NaNo Writing working title.
I stared up at the big white fluffy clouds, feeling the warm grass against my back, the wind ruffling my short hair. I closed my eyes, and reached a leather covered hand above my face, stretching up, trying in vain to reach the sun.
Or what I thought was the sun.
Instead, what my hand reached out to touch was a high-tech, ultra sensitive carbon copy of the sun. It rose and it set like the sun. It was bright and warm like the sun. But I knew that it wasn’t the sun. The air around my fingers sizzled and popped and for a moment, my fingers faded out of focus, only to come back in again, clear as crystal.
Sighing, I propped myself up on my elbows and looked around.
The hilltop that I was sitting on overlooked scattered trees, and far off, a group of caves, where I lived with a bunch of other kids who’d decided they’d had enough of the Divine Imperium, and split.
“Like a banana!”
I could almost hear Trilly saying that. She’s a kid, only like, eight or something, and she was full of those clichéd comebacks. For nearly every thing you said, she’d be able to sass back, even if it was only saying something as simple as, “your mom!”.
I sighed again as I got clumsily to my feet, my tail throwing me off balance slightly.
Yeah, a tail. It’s orange. And I’ve got weird looking half cat ear things. I don’t know what they are, actually, I try not to look at them too often. Those sickos at Divine Imperium. I should consider myself lucky, though. The tail is pretty inconspicuous. I can keep it wrapped around my waist half the time. Some kids got it worse than me. Like… James, for instance. I don’t know what the hell those people were thinking, but they gave him gills. Gills. Luckily they didn’t completely mutilate his lungs, but the kid guzzles water like there’s no tomorrow. His skin’s always dry, and he gets asthma attacks frequently.
There’s a whole lot more of us, too, some of them a whole lot younger than me. James is one of the older kids, and then there are a couple more in they’re later teens. I’m one of the oldest. And we’re all stuck inside this weird, freakish world that doesn’t really exist. Wonderful, isn’t it?
As I began to walk down the hill, being careful not to trip on the holographic rabbit holes (Yeah, yeah. You wouldn’t think you could trip over them, could you? Well, you can. And trust me, it hurts going down), I had to wonder whether or not we were going to be joined by more refugees running from Imperium. Last week we’d been joined by at least three more, all kids. Sometimes adults came, but they never stayed long. I think they found the idea of kid’s running (or at least trying to start) a rebellion kind of unnerving. Not that we’d actually done anything yet, but seriously, it’s only a matter of time.
“Hey.”
I looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. A tap on my back sent me spinning in circles.
As I faced the direction that I had originally been facing I saw someone was standing there, a grin plastered to his face, and his arms crossed loosely across his chest. I scowled.
“I seriously wish you would stop doing that” I complained. “It’s majorly creepy.”
“Oh, and the fact that you have cat ears and a tail and incredibly wrong looking hands isn’t?”
My scowl deepened. “Shut up, Loki.” Remember when I said that there were others whose DNA had been messed with? Loki was one of them, but he got the actual cool genes.
In short, Loki got chameleon genes. The scientists did something funky, and his molecules or atoms or something got all messed up, so now he can change the color of his skin to blend in with his surroundings. Even though it’s irritating to walk into him all the time, because I can’t see where the hell he is, that’s still a heck of a lot cooler than my useless DNA.
“So, what were you doing up there?”
Even though I’m a girl and I hit puberty way before him, Loki is still a lot taller than me. I had to actually look up to answer him.
“Just thinking.”
He pushed me playfully. “You do that too much. Take a break, live life on the wild side. Thinking too much will make you a regular stick in the mud.”
I laughed. “Gee, thanks, Loki.”
Loki grinned. “No prob.” He pushed his hair off of his face.
I looked off at the caves that were looming nearer and nearer. “What about you? Why’re you out here?”
“Because I wanted to be free for a while.” The color of his arm swirled for a moment, then became green, blending in with the grass.
We stayed silent after that. Freedom was huge issue with me. I wanted to be free. I wanted out of this fake world and away from everyone in it. Except for my gang. My gang wanted to be free as much as I did, maybe even more so.
As we came neared the caves, someone came tumbling out from a tree and landed smack on top of me, knocking the wind out of me, and sending me onto the ground.
“Faline! You’re back! Did you see anything interesting? Did that hand pop thing happen again? It did to me! It looked funny.”
I grunted noncommittally, then tried to push the weight off of my back. Instead of sliding off, the person in question instead clung to my back, as I climbed back onto my feet. I felt my ears being rubbed, idiotic looking things that they are, and felt a mad desire to purr.
“Okay! Is this Trilly? Trilly, stop doing that!”
“Huh?”
Trilly stood in front of me, an apple in her hand. She took a bite. “Stop doing what? Breathing? Eating?”
I frowned at her. Okay. So, if Trilly wasn’t hanging around my neck, then…
“Niff! Get off my back! And stop rubbing my ears!”
