The Year 47

Prologue

The air in the small building smelled of deceit and mutilated flesh, and the oxygen seemed to be escaping all too quickly. Livia stared the man down, her expression a mixture of horror and disappointment. He was hell bent on making her pay for her actions and he'd finally crossed the line.

 "What have you done?" She breathed, her voice breaking on the last word.

"What do you mean?" A sinister smile melted onto his face, his beauty making it that much more baleful. He shoved blood stained hands into his pockets, taking careful steps in Livia's direction. "I cleansed our ranks of those traitors, I saved us. You should be thanking me."

"You're insane," she said the words confidently, her hands balling into fists as she backed away from him.

They stood in the common room of Building O53-- the building was small in comparison to it's number of inhabitants, three bedrooms in a pinched two story brick column housed ten people. Or at least it used to. At that moment they all lay slain at the hands of the very man Livia was standing in front of, either strangled, beaten senseless, or a combination of both; they'd lost their lives in the very place they'd called home--some were even staring at her from the stained floor, their eyes left wide open in shock.

One woman in particular, Charlotte, stood out to Livia the most. Maybe it was because they'd grown up side by side in the Institution. Maybe it was because she was the first to agree with Livia's plan. Or maybe it was because Tidas and the Agents had slit her throat and blood was pouring down the front of her shirt, her eyes hooded as if she'd been lulled into death peacefully.

 She felt an overwhelming urge to run.

"If it weren't for me, you'd be poor. You'd be scrounging for change or a slice of bread, stop being so selfish."

She scowled, "Don't talk to me about selfish."

The smile quickly disappeared, "That's enough. Now," he took another step toward her, his foot shoving aside the arm of a young woman Livia had known well. "You can be a lady and come with me, or you can be killed like a Neanderthal." He spat the last word with such revulsion, as if he'd abhorred her all along, as if he'd just been waiting for the day to rid the world of her once and for all.

At that moment, he'd made the decision for her.

Livia kicked him right between his legs, just as she'd been trained to do. The man's knees knocked inward and he groaned loudly as Livia swung her fist, hitting him directly in the nose, drawing blood and swelling tissue almost immediately.

And then she ran.

She ran out of the building and past a blur of Agents in constricting uniforms, toward the Camport city limit. Her feet pounded against the ground, sending tough shocks through her ankles and up her legs. She was in her training clothes--a pair of shorts and a light t-shirt--making it that much easier to speed through the buildings and into the empty wasteland they'd used as a training field earlier that day.

"She's mine!" She heard the man yell, a great ways behind her.

Her eyes widened and she picked up speed, feeling the cold wetness of drying tears on her cheeks. Thoughts of her once companions rotting away on the building floor kept haunting her mind, flashing quickly through her thoughts like lightning. If only she'd been there to warn them, if only she'd been there to protect them like she'd promised.

A rock the size of her fist appeared in front of her feet as if out of nowhere, she felt herself fly forward and she landed on outstretched palms and her--now throbbing--right knee. Long brown hair fell onto her shoulders and over her face as she took two seconds to catch her breath. She quickly scrambled to her feet and continued running with a limp, panic rising like a lump in her throat.

She threw a glance over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes at the mop of blonde hair in quick pursuit. She looked at the thick black line on the inside of her left wrist, flinching at what had once been her identity. She still remembered the buzz of the machine, the slight burn of the ink, the glare of jealousy and disappointment whenever anyone set eyes on her "mark." The one thing that was supposed to set her apart from everyone else, but in the end it made her exactly the same. Now it was no more than a mutilated marking on her skin.

She gritted her teeth and stood, continuing her run with one bad leg. "I see the moon, the moon sees me." She sang the song through exasperated breaths and a burning throat, knowing it was the only thing that kept her going. It was something she and her sister used to do whenever the other was down; it was an infallible remedy, as it always seemed to work. "The moon sees somebody that I don't see."

Her feet slapped the ground in an almost systematic manner, "God bless the moon and God bless me. And God bless the somebody that I don't see." She felt as if she'd collapse at any second, the horrible thoughts of her companions being murdered before her eyes was enough to make her shake with sobs.

Her lungs ached, her legs throbbed, her chest heaved, and her heart pounded in fear. But still she ran, ignoring the shouts behind her. She was the last one, if he caught her, they'd end her; after all, she'd put it all together.

"If I get to heaven, before you do. I'll build a hole to pull you through."

The ground seemed to go on forever; they had long since passed through the populated sector of Camport, leaving nothing but cracked dirt for miles and miles. Livia felt herself giving out, the searing burn in her lungs, mind numbing pain in her knee.

A steady stomping sound grew in her ears as her unwanted companions neared, quickly closing the gap between them. She was pumping her legs as fast as she could, but she still pumped harder.

Something thick and hard hit her in the side of her head and gravity assisted in her quick and brash descent to the ground. It ached worse than anything ever had and seemed to be taking her consciousness for itself bit by bit. She heard an erupting sinister laugh and heavy thumping sounds as her assailant left the scene.

And all of a sudden, it was cold, freezing cold. A teeth chattering, frost bitten cold, one that she hadn't noticed until she was paralyzed on the ground. Her face pressed against the surface in such a way that she could only glare at the prominent line were the opaque sky met the dry ground. She couldn't form a clear thought, all of her common sense must've been fully consumed by the brain splitting ache that resided at the side of her head. The only one that seemed to push through it all was simple: I don't want to die.

She struggled to move something, any form of movement that would let her know that she had a chance at life. A chance at living. But she came up short, left with nothing but panic ridden thoughts. 

She was more exhausted than she'd ever been in all of her life, but she felt that it had very little to do with the fact that she'd hadn't slept in days.

Black spots began to fill her line of sight a little at a time making a slow and sneaky takeover of her vision. The cold wind blew and snipped at her cheeks, adorning them with a callous kiss. She struggled against the spots, declaring that she wouldn't let them win, but in vain they did.

"I'll write your name on every star," the strangled words left her dry lips and drifted off into the atmosphere, but Livia heard them being said by her sister's soft soprano, the echo of them ricocheting off of the walls of her mind.. "That way the world won’t seem so far."

She didn't want to die, but in that moment it dawned upon her that she already had.