A dozen Keepers poured out of the three helicopters massive doors and started shooting. Around me people screamed and cried in pain and suffering. They fell victim to the blazing guns held at the hand of our enemies. The person next to me fell and I snapped to attention and dove to the ground, grabbing Emma and Coral on the way down. We all take shelter behind a log.
Then Kadek, Maiki, Kiki and the other survivors all walk forward. The guns stop and even some of the Keepers pause to watch. Kadek steps forward. He must be trying to surrender but that won't work. He should know better.
"Don't trust them!" I scream but Kadek just simply clears his voice. Then he speaks and I am nearly reduced to tears at what he says. I thought he was different. I was wrong.
"We have done as you asked, now hold up your end of the bargain. We want out. None of us want to live in poverty again. We want to be Royals, so that you and everyone else are no longer in charge of us, we want to be honored and" but he never finished. He was cut down, soon followed by his comrades. Only Maiki tried to run. Kadeks body collapsed in that clearing. He betrayed us, all of us. They all did and the Keepers had betrayed them. The deadly helicopters rose into the sky to shoot us from above.
Soon the screaming and the shooting and the suffering and all the death was again all I could see, think and hear. I can't believe Kadek of all people would not only turn us in, but turn us in to the people who killed his family and friends. Or was that false to? Maybe this was all an elaborate scheme meant to pray on empathetic fools, fools like me. Maybe Kadek wasn't his real name. Tears of anger rise up but I force them down and twist my body to look like one of the many lying around me. Emma and Coral do the same, Coral draped slightly over Emma. I hold my breath as long as I can and when I need to breath I breathe so slow the movements are nearly undetectable.
The blinding white suits of Keepers flash all around but our dark colored clothing either doesn't give us away,or they believe I'm really dead, either way, I continue to pretend to be dead. Emma does the same but Coral won't. She is on her knees staring at the helicopters by looking over the log. I think she is in shock. I am about to reach out and pull her down when she kneels next to us.
"I might be able to stop this. I might be able to make this stop." she whispers, her voice hoarse and dry and it cracks when she speaks. I feel like my heart is a balloon and it floats to the top of my chest just flutter around and back down like the butterflies in my stomach.
YOU ARE READING
An Inch Of Infinity (Short Version)
AcciónIn the near future the entire world is conquered by a group of people known as Royalties, or the Royals for short. They declared war on the planet. If you were not with them, you were against them. by the end of the 21st century the world was utter...
