Among Monsters and Men

Chapter 1: The Nest

Mercy ran as fast as she could over the cracked old asphalt. She could hear them behind her, how they shouted orders and positions to one another, how their heavy boots banged against the sun-bleached asphalt. She could see the sun low in the horizon. If she just could reach the forest, then she could shake them off. In the Town she was doomed to get caught. Doomed to be taken back to the prison, to be either tortured for information she did not posses or for be killed for bring electricity to the City. But what scared her most was that her parents would take her back, back to the high society, back to the invisibility in her siblings shadows, the humiliation.

She heard their running steps coming closer and closer. She stopped. In front of her, a wall of armed men in military uniforms had cut of her path. She just stared at them and they on her. The air blowed her blonde hair in her fine face, but she didn’t care, she didn’t move. Mercy’s face was always considered to fine for being from Shadow Town and that was partly true. She had been in Shadow Town for about a month now, hidden near the dome around Topaz City but she had grown up in their. Her parents were richer than the majority of the people that surounded them. But Mercy was the middle child and the families black sheep, the only one with faire hair and with blue eyes.

She committed her crimes and after three months in prison she was sent out to the unknown for a girl like her, a girl raised in class and with good manners. But she did survive and had been doing good, but now they found her.

They had just been standing and staring at each other for less than a second but it felt like an eternity.

”Stop, or we will shoot!”, yelled one of the soldiers that was pointing their black guns at her. Hell no, she thought and ran to the left, away from them. She forced her way into an empty warehouse, nothing was there expect for some broken glass scattered over the cement floor. It smelled of gasoline and mould as she hurried as far in as she could. But it didn’t mattered where she ran, they would follow and catch her. ”Stop!” Just like she feared, the soldiers had followed her inside and had now surrounded her. It was no way out and she could feel the panic rise in her chest. She was screwed, she knew that. But she refused to give up. Not now, not later, never.

Mercy took a deep breath and waited for the killing shots. She fixed her blue eyes in the general. All she could see in them was pure darkness and rage. He also looked amused, like he enjoyed it. She could hear him take a breath to give them the orders to kill her but before he could say the words, she heard the sound of metal against metal. Long metal beams fell from the ceiling and struck the soldiers unconscious and the ones that weren’t hit, they ran out the door and disappeared.

Mercy looked at them in amazement until a movement caught her attention and she turned abruptly that way. Out of the shadows stepped a boy, no a young man. He could be around eighteen but the expression in his eyes made it looked like he had been trough a whole lifetime. His black hair was brushed back, a bit messy but in a way that would not suit others. His eyes were dark chocolate brown and he had a scar on the left side of his upper lip. She could she his muscles play on his strong body as he walked over to the general, who was laying of his back, at the same time as he stopped a dagger into a holster in his belt. His clothes were simple, dark jeans and a black jacket over a dark grey shirt. He stopped next to the generals seemingly lifeless body.

”Maybe a bit to much”, he said and poked with his foot at the general, like you poke a disgusting bug that have fallen on its back, who then rolled over to his stomach. The guy bent down and took something from the generals back pocket before he stood up again. He turned toward Mercy and smirked. ”You are pretty brave for staying and not begging for mercy.” He looked at her with an amused face but all she saw was the generals lifeless body. ”He’s alive, just knocked out. You have my word.” His voice was nonchalant.