Void of Dreams

Prologue

Miyo had always thought of her family as rabbits, with fleeing as their consistency and the owl predators as their constant. The owls never stopped watching with those leering eyes through the darkness, piercing through thoughts and dreams. And Miyo's rabbits never stopped running, evading the predators that would rip apart their lives with steel talons. They had always escaped the clutches of the owl, and the night that her father woke her for the fiftieth time was supposed to be no different.

But it was.

Miyo's father's face hovered far above her, angled in sharp lines of worry. The low light of the bedroom hit his eyes just enough for her to see the panic in them, that frantic blue color that meant whispers and running until her feet bled crimson.

She could hear her mother rummaging through her belongings in the background, shoving what they owned into a bag that would carry them away from another home once again. They were faster this time, the soldiers. Miyo would have expected at least a month or so more in this safe house.

She wondered if she should ask where they went. She had learned better in the past, but she couldn't stop her enflamed curiosity. "Where are we going now?" Miyo croaked.

Her father didn't answer, inducing a shot of panic into Miyo's veins. A shudder shook the basement building, prompting Miyo's world to turn into a blur of senses.

Shattered portraits of her family, buried beneath a mountain of rubble. The strained push of her legs fumbling up misted stairs.

Screams. The high pitched one sounded like her friend Lela. That one that pierced her thoughts brought to her mind the image of her brother shoved into the back of a prison cart. The pulse of her mother's hand on her own, beating frantically. It pulled her along with a ferocious protectiveness.

A chaotic crowd of panic, the push of frantic bodies ramming into her.

Her mother's hand disappearing into the crowd. A soldier's hard grip on her shoulder blade.

She found herself in a dank alleyway, surrounded by clashing soldiers and terrified citizens. Some were like her, rebels. Some were not. They were simple to decipher, for those who stood against the government seemed much calmer. They knew that this day would come. They knew their fate. The soldiers, about twenty of them, corralled the people in the prison vans, meant to be shipped off to the dungeons like cattle.

Every person towered above from where Miyo had been dragged to the ground. She was being pulled through an endless forest of legs, none of which she recognized. Her frantic eyes flickered from place to place, but yet she could not find any of the salvation that was her family.

She met eyes with a soldier. His were bright silver, just like hers, but they were also as harsh as a blade.

And then her body stopped moving.

The silver eyed soldier grunted something to the one that dragged her. They grumbled, making Miyo wish she knew what they said. Miyo kicked and screamed as the silver one dragged her in the opposite direction of the prison carts, towards an alleyway even darker than the one she currently occupied.

Once out of sight, and to Miyo's shock, he set her down. "Run kid. Get out of here."

She stood, stunned. "But..."

"Whoever you are waiting for is a lost cause. Get away from here before I change my mind. Run as if the wind carry your feet."

Still, she hesitated. She heard the grumble of the prison carts on the pavement. The ones that held her parents, her brother, her friends.

They were a lost cause.

Dead rabbits held within clutches of the owls.

So she ran.

Her parents were executed a week and three days later, on a day as bright as the sun. The square sparked in the light-- pristine and white to every corner. Miyo remembered how she had peered out through her hidden spot in the sewer, how even that place seemed spotless. The clear spiral buildings, the blank tiled ground, all of it seemed leached of any color.

Except, of course, for the fountain stained with the blood of her parents. It shone bright crimson as the water was replaced with their blood.

She could barely see their faces through the crowd of cheering spectators, and she was glad for this. Let these people, the ones who celebrated in the capture of her family, see their faces. Miyo certainly didn't want to, when she wanted to keep the thought of them she already had. The memories of her mother with her kind eyes. The snicker held in her brother's mischievous face. The brow on her father's forehead when he contemplated everything from the ground to the moon.

She heard it though. She heard the cry of the announcer, yelling to the crowd about the greatness of this day, that they had finally caught the rebel leaders. She heard the sound of her brother's body hitting the ground, his eye having been popped out by a soldier minutes before.

She heard her mother cry for the first time, the sound of her screech as she watched her first child die before her eyes.

Miyo grimaced at the sound of her father's sobs, almost completely drowned out by the cheers of the crowd.

Miyo found herself in that hiding spot long after every spectator had departed, long after her parent's bodies had been removed off the dais above a fountain of blood.

Her eyes remained locked upon that crimson shade.

Until every drop had been washed away.

And the world was leached of color once again.

Thank you for reading the prologue for "Void of Dreams" we hope you enjoyed it! Please feel free to comment and tell us your thoughts.

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