Sounds of Silence

Chapter 6

"Wait."

              I leaned away from her. This wasn't  how thiswas supposed to be progressing. Something was wrong. Was this their plan? Was she part of a scheme against me?

              "W-What'swrong?" She seemed dazed.

              I'd almost forgotten about my sister. I'd almost forgotten why I was even there with Zaiia. I'd almost forgotten...about my home.

              "I need to go. Have you been able to locate my sister?" Standing up, I watched her carefully.

              She shook her head slowly. Malia had been missing for a while now.

              "Do you have a gym area around here?" If anything, that was where she'd be.

              "So you've been here the whole time then?"

              I'd been in the room for a while now, watching her punch the bag in front of her. She was angry. She was hurting. I couldn't fix that though. I couldn't reverse time. I wish I could. This was my fault after all.

              "What else should I be doing, Ara?" Her words were sharp. "Sit around and wait for Leland?"

              I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. There was nothing to say. But I was out of my element here, out of my depths. And I think she knew. Maybe she hated me for it. I'd allowed my words to save me and not her... It was wrong, wasn't it?

              "I'm –"

              "Don't."I stared at her, helpless. As the next leader of my lands, I  was to make sacrifices, but that didn't apply to Malia. I did so she wouldn't have to. But I'd made her. My mother... My father... They'd be disappointed. "We made the decision together. You were there to be my strength. I cannot fault you for what you did or did not do when I was not there to be yours. Do you understand?" I nodded my head, swallowing the lump in my throat. My eyes burned. "I am not angry with you. I am angry with him, with them." She took a breath and punched the bag one more time, hard. "What have you learned?"

              "I-I... I'vebeen so worried about you, I haven't really..." Gods, what was I even doing? "I'm sorry, I'm failing us here."

              She turned to me, her gray eyes shining as she smiled softly at me. "We were never prepared for anything like this, Ara, but now this is our reality and we can't focus on the negativities. We have to focus on getting out of here alive. Together."

              I released a tearful giggle. "You were always so much better at this than me."

              She shook her head, her eyes revealing her shock and surprise. "No way. I could never handle all of this like you do.The politics, people, meetings, all of the visits to all the different towns, dealing with other nations, peace keeping, the –"

              "Well we see how well I did with peace keeping."

              She giggled and shrugged. "This is our reality now." Her face turned serious. "So what are we gonna do about it?"

              I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Of course, I had a general idea. Spy, gather intel, learn what I could. We would destroy them from the inside. For that though, we had to become a part of the inside and that would be difficult.

              They didn't seem dumb in any sense. They seemed powerful and it made me wonder how I'd never come in contact with them before. I mean, my lands only stretched so far and I only had so much control and pull around the world. But, for world conferences, everyone who was anyone in any position of power was there representing their area and their people. I had never seen any of these people. I was genuinely at a loss.

             "We need to figure out what or who is responsible for the infiltration into their lands." Malia was sitting on the floor of my room, cross-legged. "Whatever caused those scorch marks...I've never even heard of anything like that before and I bet if we solve that mystery, it'll bring us that much closer to the people of this land."

              Trust her to figure out exactly what we needed to do. How we were going to do it though, that was going to take more time and plotting. It wasn't something we could just plan overnight and execute in a day. We'd have to be methodical and cunning, always one step ahead. We'd have to act genuine, no matter what had already happened. We also couldn't make it seem too sudden, either, though. It would be tough, but Malia and I would return to our people. I would assume my position.

****SO SO SO SO SO SORRY THAT I HAVEN'T BEEN ACTIVE. I WENT THROUGH A ROUGH PATCH AS WELL AS A SLIGHTTTTT MENTAL BREAKDOWN, BUT I'M BACK AND WILL BE CONTINUING THIS STORY ALONG WITH STARTING ANOTHER ONE I'LL BE PUBLISHING TO MY PAGE SOON. PLEASE CONTINUE THIS JOURNEY WITH ARLEIA, MALIA, AND I :) IT IS DEFINITELY ABOUT TO TAKE A FEW TURNS****