess what they need." I roll my eyes and he continues. "Training, Brailyn, training." I got up ready to assign somebody to the newbie, but he raises his eyebrows allowing me notice that he isn't yet finished. "Have you trained anyone yet?"

"No sir, there is no need for me to. I have more important things to do." Disbelief covers me.

"Ah, well let me clear that up. Your record time in all of the trials was four hours and twenty seven minutes. You were beat by a whole two minutes last month." He looks at his nails as though they were long enough to see.

"I was sick."

"You were weak!" He shouts in a tone that must've scared the Devines themselves. "You were anything but a Star." I stare at him, there is no need for words. "Your ranking will be bumped down to newbie if you don't accept this job. Dismissed."

As I excuse myself I walk toward the door, ready to grab the brass handle, but I can't help myself. "You were supposed to die in that war, Loxard, don't let your newfound power go to your head."

"Excuse me?"

"In here you're a big man, but if I were to challenge you on the field you would sooner wuss out of your position and run with your tail between your legs." I hear him chuckle a small, fat man chuckle, so I slam the door behind me. Both guards look at me with smirks. "You think that's funny?"

"Don't you have a newbie to train?" Eck elbows him in the stomach.

"Shut it, Chow!" She grits through her teeth. For a guard she has a good dose of humanity in her, she sure is rough. "Good luck, Brai." She says softly.

I start to head down the white hall to "the shoot" which is where assignments are delivered. I pray that Loxard didn't have mine sent in advance. But, by the looks of it he has, Jem is clasping a manilla folder in her hands. Without a word I gently take it from her, she has sympathy in her eyes. Before opening it I rub my thumb up and down the side of the folder... Why me? You make one mistake and suddenly you are nothing. I open it.

"Ha! Telepathy?" I chant. "How can I possibly train a person with Telepathy?"

"By the looks of it, you have two of em' Brai." Jem states.

"I can see that."

Out of EarshotWhere stories live. Discover now