The Reincarnate

Chapter 1: A Boy in a Stitch

The fire dwindled down to embers and it was starting to get darker in the Emptiness. The four stitchpunks sat cross-legged across from each other and discussed their memories of their friends. Well, two of them did anyway. The rain had died down hours ago and they had left their shelter, a small tire, to set up a fire. The clouds were rolling swiftly across the sky, which seemed too big and too ominous to be real. Thunder boomed in the distance, warning them that the previous shower wasn't the last and certainly not the fiercest. Black clouds faintly glowed with the promise of something terrifying. The palest member of the group glanced at the sky worriedly. It was not her nature to feel apprehensive, but she felt some strange pull at the mechanical workings in her chest with every boom of the thunder. The twins were fidgety, jumping at every noise that the sky emitted and her male companion was warming his hands by the remains of the fire. They were all very afraid, and with good reason, but she was not supposed to be. She was the warrior, the strength of the group, and she could not have any weaknesses. The sky seemed to mock her with every second that passed, knowing that it was beginning to get to her.

"It's going to get pretty bad," She mentioned, hoping to hide the quiver in her voice.

"I know, 7," He shuddered, another boom of thunder peeled through the atmosphere.

The twins ran over to 7 and ducked between her and 9, shaking and shutting their optics tightly. She wrapped her arm around them to help comfort them as best she could. The thunder was getting louder and the lighting was getting more frequent. The wind was beginning to pick up, ruining any chance of regaining the fire they huddled around. One particular clash of thunder was enough to shake the very ground they sat on, and it shook 7 to her feet.

"We need to find shelter," 7 said, picking up her skullmet and her spear while glancing at their surroundings. Their previous shelter would not suffice for a storm of this magnitude.

9 whispered something inaudibly.

"Huh?"

"Back to the source," He repeated, louder as the revelation hit him. "We can go back to where I was born...where we were born. We'll be safe there. I mean, I was safe there before, right?"

"Yeah…" 7 watched him as his face grew with a strange sort of excitement. He stood, glancing at her sideways, before beckoning her to follow as he jogged away. He loved being in that room, the silence hinting at powerful emotions from long ago.

"9, wait!"

She grabbed the twins' hands and took off after him, grumbling at his impulsive nature and the storm the bellowed above.

"Was that really necessary?!" 7 yelled as they came to a halt outside of a tall, decrepit building.

The first floor was completely gone, save the stairway and a few supporting beams. The windows had been busted out, the wood was twisting, and the shingles were peeling off the hole-ridden roof. A smile crossed his face as he headed towards the stairs swiftly. 3 and 4 left their guardian's side to follow 9, their optics clicking away at the structure of the building and any interesting debris. 7, however, was a little more hesitant. She noticed the cracking steps and the groaning of the floorboards as she followed a few feet behind them, carefully trekking up the stairs with the grace of a cat.

Making their way to the peak of the stairs, they beheld a floor strewn with papers and books and various scientific instruments. The paint on the walls was peeling and twisting in the breeze that was created by the open window. A body lay in the floor to their left near a chair, and an open wooden box lay discarded near the body's hand. 3 and 4 ran around the room exploring, 7 stood contemplating her surroundings with a nervous composure, and 9 dug through the random piles of junk in search of anything that would be useful, or at least anything that would entertain them for the duration of the storm. 7 sat down on the floor in the middle of the room and stared at the body before her. She knew him, she remembered him. He was the one that gave them life.

The sky was an effortless light blue, providing the perfect backdrop for the purity of the white clouds as they transformed from one shape to another and drifted away slowly. The blue was so complete, so mesmerizing, that one felt the urge to reach out and grab a piece, so that one could own that peace and that purity forever. Alarming shades of blue were punctured and deflated by the city's skyline, a dark row of industrial, grungy buildings. It seemed to stretch from one end of the horizon to the other, swallowing the inhabitants of the city so completely that even if everyone had their own little piece of the sky, it would not be enough to keep the feelings of lifelessness and despair away. She laid back, the hot shingles slightly searing the skin on her back through the fabric of her shirt. Of course, there was always the Chancellor. He promised them freedom and security and, if it were possible, their very own piece of sky. Giving the people these promises did not mean he intended to keep them. Everyone talked about how the Chancellor would improve and protect the country with him preaching change for the better.

A boom and a clatter from below startled her to her feet. There was shouting and then more clattering, followed by even more shouting and the screeching of tires. The girl peaked over the orifice of the roof to gaze at the crowded streets below, ready for mobility. The crowd had parted right down the center of the center of the sidewalk, where a group of military police were stumbling over vendors and other obstacles in pursuit of a very naïve-looking young man. She crouched out of sight as the police ran noisily by and stared after the young man with pity. The government was paranoid now more than ever, and with good reason to be. After all, there were people like her running around. They could never be too careful. She snickered to herself, and then contemplated the face of the young man. He had dark hair and bright eyes, and looked thoroughly confused as to why the military was chasing him. His naiveté practically screamed that whatever it was he had done had not warranted the pursuit, and as she reflected upon him, it crossed her mind more persistently that she should help him. They would be angry, furious even, but she felt the need to defend him. She hurried over to the corner of the roof and catapulted into the alley below.

