Executed

Chapter 3

            “Good to see you A-belle,” Librae responds. She turns her head to Phox and smiles. Bree turns a bright red. Librae focuses on me again. “Two questions. How did you get here? Two, No one followed you, right?”

            I begin to answer but Bree cuts me off. “Princess Estella told us how to get here. Well, she gave us a map and we swam to the shore of this island. No one followed us. I think the knights think we’re dead but-”

            “They don’t think you’re dead, they know you are. No one has ever made it back from coming to this island. This is the place you go if you want to get away, away from the kingdoms. We have people here from both Ascaara and Calinest. We are the rebels. All of us are sick and tired of this government,” Librae pauses for a breath. She then continues, “You all must be hungry. Follow me. I’ll take you to the kitchen. If you even try to do something stupid, nothing is going to end well.”

            Phox comes over by me and glares back at Titus. Bree follows behind Phox and Titus behind Bree. Chills run up and down my spine as we walk through the open doors into the outside of the islands. It’s beautiful! We are surrounded by dozens of forests and greenery like moss and tree. The aroma of flowers travels through my nose. I smile when I see something you would never see on the mainland, butterflies. Insects were never allowed on the mainland because they brought “unwanted fear” to the citizens.

One of the butterflies lands on my shoulder. It has dark blue wings that are outlined in a thick black line. I watch in awe as it flies off my shoulder into the tick greenery.

“Beautiful,” I whisper under my breath.

“Isn’t it?” Titus says next to me. I jump a little bit but then laugh to myself.

“That’s not funny,” I say to him.

“No, it’s not,” Phox says sternly from behind me. I turn back towards him.

“I’m older than you Phox, you know that right?”

“So, you’re my sister!”

“I don’t care if I’m you sister Phox! I don’t care! Just stay out of this! I’m nineteen, you can’t control me forever!” Phox’s face turns hard. We continue to walk down the path until we reach a small building in the middle of the greenery. You can barely see it through all the moss. We approach the building without caution. Librae watches as we file into the doorway.

What I find inside the building is surprising. From the outside it looks like a normal work building. When you walk in those doors, you see tons of people conversing away. I feel like I’m walking in on a family reunion. There’s the weird cousins in the center who are talking about their nerdy stuff, the over protective grandparents who are looking at pictures, and all the adults.

“Welcome to the mess hall,” Librae announces to us. Phox walks over to the food line without hesitation. A look of hunger is in his greenish grey eyes as he licks his lips. Minutes later, Bree and Titus go over as well. Librae and I stand together awkwardly. “I’m sorry,” she says to me.

“Why? We’re here now, aren’t we?”

“What I did to you, after the first few days, I just couldn’t, I really missed you A-Belle,” she says. Suddenly, she bursts into tears. I wrap my arms around her and hold her tight. Already I can feel myself wanting to cry. After almost six years of thinning she was dead, she’s standing right in front of me.

Together we get our food and sit at an abandoned table in the far corner of the room. Librae wipes her wet cheeks and smiles. The food is bland, a simple oatmeal with no flavor. I’ve heard of oatmeal before, never tried it though. I don’t like it. The flavorlessness is distasteful to me. I wonder if this is what they have for dinner.

I don’t know what to talk about but neither does everyone else. We all devour our oatmeal as if we were starved children, well, everyone except for Librae. I spill a small amount of oatmeal on my black leather pants. Cringing, I pick up the small amount of wheat and place it on a napkin. Everyone laughs.

“What?” I demand.

“Your face,” Phox laughs. A large smile whips across his face.

“If you’re going to live here, you can’t be wearing those outfits,” Librae says. She stands up from her chair and walks over to a small closet. When she opens the door, a whole room is exposed. It’s filled with large amounts of clothing. She realizes that we aren’t following her and waves us over. I stand up and walk over to the room. Bree follows after me, (she really enjoys following people) then Phox and Titus. Librae closes the door behind us.

“This is the community clothing area,” she tells us. We look around for a little bit. I’ve never seen Bree so happy before. If I could only wear a certain outfit I guess I’d be pretty happy, too.  She looks at several different shirts and denim jeans. Finally she finds a cropped grey shirt with short sleeves, black pants, and strange shoes with laces. I look over at Librae for an explanation.

“Tennis shoes,” she answers me. “They don’t have them over in the mainland. We were lucky to get these. They were found in a dump on the mainland. It had so much stuff! That’s where we got all this stuff.”

I nod my head. Something catches the corner of my eye. When I turn my head, I see a white tank top. The cotton fabric is unfamiliar to me. I snatch the shirt and some blue jeans to go with a pair of black tennis shoes. I slide off the leather jacket and my shirt to put on the tank top. Titus is staring in my direction when Phox slaps his shoulder. He is released from his daze and continues to search for clothes.

Once we are finished picking out clothes, Librae leads us to a closet filled with weapons. She hands us each a weapon that would fit our build. Titus and Phox are given hand guns used by the knights, Bree is given a small package of poison darts, and I’m given a knife like Librae. The blade itself is as long as my forefinger and the handle is just longer that the base of my hand.

A devious look strikes Bree’s eyes but she quickly returns to her natural expression. We are interrupted by a man who I saw in the mess hall earlier. He’s trembling. Librae confronts him and crosses her arms.

“What’s going on Tobias?” she asks. Tobias stands up straight.

“The, the knights, they’re here,” he heaves. “They’re here on the island. What do we do commander? I can send the troops to-”

“No, we aren’t sending all of them. No way. That’s far too obvious. Let me take some selected patrols. I want you to help the elders back to the elder home and help the families to the safe house.”

“But-”

“Now!” Librae yells. Tobias nods and runs off yelling. “Come on you guys, time to test your skills.”