Hidden world

Chapter 1

Alex's POV!!

My eyes shoot open as the creaks of our crumbling house keep going on their unique routine. The sounds seem a little off and I realize there is something in here. I stand up quickly and grab the knife that stays beside my makeshift bead of boards.  I listen closely and throw the knife blindly. I hear a thump and go to retrieve the knife. When I find it I realize I've just been paranoid. Again, I've over reacted.

 Rumi, my secret, unlawful best friend lays on the ragged cloth blanket I found a few months ago that I gave to her for her sixteenth birthday. Even though I'm a whole year and a half younger than her, I'm quite a bit stronger and harder. This world we live in has been twisted since the war, twenty years back, that destroyed the American Empire and took out all ruminants of electricity and structure that was standing at the time.

I stand up and walk to the cracked mirror I scavenged out of an old burned house down the patch about an hour. My dark black hair is chopped in a messy pixie cut I trimmed a few weeks ago. Cute doesn't matter to me, stealth and agility do. If I had Rumi's long, pretty white hair it would get ripped and would tear up my scalp in fights. Yes, this is such a twisted unity. No we have no government therefore no rules. So, nothing is unlawful except for your own values, which in this world, you have none or your done, dead, just like that.

I look at my cheek and examine my thick white scar that runs the length of my jaw from when I was about nine years old. At that time, I had been on my own for only two years and didn't know the ins and outs of the business yet so don't judge me. I then bend down and glance at my leg, checking the huge gash that will be there for the rest of my life due to my crazy fight over a piece of fleshy dragon fruit. I won though so what else is there to stay on the matter? Nothing, as I thought.

I walk out from underneath the sagging roof of Rumi's and my cottage in the middle of our small group of living spaces, or otherwise known as a accord. An accord is a group of people in active houses making a community with each other under an agreement about how we may not hurt each other as we sleep and all of the "human" things.

Most of the accord is up. Children run around screaming at each other with knives as an older woman, maybe thirty or forty, jogs after them trying to rip the knife away from them. I sigh, sort of longing for a Mother but knowing that love in this world is forbidden, loving someone even the slightest as I love Rumi, for she is my best friend. Mothers don't love children, they leave them at birth. That women chasing those kids is probably just trying to get back her knife.

I walk to the market tent where people buy and trade things with each other, or steal, or fight it out, just depends on what mood your in. I have a sort of what you could call a reputation around here. I know how to fight, and there's nothing stopping me once I'm riled up. Three years ago a boy four years older than me tried to steal my meal but I beat him to death, and beat his dead body into the ground.

I walk up and grab a pear, it's great in condition for I can actually see some yellow on it. I grab it and raise my eyebrow towards the boy, looks as if he is thirteen, big egos those have.

"That's my pear." He says his English accent prominent "You must pay for it, great condition it is too."

"It's my pear now, and since it's in such good condition I'll teach you twice good a lesson." I say to him, pushing him through the tent 'wall' and onto the ground. I put the pear in my mouth and punch him. I hit him once in the jaw, and once in the stomach. He cries out for mercy and yells that I can have the pear.

I get up and go back to the cottage, seeing that Rumi is sitting in the corner of the single room curled into a tight ball and letting small tears slip out of her eyes.

"Rumi!" I yell and rush to her, seeing the bloody scar on her arm, running up her forearm

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She says quietly dropping the knife out of her hand

Rumi has a problem with nightmares. They are about the most terrible of things, the worst of the worst. During her sleep she gets into my weapons supply and sometimes she unconsciously hurts herself.

"What was it about?" I ask moving the stained knife away from her.

"The war," she says and tears leak out of her eyes "They came and they took me away from you. They made me fight for the union and I had to kill my friends-" I cut her off.

"SHH!" Those who are jealous and want a friend of their own will kill to know that you are still equal with them.

"I don't care, Alexis!" She yells towards me

"Alex," I growl. Ever now and then we have a little bicker.

"Whatever, since you changed your name to that boys name you act like your all-"

"Shh!"  I hiss again peeking out of the small crack in the window with which we boarded up with wood.

Outside there is a man with a rarity, gun, I can beat with fist against fist but no way could I defeat a gun. I shrink back to where Rumi is. I point to my lips and make a zipping motion, showing her that she needs to stay quiet. Her face turns white and I crawl back to the crack and peep out.

The man has the same boy I beat up this morning by the collar of his shirt. I can hear parts of the yelling from here.

"Scream and I kill you.... I told you not to leave boy.. not to run off. Daddy made a deal... my slave...." Then a sickening cracking sound made me turn and look away.

I prefer to kill by weapon, when I have to snap a neck my spine shivers and I seize up. Seizing up can be the scariest thing ever, especially since that can be the difference between whose life is taken.  

I turn around and see that Rumi has shrunk back even farther into the corner.

"It's fine, just killing a kid." I tell her

"Okay well.."She says letting her voice trail off

"I'm going to go rinse of the knife" I explain taking the big butcher knife to clean off in the spring down the patch a ways.

I take it and walk out of the house giving her and approximate that I will be back by high noon. I walk down to the small stream and push the knife into the icy water that runs over pebbles, telling me that it is clean. I grab a giant palm leaf from a tree above me and rub off the blade with it, making sure that the blood is all off I dunk it several times. This is all that I can do to clean off my weapons which double as cooking instruments, soap ran out but thirty years ago, taking with it any hope of a recipe to  create more.

Once I am done I go back to the house to meet a Rumi in hysterics, I was a few hours off and now she must have thought I died or something. Once I have calmed her down I get her to start onto dinner. She cooks carrots and I boil a few cups of water that will soon become a hot carrot soup. Carrots, water, and two grains of measly salt that makes all the difference. Dinner is done fast and we soon fall asleep curled up back into our sleeping places. Ready for the next day