Abandon The Night

Chapter Ten: Fuck the Government/The Government Is Fucked

Figure it out she didn't.

Oh, that is not to say she couldn't. She just got really sidetracked. Terribly so. The world had shifted several times, drawing tighter around itself, during her lifetime. Borders dissolve. Borders shift. Borders no longer exist. And the ever present "I have seen kingdoms fall, governments crumble."

Governments crumble was the key here. Unification created just one and only one. Unification destroyed the rest, all 200 or so countries had been stripped of rank and title and sent packing to the barracks. They were provinces and districts in the great cog of the Unified World Order. Lanng was such one district where it used to be the most powerful country. Anca saw the rise and fall of England. Saw the rise and fall of many places. But this current one was something she'd never forget.

That is later, though. Later as in just a few weeks from when Elise was interrogated by the dhampirs.

Returning to the past will be a slap in the face. A shock to the system. A . . . well, returning to the past is granting people time to catch up to the present.

Anca sat there in shock and let the past few weeks roll over her brain. It was sorely needed.

As snow fall went, ROND had a horrible one. It wasn't the worse. OSKO province and most other districts where Canada once was had the worst. ROND did have a lot snow fall though. A lot. It came earlier and earlier every year, and thicker. So, the week snow fell and fell wasn't that surprising. Purple drowned ROND in a blanket. A very beautiful blanket, but it was just as poisonous as the rain.

Anca, Tierney, and Elise were holed up in Anca's house for a whole week. A week of nothing but sullen silence between the dhampirs and the human. Of nothing but trying to survive the sudden onslaught of deadly weather. The basement for days like this was stocked and prepped every November first, though Anca hadn't had time to do so this year being too busy following Elise. The human. Not her human, just a human.

Elise was still in her bad books. There probably wasn't going to be any way for her to get out of the bad book, either.

Come the fourth night, Tierney asked Anca a question about her home life as a child. Elise pepped up from her sullen mood. Anca gave her a look and she slumped backwards and pretended to ignore the conversation.

"What do you want to know?" Anca stressed the word want. She didn't look at Tierney as she asked that, instead looking at the wall of shelves. There was a shelf of canned food, a shelf of other non-perishables, and a fridge, though smaller than the rest, of bottled blood. Anca had one in her hand and she took a gulp.

Tierney didn't let the apprehension phase her. To be a nice friend and ease the situation a little bit, the Balkan lady went into her own background. "Where were you born, for one. I was born in the Balkans mountains around the 7th century I think." A pause before she asked, "You?"

Anca didn't hesitate in telling her the truth. "5th century, Kingdom of Gepids, where Transylvania was. I personally say I'm from Transylvania because of my Romanian heritage." She finished her bottle of blood.

Anca looked at Tierney from the corner of her eye. She saw when her face brightened a little and her jaw drop a little more. "You're a Romanian? But don't they have darker hair?" It was a fair query.

Anca answered the question with much reluctance. "Well, I don't know where my red hair comes from." She whispered, "Je ne sais pas." Elise opened her mouth–which Anca noted with disinterest–to speak. She closed her mouth.