Sky King II: Reborn

Chapter I

Tall shadows surrounded the young woman in the street, their harrowing threats causing both her and her mother cry out for help, bystanders casually avoiding the situation entirely. She could see police approaching quietly from behind and grabbing two of the four attackers, causing two gunshots to deafen their ears, the mother falling to the floor clutching her stomach. One of the officers stayed to help, the other chasing the four attackers who now fled the scene as quickly as they could. The young woman knelt next to her mother, blood surrounding their bodies, life fleeting from the mother's eyes as she whispered her dying words.

Snapping her eyes open, drenched from head to toe in her own sweat, the sheets and blanket sticking to her body, Kuu sat up quickly from the nightmare. Her chest started to tighten, hands and feet vibrating until she couldn't move them, the anxiety attack taking over her whole body. Since she was a child she would occasionally have them, finding that the best method of dealing with them was to let them run their course and practice deep breathing afterward. This one was relatively short, the young woman calming herself back to normal in about ten minutes. She put her white dress back on and went to the bathroom down the hallway. It was small and simple, the tiled floor a hue of dark blue to reflect the sky wall pattern. A marble white counter was directly to her left, a porcelain toilet to the far side of it, a tub parallel to that. Kuu pulled back the black curtain of the tub/shower combination, taking note of where the faucet knobs were and how to change the water path to the shower head.

Kuu removed her dress and underwear, prolonging entering the shower after turning the warm water on, knowing well that it would still be cold as hell if she immediately went in. A minute passed and she stepped into the tub, the warm fluid rushing over her nude body, calming her even further than before. Thankfully the soap was liquid from a bottle and not the bars of soap that most houses had. It just felt so extremely unsanitary to use the same bar of soap that multiple other people did.

The young woman lathered soap over her body, it's smell strong of assorted fruits, sighing after going over her breasts and realizing they would probably never grow out of a B cup. She was glad they weren't as huge as Lillian's, but a little bit bigger wouldn't hurt anybody. It wasn't that she was very self conscious, just wishing more that her black hair wasn't the center of attention with all of the original Syncaire citizens. Even as a child she remembered being glared at or ignored fully because of it.

Kuu did understand why they were like that and didn't hold it against them. Though she was born and raised here, she still looked exactly like a Hellot Islander. According to her mother, she had her father's brown eyes and nose but then again, Kuu couldn't exactly prove that. She touched the tip of her nose with her index finger, letting loose a deep exhale. The only picture of her father she had seen was of him in uniform next to his biplane with a white bearded general.

Wait. White bearded general?

Kuu's eyes widened at the realization, hoping she wasn't jumping the gun in her assumption. She quickly washed her long hair, turning off the water and using a rather large red towel to dry her entire body. After pulling her white dress back on, the young woman rushed downstairs to find the old man from yesterday, checking near the fireplace first. Sure enough, the big gentlemen was resting in one of the chairs, watching the small orange fire.

A second before Kuu was going to speak up, a hand on her shoulder froze her whole body, Lillian appearing beside her and holding her index finger up to her lips. Kuu looked back to the old man, who was sleeping silently on second glance. The young woman narrowed her eyes in slight annoyance and followed Lillian to the dining room. Today she was wearing a low cut black shirt with short sleeves and a white skirt that had black zebra lines as a pattern. It was such a contrast to the blue dress from yesterday, Kuu wondered if she changed the style so drastically because they were going shopping. Brighter colors weren't really something the Hellot Islanders wore after all.