A New Dawn

Seclusion

Harvey

        I’m all alone. I’m back to where I came from; where I’m all alone and hoping for something miraculously to happen. I’ve been walking for quite some time now and all I see are remnants of black and white structures. A bunch of feral shadows wait in dark alley ways and the feeling of eyes directly staring at me make me cringe. I hate it here. It’s get along with other kids like me or be devoured by ferals. I don’t have much choice since I really want to go back and live my peaceful life again. How long have I been here anyway again? A day? A week? A month? I don’t know, but walking seems to ease my mind off of thinking about how long I’ve been here. I don’t get hungry, that’s a positive point of view. It’s a kid friendly environment, well, it’s not like you have a choice, if you don’t have anyone to back you up, more or less in a couple of days you’re dead. I’m different. I don’t need anyone; I just need my shadow, only him. He’s much more reliable than any other person; he’s me in another world, my own self that I can fully trust.

        Straight ahead of me I see a little town. Must be full of kids or feral shadows, either way, I don’t care too much at all. Its deserted, must be a long time since anyone lived here. A few broken windows, bunch of busted doors. It’s been raided by strong shadows or attacked by feral shadows that are really hungry. By who and why I might ask. I need to scavenge for anything I can use as an advantage; a piece of armor might help in case I get ambushed. I helmet of some sort. Anything! House after house, it’s empty and I got nothing in the end. Why don’t we go on ahead? “We have to find something at least, food for energy, yeah we don’t starve but we lose energy and when fighting we need lots of energy, lots and lots of it.” Yeah yeah, you’re right. But still, we’ve been searching far too long for one house and we haven’t found anything that we can use, shouldn’t we move on now? “A few more minutes, if I still can’t find anything, then we move on” this is our typical conversation. He plays the role of the smart one while I play the role of the stubborn one. We managed to survive this long enough with that kind of attitude and we plan to do so longer. I’m the Orphan, a shadow puppeteer. I have the talent to draw out shadows and make them as my own, my shadow and I have the same talent, so we can use it anytime we’re attacked, which is never. They know our sigil, the picture of two people back to back at each other with a ray of light behind them. No one is foolish enough to meddle with us. “Hey!” but I think there’s one now. “Hey kid! What’s your name? I’m Alex.” He’s tall, charming attitude, not much weapons on him, a few gears for defensive purposes. “You alright?” he knows I’m assessing him. He’s smart, he’s just playing it. He knows what I’m doing and I know he’s testing me too. The instant his shadow wavers, he’s dead. “Hey kid! You deaf or something?” it didn’t waver, he must be new here. “How long have you been here?” he’s been here and seen far enough, but he hasn’t seen too much not to go insane. “Two months tops. I haven’t seen anyone here for a long time till you came along. So, what’s your name?” he doesn’t know me or my sigil. I’ll use him as a defense; no one will know I’m the Orphan not unless I show it. “I’m Harvey Williams, so how’d you died?”

        This kid can be really useful, in two months, he found out where the water source can be found and where supply rations for new kids can be obtained. Rations are given out to dying new ones to determine if they can survive longer or can be of use. It’s a game, people here bet on kids to find out if they can live long enough. If they do, some high ranking fool will win loads of money. If they die, well, the child and the people who bet on him or her would also be killed on the spot. It’s a fair game if you think about it. Why bet if you don’t know they’ll survive. So people bet on the strong looking kids, the bulky ones with good coordination with brawns and shadow. It’s a game, so I need to look utterly weak. I need to build a persona that I’m in need of help. That saved me once so I’ll do it again. We came back to what looks like a dome. When was this even built? “Is this the arena?” he didn’t hear me when a loud roar of the crowd came booming from inside. Yeah, that just answered my question. Just a few steps ahead, the main door of the dome opened, a big kid came tumbling out. He’s dead, must’ve pissed off another kid. Inside a little girl with a shadow towering over the entrance, she must be in the games. “That’s Lolita, she’s the guard of the main door” well my guess was really wrong. She looks like she’s seven years old, but her shadow, it’s strong. “Her shadow is the Mountain, he’s basically unkillable, and the same goes for her. She won last year’s game; her opponent was called the Thinker. His shadow makes you see things that would make you think about your existence. He killed every opponent in under a minute, but the instant they both met, he died in ten seconds trying to catch her thoughts” what does he mean about that? Trying to catch her thoughts? What? Is this kid not thinking or something? “No, I was thinking, he just didn’t know how to control my thoughts” I jumped the instant she showed up next to me. How’d she get so close to me without me noticing neither her presence nor her shadow? She’s dangerous; I should better conceal my presence more. “Alex, who’s this kid?” she knows alex? “This kid has a good shadow” I have a good shadow? How does he know about that? Before I could even ask about my shadow, Alex injected something to my neck. “Sweet dreams angel” that face. I’ll remember that face I need to eliminate. I fell to a deep slumber after being injected.

        I woke up in the middle of the arena. I’m chained, well this sucks. I’m either killed the instant someone comes out to get me or they would think I’m really weak and just kill me up close. I’ll kill them when they’re in striking distance. They’re opening the gates, seven kids, this is just great. Seven kids against one that’s chained on the middle, and I’m all alone.

AU: I ran out of ideas on this one, sorry about that. Quick question, would you be Harvey chained on the middle? Or be one of the seven kids?