Kylar Knight
Kylar Knight was afraid.
It was that emotion, that terror, that truly conquered his soul. It loomed over his mind, concealed as it melted to hide within the darkened shadows. It dwelled within his heart, intertwined with his heartstrings which it played with a soft and smooth tone. Residing within his very soul, it became more. Fear had never been just a grain of dust; it was a young tree, and its flowers were blossoming as it began to flourish within him. The roots had dug deep into the core of his heart as the tendrils wrapped around the tissue, and the branches grew outwards as the tree of fear stretched to ever corner inside of his body.
Kylar heard the unfortunate hum of power initiate, and the faded flicker which bounced off the fence of barbed wire behind him only justified his assumption that electricity had begun to surge through the steel. His eyes darted away, focusing on all that was in sight. The street on which he stood was rather narrow, and on either side it was lined with homes and other buildings, all of which were quite small. In various places other streets branched off the main street, buildings lining those as well. The buildings themselves were rather short, few having reached three stories in height, and all of them seemed to be painted drab colors like a dirty white, a pale gray, or a black similar to that of the night.
It was as if the city had been drained of most of its color.
Grass was scarce, and where it did grow within the city's limits, it seemed to be dying. Lost of its lush color, it had dried and the shade of what had once been an emerald green had dulled. The green had bled out, leaving only what seemed to be a somber gray with specks of a dying green. The leaves of the few trees which existed within the city had become just the same. Windows were abundant among the buildings, yet it seemed that dirt and ash stained the glass. The sky was not a shallow nor a deep blue, and it no longer blushed pink, red, or orange like it would at a usual rising or setting of the sun. It was just a sorrowful shade of gray which seemed to be carrying the same melancholy that the entire city itself radiated.
Presumably from the homes or perhaps a factory, the smoke which billowed in the air was the color of charcoal, and it seemed to be thick as it engulfed the sky in a shade just a touch darker than what it already was. It was seemingly a mist of obscurity, shrouding certain buildings in its enigmatic flow, and bringing darkness to what seemed was already bleak. In truth, this colorless city reminded Kylar of the man who had spoken to him and the others only moments before his release into the city. He had sported only a frown, eyes of hopeless misery, and he had spoken of a fight, of bloodshed between the seventeen who stood before him. Eight hours of spilled blood, pain, and screams beyond terror.
It had only truly just begun.
The souls of his shoes hit the pavement with each step Kylar took, the asphalt concrete making a somewhat grinding-like sound as it came into contact. The sound got louder as the beat's pace increased, and soon he found himself breaking into a rhythmic run. The ground felt like air underneath him, and he ran atop it with ease. The wind which blew back at him was gentle, swooshing strands of his hair in every direction to only make it messier than it already was. In the somewhat serenity within running through the dark city, he found peace. However, if it was with himself, the city, or something else, was still not clear.
After a while, he found himself slowing down. It wasn't because he was tired; in true honesty, he really wasn't having gotten used to simple exercise after the many hours he had spent working out alongside Blythe. It was more of the fact that he had only started running to calm himself and take his mind off the fact that there were others who were most likely hunting him. Once reaching that understanding with his mind, he knew he could take a moment to stop, to look around, and to think the next eight hours through.