“Aww, but, Faline! They’re so soft and furry and-”
“Off! Now.”
I heard a sigh, and felt the weight leave my back. “Thank you, Niff.”
I looked down at the little boy who had suddenly appeared in front of me. Niff was a small kid, with jet black hair. I Never found out what Gene’s he had. Maybe monkey. I wouldn’t have been surprised. But, maybe he was one of the lucky ones and didn’t get any.
Anyway, Niff had joined our group with his older sister, Naphina, a couple years back. He was about three at the time, which would make him about six now, and Naph had been about twelve, which made her about my age.
Naphina was another one who had gotten a weird animal gene splice. She has bat genes. That doesn’t mean that she has the creepy wings, or anything, but the sun hurts her eyes, and you have to talk really quietly around her, or she’ll get a migraine really quickly. It’s useful, though, because she can hear things from incredibly long distances.
“Faline?”
Niff and Trilly stood waiting for me. I took a step forward and promptly walked into something. I rolled my eyes and took a step to the right and walked around Loki, who I knew was standing there quietly snickering to himself.
As soon as I reached them, both kids reached out and took one of my hands, and together we entered the cool sanctuary of the caves.
Hahah, that sounded so corny.
In truth, though, they really are like a sanctuary. There’s only a couple entrances, and they’re all interconnected, with these really cool hallways lit by torches and stuff. Everyone in the group has their own little space, and nobody is knocking elbows.
“Niff! Where were you?”
Naphina or, Naph, as we usually called her, stood just in the entrance of the cave, worry in her eyes. Niff quickly let go of my hand and ran to his sister.
“Hey, Naph! I was waiting for Faline to come back. I wanted to say hi to her!”
Naph smoothed her brother’s hair with her hand. “You should have told me where you were going, Niff. I was really worried about you!”
“I’m sorry, Naph.” Niff bowed his head.
I tried not to smile to myself as Naph sighed. “It’s okay. But please, next time you leave, could you please tell someone where you’re going?”
“Okay!”
“Sure you will, squirt,” I said cheerfully as I walked by them to leave the main entrance. I laughed as I heard him protesting against my calling him squirt.
Personally, I love the cave tunnels. I could run through them for days at a time. I’m constantly patrolling them, and actually, it’s good exercise. They’re incredibly confusing, but that’s good, because that means that if anyone from Divine Imperium tried to take us back, they’d have to figure out how to get through the caves first.
I walked through them for a while, listening to my echoing footsteps, while watching my shadow flick over the walls. I unwound my tail from around my waist, and let it wave freely behind me. I looked back at my shadow. I have to admit, it looked really weird, seeing the outline of my ears and tail on the wall. I looked like some freak cat terrorizing the caves.
I sighed, and absently scratched the base of one of my ears, and scowled as I felt it twitch of it’s own accord. This cat thing was really weird. I mean, I personally have nothing against cats, and I suppose the gene thing could have been worse. I could have gotten paws or something. That wouldn’t have been good. But, even as it is the tail gets in my way. I have to make holes in all of my pants for it, and if I don’t make sure it’s wrapped around my waist, it knocks everything over.
Just to have something to do while walking, out of the corner of my eye I looked back over at my shadow…
…And nearly screamed.
Walking just behind me was another person. Without turning, I strained my eyes as far out of the sides of my head as I could. There was no one behind me, and that made me breathe a sigh of relief.
“Why are you following me, Loki?”
“No reason.” I heard him yawn. “Just bored.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept walking, completely forgetting about my tail until I felt it yanked. Fighting a huge urge to hiss, I snapped, “Loki, drop it!”
He let go. “Sorry, it was too tempting! Would you rather I rubbed your ears?”
I turned and narrowed my eyes at where I hoped his head was. “Oh, shut it. Don’t rub it in that you got something useful and I got something that makes me stand out.”
He suddenly appeared. “Oh, and this doesn’t make me stand out? Excuse me! My skin changes color!”
I sighed deeply. “Yeah, true, but at least with that you can be invisible. I can’t cover these up.” I gestured to my ears. “Or this.” I tugged lightly on my tail. By now, we had stopped walking and stood facing each other.
He stared at me for a minute, evaluating my strangeness. I clenched my hands, thankful that they were inside their leather gloves.
After he didn’t say anything for a while, I kind of shrugged, then turned and started walking again, my arms crossed tightly over my chest, my tail waving out behind me. The next time I looked over my shoulder, there was no second shadow following mine.
When I woke up the next morning, the first thing that I saw was Trilly leaning over my face, grinning.
“Good morning, sunshine!” She declared, shrieking loudly.
I groaned and pulled the covers up over my head. “Not now, Trilly. Let me sleep.”
She attempted to yank the covers off my head. “But it’s nearly noon!”
“No, it isn’t. You always say that. Now go away.”
