Virulence

Chapter 1 - Lark and the Shadows

I grew up in South City, one of the crappier cities under the Republic. What made this little shithole useful were the factories that ran day and night. The main export: extravagant clothing. The people of South City slaved away for minimal pay to make wild and outlandish clothing for the rich people of the other cities and for Copiah, the flagship city of the Republic.

The Republic never used to be this depressing, or so the older citizens say. It used to be a thriving city, united under one flag and living together in peace. But the day of the rebellion, that all changed. The rebels wanted freedom from the Republic, and instead of finding a peaceful solution, they decided to smuggle in weapons and destroy Copiah. But the president at the time gathered all the available soldiers and squashed the rebellion just in the nick of time.

The new order of the Republic started after that: dividing everyone into separate cities and keeping them under constant surveillance. Pretty soon the presidency turned into a dictatorship, one corrupt leader followed by another. Upper and lower classes were pushed farther apart and soon the Republic turned into the terrible place it is today, where you only lived a good life if you were born as a richer.

Each of the seven cities was also equipped with an assassin's guild that worked solely for the Republic's president, though they had been known to be hired by anyone with enough money. No one knew what the assassins of their city looked like or how they were chosen, but it was the fantasy of every boy to be a part of their cities guild. I even dreamed about it for a little while.

The assassins over South City were called the Shadows. The supposedly got the nickname because they only worked at night and were so quick that sometimes word of who they had killed took a while to surface. They were to source of most citizens' afternoon entertainment. People at the bars would just sit around and muse over who they were and what they were like. I joined in from time to time, enjoying the wild and crazy theories that people would come up with. My favorite being that they were actually ghosts and that's how they could sneak around without anyone noticing.

My name is Lark. I was orphaned when I was nine years old, my parents murdered by one of the Republic's assassins. I didn't have any other family in South City and no one wanted to take in an orphan, especially not since my parents had been marked for death. I finally found refuge in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gambin, a nice couple that took me in and raised me like I was their own. They also had a daughter, Zuri, whom I became close friends with.

Once I got old enough, I was sent to work in the factories along with every other fifteen year old boy. We were in charge of moving the finished products from the factory floor to the shipping area, where another crew of boys was supposed to pack them in boxes and put them on trucks to send to the richers. Zuri and the other young girls were sent to the sewing lines.

After years of saving up what little paychecks I received, I bought a house along the river for Zuri and me. It was a small one roomed shack that sat atop two others and was squished between dozens more like it, but it had the best view in the city. It overlooked the river and the mountain range and forest. Zuri loved it, so that was all that mattered.

When we turned twenty one, we were allowed to pick a different job. Zuri decided to be a bartender at a pub close to our house and I bounced around from job to job, my punk attitude getting me fired from most of them. I didn't take to being pushed around and would either start a fight or mouth off. I wasn't the buffest kid around but I was fast and knew where to hit to take my enemy down easily.

One day, after I got fired from yet another job, I went to the bar Zuri worked at to have a drink and blow off some anger. The bar flies were buzzing louder than usual tonight. I sat down at the bar and smiled at Zuri. She finished taking another guy's order before walking over to face me. She doesn't look happy.