He followed Mooncry into the depths of the city, walking along the back allies and empty streets of the older parts of the New City. They entered a seemingly abandoned building after walking for an hour straight. He numbly followed Mooncry’s trudge up seven flights of stairs. His leader paused at the eighth floor’s door. He fumbled around in one of his jacket pockets until he was able to withdraw a brass key. It fit perfectly into the lock and Mooncry swung the door open, cocking his head to side to show Markus that he was supposed to go in first. And though his heart pounded in its cage and his mind shouted at him to run away, he did.
The whole place was gray. Gray walls formed a long hallway with four doors on each side. The scratched wooden floor under his feet was dyed gray by the shadows that were cast upon the walls by the gray lights hanging from the ceiling. Something shifted at the end of the hall. It wasn’t gray. It wasn’t gray in the slightest. It was a teenaged girl.
She glowed against the dreary colors, brightening the whole floor. She wore a slightly baggy white turtleneck and a tan skirt. She was small, even with the tan platform sandals she was wearing on her feet. Long, cherry red hair covered the top of her face with bangs and ran down to her stomach. Her bright greenish blue eyes glistened with kindness and unexplainable joy. He did a double take. Her eyes… They were the same type of eyes as BloodRain and Mooncry, but they held none of the hardened heart that the others had.
“Mooncry!” She shouted and ran forward, skidding to a stop in front of Mooncry. “What happened to you? Who did this? Is this the guy we wanted?”
“Selena?”
She looked up from staring at his wounds. “Yeah?”
“Bandages first, then talking.”
“Right!” She nodded and moved past him, jogging down the hall and slipping out the stairwell door.
“Come on.”
They continued their trudge down the hallway until it ended and opened into large room. It was empty except for a beat up couch, a stained coffee table, and four upturned wooden crates. Even then, the room was vast and their footsteps echoed off the walls. There were two windows on each side but the one that held Markus’ fascination was the largest. It took up a third of the opposite wall and held the New City in its panes. The central city glittered, a gigantic monster standing stoically in the distance. They were far from it yet it’s black shadows still clawed out, ready to scoop them up and toss them into its dark stomach. Mooncry slumped onto the couch as Markus continued forward, floating to the window to gape at its sightline.
“Yo! Mooncry!”
The stair door slammed and footsteps thumped through the floor, but still he stared out the window.
“What happened to you?” A female voice but not that of Selena.
“More importantly,” another female voice, still not the only one he knew, “why are you on the couch? You’ll stain it.”
He heard Mooncry groan and get off the couch. The scrapping of wood against wood told him that Mooncry had sat down on one of the crates.
“You had a run in with a Soldier huh?” That was a male voice, deeper than that of Mooncry and with a slight lilt to its words. “Lucky it wasn’t one of the Angels. You’d be dead instead of scratched up.”
“It was one of them.” Mooncry’s voice was tired and it rasped in his throat.
“What!?” The first unknown female voice again. “How are you still alive!?”
“I…” Mooncry sighed. He suddenly sounded as if he hadn’t slept for days. “I had to.”
“I don’t understand.” The second female commented.
There was slight rustle of fabric and a new female voice sounded clearly through the room, making everyone jump. “Which one was it?”
No one answered her.
“Ouch!”
“Hold still. We have to disinfect the holes.” That was definitely Selena’s voice.
“Mooncry,” he heard the third unknown female walk over to the crate, “which one was it?”
“BloodRain.”
She sighed. “If it had been DarkSoul, we’d probably have to kill you. She has the grip of a starving lion on a weak gazelle.”
The second female voice was as confused as before, maybe even more. “I still don’t understand.”
The third girl’s voice was firm. “He’ll explain in a bit. First, we should talk to the good doctor here.”
Markus turned, numbly staring at the large group that had gathered behind his back.
“Introductions then.” The third female, who was standing behind and to the left of the couch, clapped her hands together. “I am Aarone Hawkthorne.”
She was short, but wire thin. Her hair was a deep strawberry red and it was cut short, like a boy’s. She wore an off the shoulder black shirt and he could see the pale pink straps of an undershirt. She also wore torn black jeans with tan, fake furred snow boots going to just under her knees. Her eyes were bluish green. They were Soldier eyes.
“That is Jennieve Michaels.”
