The Cobra's Cage: Chpt. 1

It's doubtful I'll ever slip back into this novel, but I thought I'd try, so here it is again. Nitpick your heart out. ;)

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Siv

"I'm heading back." Phoenix hesitated. "Listen..."

"What?"

"She's only gone, here, in this world."

My eyes opened. Suddenly the trees were coathangers, and the snow films of dust; the entire graveyard, a wardrobe, tucked away in an abandoned room in an abandoned home.

"Siv, you have two days left."

 When someone died, Candon, the agency I called family, allowed their friends a fortnight to recover. That meant it'd been twelve days, twelve days since I'd been notified Scarlet died on a mission, but until last week, it was too strange to grasp. Scarlet dying? Never.

Then the agency located her corpse. Her funeral was held yesterday, here, in this graveyard.

I'd been shocked. I'd simply stood and stared, limbs stiff by my sides, airways squeezed too tight for me to breathe. Broken pieces of their lies lodged in my brain. She died an honorable death. She lived a wonderful, happy life. We will all treasure her in our hearts forever.

Phoenix

I was pacing my room when dizziness overcame me. Not the lightheaded kind, that you get from spinning around, but the everything's-a-blur kind. I staggered toward what I assumed to be my mattress, my stomach's contents spilling over into my throat.

And onto the carpet.

Soon everything was glazed with my bile, glistening sickeningly in the sunset. I could hear my doctor's voice: Symptom Four of grief. God, Phoenix, get over this girl.

I tried sitting up, but my stomach heaved again. Blood soaked my tongue and lips. Why didn't I listen? Why didn't I distance myself?

The questions were rhetorical, but my conscience answered anyway. You're a coward.

That was right. A filthy coward. I still remembered when I met Scarlet. My first month at campus. She was a year older, which made her more attractive at the time. Her hair color reflected her name, curling under a broad jaw, and there was something entrancingly womanlike in the graceful arch of her eyebrows, the throb of her tenor voice. She offered me her affections. Who could've blamed me for accepting them?

Siv

Feces caked their faces. Some were mangled beyond recognition, some wholly relieved of their flesh casings. I imagined them crowded together, voting on who the next meal should be. Only two corpses were perfectly preserved.

I wanted to run. I wanted to forget I'd ever been here, but Father's arm entwined my shoulders. It sparkled, I saw, as if studded with miniature diamonds. Diamonds trailed by saltwater rivers...

"Maybe," he croaked, "maybe there are still survivors."

Then, struck by impulse, he waded into the sea of gore.

"What are you doing?!" I was tempted to leave him wandering the bodies. Any moment now, a hand would leap into the air.

Thank God, I was wrong. It was a spine.

My heart broke through my ribcage. As Father screamed, I searched for a handhold on the cliff. This was what the Javulans had reduced us to--animals.
.

I started. Phoenix was curled up by what used to be Scarlet's mattress, muttering to himself. Sunbeams striped his limbs, the ripe gold characterizing noon.

"What're you doing here?"

He glanced over. "Thought you'd appreciate some company. Nightmares?"

"How did you--?"

"No use dwelling on the fact that she's gone. They're expecting us to be back to normal by the day after tomorrow."

Back to normal. What qualified as normal in Candon? In an agency bent on cleaning the land of monsters?

Phoenix turned to face me. His eyelids sagged, but otherwise, he seemed perfectly normal. Happy, even. He'd arranged his hair today so that the auburn streaks were visible. "I watched griffins sweep through the clouds, building up supplies for winter. Huh."

"Are you reading my--?" I swiped at him, but he danced away, laughing.

"You've a knack for recounting details exactly as they occurred."

"Where'd you find it?!"

"In the loose floorboard." He smiled. "Here's everything I said yesterday, word for word. Have you always had an eidetic memory?"

My anger dissolved into surprise. "No."

"No? 'I never said goodbye,' he--"

But a baritone voice cut him off. No, cut was too crude a word--too crude to describe how each syllable caressed my eardrums. Ribbons of them snaking around my skull, flattening my emotions, while simultaneously polishing the messages my brain were scheduled to receive. Never had a scent been sharper, or the air been crisper, or colors been more vibrant, pulsing within their boundaries.

Agent Praus, report to Room 702.

Then the voice drained into my consciousness. Not even the ghost of an echo remained. My five senses promptly re-pieced themselves, retightening their grips on my brittle flesh.

"Siv?"

My jaw unhinged, but no sound escaped.

"Did--what'd I say?"

"Nothing," I managed. "I--I've been summoned."

Irritation vibrated in his sigh. "You better go. The Director isn't a patient man."