She settled for sitting on my stomach. “But James is back!”
I sat up quickly, throwing Trilly off balance. She squeaked as she hit the rug in front of my bed.
James had been gone for almost two weeks, on a trip to the nearest city, to check what the freaks in Imperium were doing. We’d been going kinda crazy, because he was supposed to be back a while ago. We’d all wondered if maybe he hadn’t had enough access to water, or his asthma had kicked in or something. But, worse of all, in the backs of our heads, we were all wondering if Imperium had caught him.
I got out of bed and shooed Trilly out of the room, closing the curtain in front of the wide cave entrance as she left. I rummaged in my chest of drawers for clothes and got dressed. Pulling on my leather gloves, I hurried out of my room and through the tunnels toward the main cave in the center.
By the time I got there, the place was already full of people. I pushed my way toward the center, where I knew James was.
“Coming through, coming through!” I shouted, making my way toward the center.
When I saw James, I choked back a gasp. His blonde hair was matted with blood. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and ragged bandages made from his shirt was wrapped up one of his arms. He was shirtless, and draining a bottle of water.
“Did he literally just get back?” I asked someone standing next to me. He nodded.
“Stumbled in here bout fifteen minutes ago,” he said, a noticeable croak to his voice. Frog DNA, maybe? “It didn’t take long for news to get around that he was back, considering Trilly’s mouth.”
Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that, didn’t I? Trilly’s got parrot, or some kind of birdish DNA. Talks constantly, that one. She’d have wings, too, but fortunately those didn’t work out too well, so the Imperiums had them removed.
“James! What happened? What took you so long?” I burst out as I got to the front. James paused in taking a drink of water, and stared at me. Slowly, he lowered the water bottle from his lips. “I got held up.”
“By what? Don’t gimme that crummy answer!” I resisted urge to stomp my foot. “Was it the Imperiums? Did they see you?”
Loki materialized next to me. “Gee, Faline. Did you think of that answer all by yourself? Congratulations.”
I blatantly ignored him, and continued to address James. “Well?”
James wiped his mouth on his arm, and capped the water bottle. “Did you see the newbies? Naphina’s showing them around. Rabbit and mouse DNA. Relatively normal looking though. At least compared to some people.” I wasn’t sure if that was a jab at my appearance or not, so I decided to ignore that, as well.
“James, answer the question,” Loki cut in. “What happened?”
James didn’t say anything for a moment. I was just about to open my mouth again, when he sent me a look that very clearly said, “We’ll talk later.” I bit back my retort and nodded my head curtly.
I turned abruptly and addressed the people in the crowd. “Okay, people! Nothing to see here, move along! Let’s let James get some rest.”
As the crowd began to disperse, I turned back to James and Loki, who was entertaining himself by changing the color of his feet to the stone floor of the cave.
“Loki, stop, that’s creepy,” I told him, and bent down to look at James’ arm. Spots of his rough bandages were splattered red. I gingerly squeezed his arm, and he winced. “Sorry,” I mumbled. I slowly carefully untied the knot at the base of his arm where he’d tied the bandage off, and unraveled it.
His arm had been ripped almost to shreds.
“Okay, wise guy, everyone’s left. Now, spill the beans.”
He rolled his eyes. “They needed a test subject. I was unlucky enough to be in the area, and they decided that I fit the bill.”
Test subject? Crap, that didn’t sound good.
Loki was apparently thinking the exact same thing, as just as I was going to ask a question, he said, “What did they need to test?”
“They’re newest toy. I didn’t get a good look at it before it tried to rip my arm off. It had fangs, though.”
Which probably meant it was some kind of freakish tiger/moose/buffalo thing. Or something along those lines. You never quite knew with The Imperiums.
“We need to get you to the infirmary,” Loki insisted. Hoisting James up off of his seat, he helped him walk in the direction of the Infirmary cave. I followed, attempting to bite back the millions of questions I was bursting to ask.
Skye was one of normal ones in our little group. No abnormalities whatsoever! Lucky her. I think she’s great, though, cause she hates the Imperium almost as much as I do. But, anyway, she runs the infirmary. A nice, airy cave with a wide opening out into the woods. There was all kinds of stuff in there, from pain killers to scalpels. I don’t know her exact age, but she’s at least a couple years older than the rest of us. Twenties, maybe.
When she saw us bring James in to be looked at, she didn’t ask questions, but just made him sit down so that she could tend to his arm.
“This is what happen to people who think too much of their abilities,” she muttered to herself. “They get their arms ripped up.”
Skye hadn’t approved of James going on this mission, let alone by himself. She’d argued about it when the uppers had allowed him to go, but they overruled her.
“You two,” She said to Loki and I, not even looking at us. “He’ll be here for a while. Can you move your arm at all?” The last part was directed at James. We heard his muffled answer as we left the cave, letting the curtained door fall back into place after us.
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Well? Tell me what you think!!
