Hidden by the Dark-Chapter 1

So, Chapter 1. Thanks for all the reviews/criticism. Under lots of pressure, I removed almost all of the funky symbols in names. Unless of course you count Ayïve's name, which just is spelled with the two dots, and accents, because I actually know what they mean. Oh, an the title. It was supposed to be "Ayïve's Flight" but I didn't like it so I shortened it to "Flight" and then that was really wrong. So now I'm stuck with "Hidden by the Dark." And the PG-13 thing is just because I wasn't sure if some audiences would like to be warned against French swear words and a little depressing violence. Less chat. More story.

MORNINGTIDE

Chapter 1

Behind The Walls

“You dare!”

Ayïve of Nyr was in a towering temper. “How dare ‘oo beat Seriae! You monsta’! You are despicable, that’s what ‘oo are! She’s ‘elpess, and you go bullyin’ on her, eh?”

“Watch yer small mouth, missy!” yelled Hertún Jann. His face was red and his butcher’s apron was stained with fresh blood. “’Oo want’a keep ‘our job, eh? Git back to work!”

But Ayïve, of course, wasn’t going to. She had the upper hand, probably because she was much prettier than Hertún Jann, though she was no beauty herself. Her nose was rather flat, her mouth small. Her hair was mousy brown and in dirtiness could only be matched by her very skin, unwashed and the color of burnt sienna. Hands on her hips, smudging her dusty blue tunic with ink and tar from her fingertips, Ayïve stood in place, unmoved.

“Well, look at that. ‘Oo can’t control meh! I wonder why…” she muttered sweetly…and sinisterly.

“Enough of your smart mouth, dung heap! Git back to work!” Hertún roared.

“Oh, well, sir, ain’t ‘oo a bit to old to be chasin’ pretty girls like Seriae?” mocked Ayïve with pointed sarcasm.

“OUT! OUT!” screamed Hertún at the very top of his voice.

“O’ course, ye majesty” mocked Ayïve, faking a curtsy in her ripped tunic, then scrambled out the door.

Inside of the butcher shop, Ayïve could hear Hertún yelling curses at her.

“Rien-meisje! Dung-bog! Foncébann! Murkblood!” raged the fat torturer.

Running out into a shadowed street behind the factory, Ayïve slowed down and began to walk.

Ayïve felt no pity to herself for being unemployed (besides the pay check, which was teensy as it was). She got fired about monthly, but not because she was a bad worker. The answer lay in her home itself.

She looked up at the street: it was a line of mud, squelchy and sick. Dirty and broken buildings, rough shacks and stone hodgepodges lined it. A trickle of sewer water ran through the road, unattended. Wet laundry, dripping grey droplets, was pegged to the homes of countless people on the brink of starvation. The air was filled with smog and smoke, stuffy and asthmatic. It smelled of puke, unwashed bodies, and soot. Walking barefooted through the mess, Ayïve ran splashing through the muck in the street, covering her legs with brown mud. She didn’t mind.

She crept through a shadowed alley, dark as evening even though it was midday. Vegetable peels, rats, and broken whiskey bottles littered it. High up in the building above, stained with burns and dried dirt, shattered windows exposed the struggles of the inhabitants.

She searched the ground for coins: this was one of the best spots in town for such adventures, seeing as it was right outside a good inn with lots of attractive women inside. She saw two boys in rags up ahead, and pretended to ignore them.

But they were hard to ignore.

When Ayïve began scouring the grotty ground with her hands, they came over. Still, Ayïve ignored them. Her fingers closed around a cork, a cabbage leaf, a fine bootlace, a rat…a coin. She lifted it up and raised it to the darkened sky.

“Now tha’ was easy” breathed Ayïve.

“What ye git there, little lady?” asked one boy with hair black with filth. He had almost surprised her, as they crept towards her quietly and quickly.

“None ‘o your business.” sniffed Ayïve “Scram!”

“We ain’t gonna scram, lita’ lady, until you give us that little copper ye git there” said the other boy, who’s face was plastered with what she suspected was adobe clay.

“Uh-uh” said Ayïve “Don’t even try.”

The boy with the grimy hair reached and twisted her arm, bending her back and mutating her muscles.

It was pain, but nothing but pain. She had had more than this, and she felt his hand tighten when she didn’t cry out.

“Give it up!” whispered the other bully in her ear.

“O’ course” she said, and back flipped out of his grasp, relieving her arm and twisting his.

“Think fast” she warned, and punched the one who had tried to break her arm. He toppled to the ground, silent.

