Raela

Chapter 1: Shatter Me

My reflection was wrong. 

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, a fluffy white towel wrapped around my body, staring at my reflection. 

It showed that my dark brown hair was wet and dripping, starting to curl up at the tips like they always did.I could feel the cold water rolling down my back in little drops.  

I knew that was true. 

It showed that my olive skin was not unhealthy, but it wasn't exactly glowing either. 

That was true too. 

It showed a strong girl with bright blue eyes and a future.

This, I knew, was not true at all.

Let's recap, shall we? Cahn, Leni, and I managed to escape off of Luuo with a stolen racing ship, leaving an angry Kodi in our wake. Now we're flying around the galaxy in search of a planet to stay on for a while. If I knew Kodi, and I do, then I would say he was already up in space searching high and low for us. He was relentless.

The massive scar on my stomach proved that.

I knew that he would not stop until he had found me, Leni, and Cahn and killed us. Well, he would kill them. I had a feeling that his father wanted me alive whether he liked it or not.

What for, I didn't know. And I wasn't all that excited to find out either. 

But if I were the king of a planet, and there was someone threatening my "right" to the throne, I wouldn't really want them alive. Not that I want him to kill me or anything, but it's just more logical. If someone's a threat, you don't keep them around. That's just Villain 101.

I stared at myself in the mirror, wondering how the heck I got to where I was. 

Over the past two days, things had gone from really bad to so much worse. 

There was no food, and I hadn't been able to pick any up while I was rummaging through Feenk's shop. There was limited water, and unless we landed and refilled, we were going to run out of water in about two more days. There was one bed in the only room on the ship which we--Cahn and I-- decided to give to Leni. Him being stabbed and all.

Oh, yeah. He got stabbed, if you don't remember. We had managed to keep him alive for the past two days, but it was really hard to monitor him considering we were in a racer and not a med-ship. Or any other ship, for that matter. If it were a cruiser, like Vixen, then there would be supplies because it was for long-term excursions. 

Cahn had told me Leni was stable when we took off from Luuo, but within a few hours, he wasn't. According to my Carar acquaintance, he had the beginnings of an infection in the stab wound in his stomach. An infection that could potentially become fatal.

The stab wound was already bad enough. It was deep, and had been bleeding profusely. For a while, we couldn't even see anything it was bleeding so much. But once we had cleaned it, it was clear that it was deep, wide, and most definitely fatal, if we didn't do anything about it. We didn't know if it hit anything vital or not, and he hadn't woken up from the coma he had fallen into, so we didn't know what he was feeling.

Fear pierced my heart like a dagger. I wasn't going to let Leni die. I couldn't. He had protected me and helped me when no one else would. That's not something I let go. 

I have a habit of not letting debts go unpaid. If someone does something for me, I do something for them. It's simple. 

And since he helped me to survive when I had literally no chance, nothing was going to stop me from helping him live. Not even Cahn's cold composure and stony silence 24/7.

On the ship with a statue, I felt more alone than ever. He never spoke to me about anything, he never sat next to me and gave me comfort, he never did anything. It was like he didn't care.

I didn't blame him. I was a stranger that had ripped him away from his entire life. I had come, said, "hey, I'm the lost princess, help me", and he pretty much had no choice. I reminded myself that he hadn't wanted to come at all. Wille had ordered him to stay with me.

When I looked up into my eyes in the mirror, I saw my robin's egg blue eyes staring back at me with a deep emptiness inside of them. I remembered when they held a light that brightened a room. I remembered when I still felt whole. 

Back when I had my parents, and my best friend, and a home. Back when I was happy.

And then my life cracked. With every death, with every betrayal, with every move and escape I had to make, the crack widened; it deepened to the point where one more tap would shatter it. 

And shatter it did.

Inside, I was falling apart. I was shattering like a glass someone had dropped on the ground. I was breaking into a million pieces. 

And I let myself. In the bathroom of a racing ship, I let myself break.

I was alone, after all. No one could see me as a tear fell down my face. No one could see my weakness as I let it out in the form of salty water. I had lost everything. And now I was so close to  losing Leni, the closest person I had to a friend (a living one, anyway), too.

I ran my hands through my dark hair and tried to calm my rapid breaths.

"Kiros?" A knock on the door startled me and I hurriedly wiped the tears from my face. It had to be Cahn. There was no way it was Leni. But why? Cahn had barely spoken three words to me, and now he wanted to talk? Something had to be the matter.

I cleared my throat and tightened the towel around my body. "Yes, Cahn? What is it?"

"Leni's waking up."

My eyes widened and I rushed to throw my clothing back on despite my still-wet skin. Of course, me being me, my arms and legs somehow managed to get tangled in my shirt and jeans. 

I tossed the door open and nearly ran right into Cahn. "When? How is he? What's his condition?" I asked, breathless.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I went in to check on him and he had his eyes open. I don't think he knows what's going on. He seems slightly delirious."

Nodding shortly, I squeezed past him and quickly walked into the resting room. The room was small, barely larger than a closet but it worked well enough for us.

In the room was a tiny cot, and a figure lying on it breathing hard. I crouched down next to the cot and let out a sigh. "Leni," I whispered.

His head tipped to the side the slightest bit to the side and I saw his pale skin, his forehead beaded with sweat. His green eyes met mine and he smiled slightly. "Hey."

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Dear readers,

HAPPY NEW YEARS! And we're back! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Raela. I thought that "Shatter Me" by Lindsey Stirling really fit the chapter. BTW, Lindsey Stirling is amazing. Go check her out.

-flygirl1

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