Entries for Write To Rank 2023 Contest by @Action
! NOVA : A Story In Snippets !
In a dystopian world where most lives are confined into walled steel cities, Nova - the daughter of the 13th City's renowned pharmacist, joins the Society of the Shield...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Nova gazed across the fields she had travelled to visit the wilds' city, as the tops of the towering steely buildings of her city glinted in the sun's setting rays, beckoning her to an imprisoning home.
"You are much like her..."
Nova turned to Roxanne, the strange woman who had her released from the wilds' cell.
She tucked her violet strands behind her ear as the bushes rustled around her, a strong wind blowing through leaves and their swaying branches.
"Like who?" She asked, even though a quiet knowingness nagged her with an answer she almost felt fearful of.
"Your mother, Katherine." Roxanne replied, a gentle smile ghosting her lips but never truly forming, as if a caress of a distant memory. "My sister."
"Your sister?" Nova repeated in disbelief, eyebrows raised and eyes slightly wide as she tried to straighten the facts. "She was a-a wild? And so Floyd; is he also..."
"It's been a long time since I have seen Floyd." Roxanne, her aunt muttered absently, before facing and nodding to her in affirmation. "She was every bit a wild as you are."
Nova jerked awake, her heart beating sickeningly while her head pounded more strongly. She groaned, squinting as the harsh bright lights on a white ceiling overhead sent shocks and stung her bleary eyes. It was not just her odd sight or headache troubling her; her entire body felt murky as if she had drunk a toxin.
She blinked, trying to clear the darkness lingering on the edges of her vision, and with a deep breath sought to sit up against the pillows lining her headboard and ascertain the cause of her sudden illness.
But neither was there any pillow lined headboard for her to lean on, nor could she even sit upright; discovering instead the circular coolness binding her wrists to the side of the hard-flat surface of the bed of her father's clinic.
And at that moment, her memory of the dinner with the Mayor and him knowing of her dimming loyalties to the city swept her into a full storm of panic, as she pulled on the handcuffs restraining her. But as much force as the panic awarded her, her hurt by her father's betrayal who added sedative to her wine deflated her efforts, as tears glazed her green eyes.
She sniffed, snapping up as Michael entered his pristine clinic; the place he preferred to spend most of his time and life rather than with his child. She regarded him cautiously as he buttoned his white coat, and pulled a small vial from his experimental study desk.
Fortunately or unfortunately for her, Nova recognised the vial engulfed in his hand; it contained a dose of a drug of his invention, all to numb the wilds' spirits, until they were no different than the citizens obeying the Mayor's rules of their lifeless, lonely routines.
