Viri Imperium

Chapter 1

The ground thumps hard against the soles of my worn leather boots as I charged though the bright green leaves and prickled bark of tree trunks. I look down at my feet, staring at the boots that were once my mother's. She had worn them the day she escaped. The day that she broke free of our cruel race. She wore this pair of brown leather boots, which I wear now, on the journey that took her away from Viria. The journey that saved my life before it had even begun.

These boots are the closest thing I have to my mother. I never knew her. I was never given the chance. Lattice always tells me I look so much like my mother with the brown hair that falls over my shoulders in frizzy waves and the warm copper eyes. But then again, I don't so much look like my mother, as I do my race: brown hair, copper eyes. It's the trademark of the Virian people, and I would have been the perfect copy had I not been a Rogue since the day I was born.

My mother died the day I was born. She had only lived fifteen years before her life was cut short. Although, her life was never meant to surpass the age of eighteen; my mother was born, just like a million other unfortunate girls, into the Generation Process of Virian reign. She was created so she may grow to her peak of maturity and then unwillingly supply our people with a new dominant baby boy that would eventually grow to be a man. A perfect Virian man. And once they had what they wanted, she was going to die. They were going to end her life just as quickly as they started it.
But she changed her fate and mine. Somehow, my mother fled and escaped Viria. She didn't survive long enough to ever tell anyone how it was that she managed to break out of the Imperia Base, but regardless of how my mother had done it, she saved my life by doing so. Faced with only one choice, she ran for her life. She ran for hours, and days, until she could not run anymore.

Collapsing to the leaf-scattered ground, she clutched her bloated stomach, crying out for the pain to stop. Thinking about her reminds me that I was the reason she suffered so much. Maybe if I had been the one to die that day, she could have lived a better life. She screamed and cried upon a bed of dead leaves, tortured with the pain of labor when a man found her. At the sight of him, my mother writhed, trying to crawl away, begging him not take her back to the Imperia Base. The man pulled her into his thick arms, carrying her as he ran through the woods. My mother sobbed lethargically, lacking the strength to fight against the man taking her back to the prison she had known her entire young life.

I can feel the boiling tears rushing down my hallowed cheeks as I push my legs harder and harder against the ground. She died for me, and I am not about to let myself be taken by the same fate.

A twig snaps loudly beneath Racht's boot, reminding me exactly where we are and who we are running from.

Racht's blonde hair sticks out among the dusty brown roots of the forest floor, and I know that if I can see him that easily against the endless trees, the Virian Trackers will too, and soon. They have been chasing us for hours; after discovering our cottage in the crest of the woods, and burning it to the ground. Racht's parents, Jav and Lattice; the people who raised me when my mother could not, were gone as well. I pray that they were able to run before the Virian Trackers reached the cottage. Jav had been the man who carried my mother through the woods. He wasn't a Virian as my mother had thought. Jav was a young man of twenty-four fighting against the very people my mother mistook him to be. He and his wife, Lattice, were what people call Oütes.

My mother survived only long enough to give birth to me. She never even got the chance to hold me in her arms before she took her last breath, uttering her last word, "Elle."

I put everyone I love in danger.

My body lunges forward, my arms tangling tight around Racht's shoulders.

"Elle! What are you doing? We have to keep running! They're not far behind us!" His deep voice booms inside my eardrum, and I shiver.

"I can't lose you Racht!" The words fly breathlessly out of my mouth, shedding tears after every word I speak. His ivy green eyes look at me as if they were glass, ready to shatter under immense heat. He is in pain, probably even more pain than I am. He never even got to say goodbye to his parents. Parents that he knew, that he loved, and that were truly his. Now they're gone and he has lost everything he has ever had.

"I promise you, Elle, you will not lose me. Ever." His voice cracks as his arms tighten around my back, protecting me, like he has for the past seventeen years. "Come on, we really have to go now," Racht says, as he pulls us both to our feet, tugging me forward into a slight run.
I nod quickly, catching up to his pace, running steadily beside him. I glance behind me, hoping to see that we have outrun the Virian Trackers. There is no one to be seen beyond the foliage, and the trees look undisturbed. My hand trails up to Racht's bicep,tapping him to get his attention, "Racht, I think we outran them."
Racht turned his head slightly around to peer behind us, his brows furrowed, "What is it?"

"It doesn't make sense that we'd have lost them so quickly. They were only a short way behind us. Keep walking Elle, I want to gain as much distance from them as possible. Something just doesn't seem right."

We walk further and further along, an hour or two had to have passed and it feels as though a huge weight is lifted from my back; we are safe now. I didn't lose Racht. I smile to myself, despite everything that we have been through today and look up at Racht's dirt-covered face. He doesn't return my smile, but I hadn't expected him to; his pain is still very much alive inside of him. I know what he is feeling, after all, there has never been a moment in my life when the pain in my chest wasn't alive and in pristine health. Perhaps I am just better at masking my pain than Racht. As much as I hate to admit it, there is nothing I can do to help him besides letting him handle it himself.