She pointed to the black girl who sat on the far left side of the couch. Jennieve was gorgeous. She was attractively thin without being skinny and the tight yellow turtleneck and black jeans she wore made her look like a model, especially with her long, graceful legs. Her long, dark brown hair sat in perfect waves and framed her mocha face perfectly. It brought attention to her bright blue and white eyes, her bright blue Soldier eyes.
Aarone moved from left to right, moving down the couch. “Zinaro Calliar.”
Zinaro was tall, even while sitting. He had slightly long black hair that almost touched his jaw line. He was muscular and looked like he could easily crush any challenger, but at the same time, he was lazy and careless. He wore a tight fitting blue sleeveless shirt and faded blue jeans over normal sneakers. His dark blue and black eyes were that of a Soldier.
“Rosalyn Truthseer.”
The girl was a sight that made his blood run cold. She was spiked in every way possible. Spiked metal bracelets were on both of her wrists, a leather choker with small jelly spikes rested around her neck, and black and pink spikes hung from her ears while three more spikes were pierced through the cartilage of both her ears. Her neon pink hair was long but the top strands of it were drawn naturally out into small spikes. She wore a cropped leather jacket over a pale pink shirt and a layered black skirt. On her legs were over the knee black leather, stiletto boots. Her eyes were an extremely pale pink blended with deep black to create disgusting Soldier eyes.
Aarone moved off of the couch and pointed to Selena as she wrapped a bandage around Mooncry’s stomach. “My twin sister, Selena Hawkthorne.”
Selena merely nodded and continued tending to Mooncry with the help of the next person Aarone pointed to.
“Meena Michaels, younger sister of Jennieve.”
The little girl turned and smiled shyly at Markus. It took all he could to not demand an explanation for the girl’s presence. She could only be eight at the most but here she was with the rest of this group and tending to horrible injuries like it was all part of normal life. She looked just like a younger, cute more than gorgeous version of her sister except for her hair, which was almost completely straight, save for a small curl at the bottom. She was so young, so gentile looking. He was about to protest the innocence of this girl when he saw her eyes. They were blue and gold Soldier eyes.
“And finally, Mooncry Tolepe.”
He didn’t need to look at Mooncry. He knew what Mooncry’s eyes looked like. Everything single one of them had Soldier eyes, but none of them was a Soldier. He was beyond confused about this group and beyond tired from seeing everything that he had caused.
“Please, just tell me,” he sighed, as defeated as Mooncry, and finally sat down on a crate, “why all this is happening? Why all those people died for me?”
The room went silent and motionless. Not a single fabric rustled and not a single hair shifted. Meena was the first to move. The little girl slowly got up and walked away, the stairwell door clicking behind her.
“All those people?” Selena turned her eyes to him. “Died?”
“Mooncry.” Markus watched as Aarone turned to stare at Mooncry, unable to look at Selena, each word carefully said so that they cut the air and stabbed at Mooncry. “What happened today? How many people died?”
He sighed, so drained that his alien eyes seemed to sink into their sockets. “BloodRain killed them before I got there. There was nothing I could do. Nothing! I told August that we should only send in me and no one else, but it turns out that he didn’t listen. He sent twenty humans to protect Doctor Markus here and they were all killed. I had to save him, but it was BloodRain. I had to do it. No matter how much I wished otherwise, I had to do it. She screamed and collapsed, but then she got up on her knees and drew one of her swords. So I shot her.”
The silence was crushing.
Aarone swallowed, trying to find her words. “You… She was going to… I… I understand why you did it.”
“Then you understand what this means?” Markus leapt excitedly to his feet. “If he can kill BloodRain, he can kill the others Soldiers, even other Angels!”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“I saw it!” He was ready to cheer out loud with joy. “You killed her! You shot her point blank! You won in a fight against a Soldier! You won against an Angel!”
Mooncry was suddenly on his feet, his hand curled around Markus’ collar. “I didn’t kill her! I didn’t win!”
“Mooncry…” Selena reached far above her head and placed a hand on his shoulders.
He relaxed again, practically falling back onto his crate.
“No one can survive a gunshot like that…” He looked at their faces, doubting his own words. “Right?”
Rosalyn spoke and now her words chilled him along with her appearance. “We can.”
“We? You’re Soldiers too!”
He took a step back. This was bad. He had to get out of here! Even if one of them did save him from BloodRain, who knows what they would do to him! They were Soldiers after all.
“No! No we’re not!”
