Dawn Is Coming

Prologue

Hunter

"She's breathing awful hard." The words slip out of my mouth for the umpteenth time, coated in a thick layer of worry that I'm sure Juniper doesn't appreciate. She doesn't reply and continues typing away on her mega computer, her back facing me. I hold back a sigh as I turn to the beautiful blonde lying on the cot in front of me, her wrists and ankles shackled to the rails with padded restraints. Her chest is moving up and down rapidly as she heaves breaths, gulping down air as if she's drowning. Then she starts coughing. Loud, scratchy, body-quaking coughs. I'm worried sick for her, even though I haven't even met her. Yet. She'll pass the test, I'm sure of it.

It doesn't do me much good that I love this girl more than I love Juniper – my wife. But you can't really blame me much, can you? I didn't know Juniper either until the Council dropped a bomb on both of us by saying we're getting married. And love at first sight happens only once, and that happened when I first came into this room and saw this beautiful girl lying on the cot, restrained. At this, a sigh finally slips out of me. I take a few strands of her gorgeous hair and start braiding them, careful not to yank. When I first saw her, I instantly felt compelled to touch her, as if uncertain that such perfection could even exist. An intense need to make sure that she's real. Juniper must've noticed, because she started yelling at me to not touch any of the examinees and that they'll die if I do. Something about their brain getting disconnected from their body and then dying off. My fingers are careful to avoid the wires that are attached to her tan forehead, parting her shiny golden bangs. I start braiding another three strands when Juniper jumps out of her office chair and rushes out of the room. She does that often, and every time I ask her what happened when she comes back, her reply is always "nothing".

Of course my curiosity gets the best of me, and I stand up and walk to the monitor to see how my poor, sick girl is doing. My curiosity and desire to know everything is probably the reason I got so far in the Underground. But I also tend to stick my nose too deep into sticky situations. It's just like what they say; curiosity kills the cat.

And because of this curiosity, I fell in love with a girl I can't have.

The screen looks like something straight out of a video game. Her name, age, ID number, heartrate, overall health, stress level, blood pressure, and a few more icons I don't recognize with information I don't understand is positioned in the corner of the screen, while a scene of a messy battlefield from the top of what seems like a cliff is positioned in the centre. Two small, familiar hands grip an old-fashioned sniper, trembling as they aim. I look down at the corner of the screen at her overall health, which had dropped from its usual 94 percent to 72. My hands clench into fists as worry floods my gut, my stomach churning. I turn to look at her lying on the cot, her lashes moist with fresh tears and her breath shaky. She gasps with every breath, her hands clenching and unclenching.

I'm just about to make a rash decision when I hear footsteps approaching the room. Juniper. I feel a strong urge to hide in a cupboard like a child caught stealing candy, but I'm not a child. I'm the Grand Commander of Army 1. I sit on the office chair, the corners of my mouth curling into a smile I can't suppress. I lean back and cross my arms, feeling like a king sitting on his throne as I stare down at my beloved subject.

Akira.