Test

prologue

I was young when it happened. I wasn’t even allowed out of the house where we lived so I can’t even remember what the world I used to live in looked like. Even so, the date it happened is etched into my memory forever. I was barely 7 years old, just starting an education with  my best friend Anais, grasping fistfuls of my hair in an attempt to maintain it. My mother was singing to me when the ground started to shake. My father was the first to react, pulling himself out of the chair by the fire; he strode quickly to the window and gripped the sill staring out into the dark, muddy March evening. I will never forget the look he gave my weary mother and I as he turned his face paling. “Alice, take Caroline and get to the basement! I need to go to Simon and Kimberly’s… come on Alice move please!”
            My mother leapt to her feet heaving my sleepy body to her chest as she started towards my father, “Asa... wh-whats going on?!” she stumbled forwards but was stopped by my father’s look.
            “Alice… please. Just go. Now!” my mother didn’t even protest as my father walked to her side and kissed her softly on the cheek before bending to look at me, “ you be good Caroline, and remember to keep your friends close.” With that he turned and strode out of the living room and into the hall leaving us alone.
            My mother led me through the concealed passageways into the basement. The room was stocked with blankets a few cots and enough canned food for a year, the room was designed as a safe haven if tornados came through our area (which they often did) but it had only been used twice. Locking the steel door in place my mother quickly hurried to the small child-sized bunk that was situated at the back of the dwelling laying my exhausted body down on the plain cotton blankets. Then we waited, well… my mom waited. After being placed on the comfortable bed I immediately passed out and only awoke when the pounding started.  My mother had also apparently been dosing because we both started as a hammering of fists were heard at the cold, metal door. Standing from where she had been settled, Alice walked to the door, as muffled voices echoed through the steel, “hello? Alice! Caroline! Open up!” despite being drowsy I stiffened at once instantly alert, I recognized that voice, it was Anais’s father.
            “Riley? Is that you? Where is Anya and Anais?!” my mother yelled, a note of desperate fear for her friend and child.
            “They’re here Alice just open the damned door!” almost crying with relief my mother struggled the metal bar back into the wall and let the tousled people spill through the door. With trembling hands Anya stepped into Alice’s arms, Anais strapped to her back bawling her eyes out.
            “Riley what’s going on? Where is Asa!? And what in god’s name is happening out there?!?” my mother almost shrieks, “We’ve been in here for hours and I don’t even know what’s happening!?!”
             Alice please… calm yourself. You are safe in here.” The tall man assures the frantic woman, “I need to go find out where Asa has got too, I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
             “No Riley!” Alice shouts, “You need to tell us what’s happening!” she’s crying now, her arms still clasped around her shaking friend.
            “Alice it’ll be okay just stay here” he said in a nervous voice.
            “Riley, if you don’t give me an answer I will go find them myself.” My mother says in a voice of deadly calm, “my husband is out there with who knows what and you won’t even tell me what is happening!” she screeches at him.
            “Fine” Riley sighs, “I’ll tell you what’s happening if you don’t go up to see your husband.” my mother’s face blanches but she nods tremulously as she releases her friend and guides the other woman to a cot. When Riley speaks again it’s with a haunted, fearful voice I’d never heard from him or my father, “Morfran let them loose. They’re coming.”
            We were fine for a while, until the shaking started. They were all asleep and when the roof caved in. I suppose it was luck that saved me and Anais.  We were sharing a cot across from our sleeping mothers (the fathers still were missing) but we were jarred awake by the sound of crackling timbers and smashing feet. My mother and her friend never awoke. A large timber beam had fallen and smashed their heads open staining their hair and the floor with dark sticky blood. We were too young to know that our parents weren’t waking up so I guess our reaction of shock and no tears wasn’t unnecessary. They fell through the ceiling all in a jumble and that’s when my dazed memories stopped.
            I awoke when the voices started, “we cannot kill them. They are the pale one’s young. We are ordered not to harm the young.”
            “He would not notice if one was not returned to its parents and besides, there are two of them”
             I don’t think they noticed we were awake until Anais started screaming, it was a high pitched sound, strangled and fearful. My eyes were closed so I opened them but immediately regretted it, I was being held by a tall, slim man with black, shoulder-length hair tied back with a scrap of thin, red cloth.  Across his chest was strapped a baldric with two knives attached to it, their blades gleamed in the light of the early dawn sun poking its slim tendrils through the thin cloud cover. “Well, now that we know they’re alive, start looking for the large pale ones.” grinned the black-haired man, “ Morfran will want to meet them”