Elementalist: The beginning

Chapter 2: Stoned

They were still there, hovering in front of his complex like summer flies to a lamplight.

"Pierce! Pierce, did I wake you?" Brash laughter broke mercilessly into the air, echoing down the forsaken streets of Cin and interrupting the peace of the stirring day. The aforementioned teen sighed.

It was fairly early in the morning; the edges of the narrow room were still being consumed by darkness, making the walls seem closer together than they actually were. The faint remnants of  the fading moonlight streamed in from the window opposite his makeshift bed. The ray cut a gradient of light down the centre, graffiting the cream wallpaper opposite with a soft blurred shadow of it's shattered state, reminding Pierce of the old projected films shown at the run down theatre on the outskirts of town.

"Come out!" The same voice yelled. "Or are you already livin' it up wit the good fo' nothing soldiers!" There was a sound of a glass bottle breaking. Someone spat on the ground and a chorus of callous laughter followed it.

Crouched, with his back pressed hard against the wall beside his newly shattered window, he tried to think of who could be taunting him at this ridiculous hour, but his mind provided him with a blank; still cloudy and disorientated from sleep. It could be anyone; he held no friends in this forsaken sector, preferring to keep to himself and attachments light.

"Pierce you 'ere? Aren't you gon; to arrest me?" A slurred voice travelled once again through the window. There was a crash as one of them knocked into the metal bins lining the front of the old, two-storey building. Thunder cut through the air as the bins fell against each other; the boy winced and the neighbourhood stray cat shrieked its displeasure on his behalf. As if the noise stirred the sky, the room began to brighten, and the blurred lines that outlined the little furniture he owned, sharpened.

Taking advantage of this new clarity, he surveyed the room in an attempt to find something that would help him fight in case they came up the stairs to confront him. He begun on his right, eyes streaming past his hay stuffed mattress that lay by the wall and the small oak study bedside it, past the door to his narrow washroom and his wooden three drawer wardrobe; partially held up by a plush peach armchair that just seemed out of place amidst all the simplicity. Finally his eyes came to rest on the sword given to him by the general. He found it leaning against the main door just as the sun broke over the horizon; the morning light glistened off its silver sheath as if in worship. But he didn't want to use it here, not for something like this. Pierce looked away, the outlines of his humble furniture suddenly becoming vividly clear. Using it here would be a waste. This wasn't soldier business, it was personal. He would just handle it the way he always did; with his hands. 

The intense gaze of the general flashed through the teens mind causing him to almost shudder; the mere thought of the seasoned soldier bringing upon him a chill and powerlessness, as if iced chains suddenly bound him. He didn't want to think about what the warrior would do to him if he were to show up for this first mission battered and bruised. 'He would surely kill me with my own blade.'

The teen muttered a curse as he focused back on the hole in his window. The rays from the sun fought its way through the cracks creating a tunnel of light that danced with the dust in his room silently. His eyes finally fell on the object that created it; a stone lying innocently beneath the sunlight beside his mattress. A word he couldn't make out was painted messily on a piece of dirty cloth tied round it.

"Pierce! Hey Pierce! I know you can 'ear me in there you coward!" Another shatter of a bottle, but he hardly noticed. Instead the teen reached for the stone, rubbing the small pieces of glass still attached to it onto his tattered, beige night-shirt.