Short Stories

Shakira - the Fourth of the Seven

Hiding behind a bush . . . from nothing. That was how I spent my Saturday morning. It's actually how I spent every morning.

I lived in what was left of the seventh kingdom. Really all we were was a bunch of rogues living in the woods. The seventh kingdom was officially destroyed, but as long as we were alive, the first wouldn't stop hunting us. As far as they were concerned, we were cockroaches that needed to be exterminated.

Anyways, I was hiding behind a bush, scouting for enemy spies or whoever else might come this way, towards the camp. No one ever showed up, so I usually sat there and thought about the vague memories I still retained of my mother, with her golden, curly hair, and bright blue eyes. I had this memory of her, smiling down at me, singing me a lullaby that I couldn't remember the words to.

That was before she died, when I was two.

This time, however, someone had shown up. Three someones.

I crouched behind the bush, eyes narrowed, breathing silently through my nose. There was a blonde girl with a tattered red dress who seemed to be doing all the talking, a boy with brown hair and scars on his face that rarely smiled at all, let alone spoke, and a tall, black-haired guy with a trenchcoat and a handgun who kept tripping over branches and roots, although he was smiling the whole time and talking when he could get a word in edgewise.

I focused my senses and caught a little of the girl's speech. She was talking about her fifteenth birthday, when she'd received her powers, as well as a "blessing", which was what it was called when your main power was something good instead of something destructive, but that was unimportant. I played the girl's very faint accent in my head over and over again, trying to match it up with a kingdom. It could have belonged to the fifth or the sixth, but I wasn't sure until she turned around, and I saw her nose. The girl was from the fifth kingdom. Not an enemy, but not a friend, either.

The black-haired boy spoke next, and I went through the same process, matching accent and appearance. He was from the third.

Finally, I moved on to the boy with scars on his face. He didn't speak at all, though I didn't get the impression that he was dumb. He just wasn't very talkative. I moved on from accents and looked at his appearance. It was hard to tell with the scars, but it looked like he might have been from any of four out of seven kingdoms.

I growled quietly in frustration. Soon, they would be too close for me to hide from them, and I still wouldn't know where that last one was from. Finally, I couldn't afford to wait any longer. I zeroed in on their position, about ten feet away, and reset the trap to it. With the click of a button, they were encased in a forcefield.

I got up and walked over to the group, who had all frozen in their tracks.

"Um, hi," the girl said. "So, what's up with the forcefield? Are we in trouble?"

I snorted. "In trouble? I guess you could say that. There is, however, a small chance that you'll survive. You see, I know already that you're from the fifth kingdom, and your blind friend there is from the third, but you," I pointed at the boy with scars on his face. "You seem to be giving me a problem. I've narrowed it down to kingdoms one, two, four, and six, but I'm going to need your help from there."

He clenched his jaw and shook his head. The other two were pale, and the black-haired boy was reaching inside his jacket, presumably for a weapon.

I sighed and shook my head. "Oh, well. I'll get it out of you eventually. For now, I need to inform my commander. I'll be back. Don't go anywhere."

The girl actually stifled a chuckle as I walked away.

After informing the always unpleasant Captain Oweling of my capture, I made my way back to the forcefield.