Next she rounded on the other boy, grabbing his arms behind his back and forcing him down to the sludge on the road. “Neva’ mess with girls, doncha know?” she said in his ear, and then knocked him out.

Kicking the two unconscious prats into the shadow of the alley, Ayïve stored her penny in her pocket. Nasty boys.

She remembered when she was young, and her mother had told her never to fight…

“But it was to defend me’self!” she said to the alleyway at large “That ain’t wrong, is it?”

And she wished, again, for the ump-hundredth time in her life, she didn’t live in Gazelle. At least, she didn’t live caged in Gazelle.

Because Ayïve new the truth.

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Gazelle was known as one of the loveliest places in all the East of Deseo. Gentlemen and gentlewomen are always re-living the time when they came upon Gazelle: a round, shining city surrounded by a dazzling white wall without a speck or spot upon it. The golden rails of the gate were opened for their carriages by young soldiers in white suits, and they were led down a passage of white marble lined with lime and orange trees and little golden statues. Scents of honey and fruit washed through the crisp morning air. At the end, the passage spread out into a gleaming plaza, cobblestoned and with a glittering fountain. Happy people bustled up and down the spotless streets and all went about their work contentedly and peacefully. The air was abounding with calm.

Did you ever realise “calm” is inside of “calamity”?

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Behind the lustrous walls that lined the entrance to “The Heart of Gazelle” a horror was hidden.

Caged, more like.

Ayïve had lived in the “Outer District”, as the Inner-folk politely called it. Generally, it was the part of the city that was not cared for, or thought about at all. Or at least that’s what Ayïve had thought when she was seven.

One midnight, when she was nought but eight, Ayïve had slipped out of her house (if it could be called that) and wandered around. She had heard that a White Lady wandered these parts, and she had set out to find it on a bet with the fellow street urchins. Instead of seeing a White Lady, however, she came upon a secret passage in to the heart of Gazelle.

She had marvelled at the pure cleanliness of the marvellous place, so pure and good. But she had not felt that it was unfair that these people got good things like schools, libraries, doctors, police! She had thought them angels that deserved such pretty things. She had known since birth that she was below everyone else.

And she had returned every once in a while. She never told anyone: she lost her bet and had to swim in the gutter, but she didn’t mind much. She had always been tough.

Then one night, she changed.

She had sneaked out to marvel at the White City when she saw someone slinking along. It was a rich merchant (there was supposed to be equality in all of Gazelle, but you’ve seen enough of it to judge it well), robed in a sapphire velvet cloak and emerald green stockings. His hat was topped with a jaguar’s skin. She was curious; she had always been. Ayïve followed him along the white granite wall, observing his suspicious gait and how he looked over his shoulder every few minutes, as though watched. But Ayïve was quick; she had to be, to survive.

After a little bit of a walk in the pitch dark, the merchant suddenly kneeled down and disappeared. Ayïve knew better: she followed him down the secret passage into the Outer District.

What she saw next changed her life.

As she slipped back in to Outer Gazelle, Ayïve saw the merchant emerge next to a factory spewing black smoke. An ancient man with knotted hands and a twisted back was shovelling coal in to a hopper to power the machinery. His whole body shook with the effort of lifting each shovelful of the putrid substance and his hands dripped with sweat. The merchant came up to him and spat:

“Faster, lump, faster!”

The poor man raised a starved, hollow face to the merchant’s and his eyes ached with hunger and melancholy. His expression only showed despair: despair for the next minute, for the next day. If he even lived that long.

“Ew! These peasants know nothing about how to be humble to their master, who pay them their pennies so that they can eat the crumbs of the road.” Muttered the merchant darkly and raised a hand to strike.

For the first time in her life, Ayïve looked away. When she looked up, she saw the sapphire cloak disappearing in to the factory, and the pauper of an old man upon the oozing ground.

He was dead.

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Ayïve remembered, and shook with rage. Why should they be able to control them? Why were they so weak? For she knew now, that those people were no angels. They were nothing but pitiless monsters from hell. She had known that for five years now.

She looked up in to the empty alley. At least she though it was empty.

Out of a doorway with ripped hinges, an old man with white hair and a tall body was smoking a long pipe. His cheeks were rather red from drinking and his clothes were torn and dirty from years and years of usage.

“’ello.” Called the man with a smile, as though he had not just seen two thieves beaten up.

“Pappito!” cried Ayïve and ran to slap his hand as a greeting with enough force to knock down two nasty, thieving, little boys.

Ta-da! Please correct my terrible grammar. I am completely hopeless.