“You have the same eyes as them! Mooncry had Soldier abilities! His name is even like that of a Soldier!”
“We are not Soldiers!” She knifed him with each word.
“Please,” Selena took his arm, trying to guide him back to a crate, “sit down.”
“I…” He sunk down, knowing that he couldn’t stand any longer. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Aarone sighed, running a hand through her short hair as her mind ran through the possible ways to approach this. “First thing is that Mooncry's name is his actual name. It's one word whereas a Soldier's name is basically two words pressed together to create one meant to sound intimidating to normal humans.” Aarone sat down on the crate next to him, her brain finally making its choice. "Like most human, you probably know little to nothing about Soldiers apart from their other fear tactics. We'll start with the basics. Do you know what a Soldier is?”
“Yes. A Soldier is a human with advanced abilities created through genetic testing. They’ve only been around for about ten years though.”
Zinaro leaned forward. “That's a lot more than normal humans know, but you’re only half right there. You see, a Soldier does have advanced abilities, but they aren’t create through genetic testing and they haven’t been human for at least a hundred generations.” A tiny smirk twitched on his lips. "Give or take a few."
Mooncry looked at Markus’ still confused expression. “We’ll need to go back further than ten years to explain this. Have you ever heard of an Avyar? The Avyan race?”
“No to both of them.”
“The Avyan race originally came from mutated humans. With each generation, the mutation grew until it created a whole different race. That mutation was an increase in avian DNA. It gave all Avyars hollow bones and most importantly, wings.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Not really.” Jennieve leaned back, getting settled on the couch. “You’d be surprised what one little mutation will grow into if God lets it continue.”
“God?”
Rosalyn smiled, a true and complete smile that even reached her strange eyes. “The Creator of All Things. He made each and every one of us in His image. We are the children of God whether Avyan or human or some other creature.”
Markus blinked, thinking back to the history books he had been forced to read as a child. “God… God… It’s familiar. Was God part of the Imperfect Age? When there were foolish things like religion and war? Yes, that’s it. God was part of a religion. He doesn’t really exist.”
“You are welcomed to believe what you wish, but we believe, we know, He does.”
“I’m too tired to debate science with all of you. Just tell me more about the Avyan race.”
“It is not science! It’s faith!” She leapt up, spikes tinkling as they slammed against each other with her force.
“Rose!” Aarone snapped and the spiked girl slumped back in her spot. “Continue Mooncry.”
“Thanks. We’ll just skip the exact details on how there came to be a whole race of humans,” he made air quotes around the word, “with wings growing out of their backs. Anyway, after a certain amount of time, the wings were a permanent part of Avyan DNA just like arms in human DNA. Because it was normal, it wasn’t a mutation and that opened the door to mutations more advanced than a human could ever get normally. But soon enough, theses mutations also became normal. A large majority of the Avyan race had a new mutation along with wings.”
“These new mutations…” He paused, trying to wrap his head around all of this. It just didn’t seem possible. “They’re Soldier abilities aren’t they?”
Zinaro nodded. “Yes. The mutations gave Avyars an advanced and very selective form of telekinesis as well as a few, more drastic changes.”
Markus tapped his chin. Things were starting to make sense. “Soldiers abilities are divided into seven categories. My wife and I were doing research on this before she,” he gulped at the memory, “before she was killed. So I know a lot about Soldiers. Or at least I thought I did.”
“You’re right so far.” Selena nodded encouragingly.
“The seven are fire, water, wind, earth, electricity, mind, and animal. For the first five, a Soldier would have control over certain aspects of that element. Water Soldier can make ice or make water flow a certain way and so on and so forth. The last two were unique. Mind Soldiers can read the thoughts of certain people or make someone believe in an illusion while Animal Soldiers rapidly change their DNA to take on the form of a certain animal, but they would always stay the size of a human. While each Soldier has a different ability, each one has one thing in common.”
He stopped talking. His words combined with theirs. Suddenly, he knew nothing and yet everything.
“All Soldiers have wings.” Aarone smiled sadly. “Soldiers are just Avyars trained to be killing puppets.”
“I don’t understand. How did Avyars become Soldiers?”
Aarone's voice did not waver, and her eyes stared in a straight line at him. “Because the New City literally wiped them off the planet. Traytitar Labs, the largest, wealthiest company in all of the New City, committed mass genocide and burned the Avyan race to the ground.”
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