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His ears pounded with every pump of his arms and with his every smacking footstep on the concrete. His legs and eyes burned but he pushed himself further and further as the thought of being captured seeped through his mind. Time had lost all grip on him, and he had no idea how long he had been running. He rounded a corner and propelled himself faster towards his target – an alley that was meters ahead and on his right. He ran a lot faster than they did, a lot faster than he gave himself credit for, and he was definitely several meters ahead of them. If he could only get to the alley before they came around that corner! With a final stride and a glance backwards, he flung himself into the entrance of the alley and collided roughly with the ground, rolling into the darkness. He lay flat on his stomach for a moment as he realized that he had made it, but also that the shouts were coming closer. He knew he should get up, with only about half a minute left before he was found, but his legs and arms could not find the energy, and the cool cement was soothing to his feverish forehead.

"So you're gonna give up now?" A female voice rhetorically asked in a hurried tone, sending a jolt of lightning through his body. He instantly jumped to his feet. "C'mon!"

The hooded figure (apparently the voice belonged to it) grabbed his wrist, with a gasp of protest from him, and pulled him behind a nearby dumpster just as the police surged by the small rectangle of light that was the entrance. They waited a moment to verify that the coast was clear. The figure pushed him up the fire escape and he, still electrified by the shock, went with the movements, not slowing down to wait for his savior and not knowing where he was headed. He kept climbing until he reached the end of the zigzagging stairs and fell to his knees. His newly found companion kept up gracefully, and climbed over the edge of the roof to stand beside him, leaning against a ventilation unit. He inhaled heavily for what seemed like hours, trying to get the air back into his winded lungs. The building they were on top of was a lot taller than it looked. Neither made an attempt at conversation until they heard the angry voices of his pursuers getting fainter and fainter as it dissipated into the distance.

Finally, the same voice spoke again. "Would you mind telling me what you thought you were doing back there?"

The young man stopped panting for two beats, controlling his respiration the best he could before standing to face the figure.

"I was running," he offered weakly.

"I'll say," The soft voice said sarcastically. The only visible part of the face, the mouth, smirked.

"Okay, I had it under control before you showed up," He stood to his full height, which wasn't very impressive, he decided, and sunk back down to his original composure. "Who are you anyways?"

The figure, which hadn't been moving much during their short conversation to begin with, seemed to become very still. Pale arms reached up to the hood and gripped it on either side, before tugging it back from the face. Dirty blonde hair spilled down the girl's shoulders in soft curls, most of the tresses pinned back from the face. The pale face, which was framed by shorter strands of hair, had big, bright blue eyes hiding behind all that hair. Her lips were small and slender and pink, and her nose was small and round. Feathers dangled from the piercing in her ears. Her body was lithe and symmetrical, and he noticed that her arms, which any other person would hold out away from their body, were parallel to the curve of her waist. She wasn't feminine in the typical sense, but that was the very nature of her beauty. Her cheeks seemed pink with embarrassment as he scrutinized her. She could tell by his expression that she had avoided telling him her name, for which she was grateful, but his quiet observations were making her uncomfortable.

"Who are you?" She asked boldly, eager to shift the attention onto him.

He suddenly found the tops of her shoes to be very interesting, and after a moment of silence, she spoke again.

"What did you do?" She gestured down to the streets where his pursuit had taken place.

His troubled eyes crossed, back and forth, back and forth, until he stopped, thinking hard and looking up at her. "I…don't know."

He didn't seem to know much. If he didn't even know who he was... Suddenly, she thought of something. They will really hate me, but, she thought, I never got along with them anyways. She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the edge of the building.

"What're you doing?" He gripped his own hand tightly, trying to wrestle it from her. "Where are we going?"

She flipped the hood back over her head with her free hand, grinning eerily and ambiguously. "Just follow me."

Her tone told him that he was not going to get away from her. Oddly enough, he didn't want to get away from her. His curiosity was his most prominent characteristic. So he silently followed her down the zigzagging stairs into the darkness below.

Author's Note: Okay, first of all, I want to apologize if anyone has done anything similar to this before. I had this idea a while back and my laptop died so I could not upload it. But I have a Toshiba now, and it makes me very happy : ) Secondly, I just want to throw it out there that I am not completely aware of what time period the War took place. It seems to be after WW1, but I'm going to stick with the parallel universe theory and say that it doe not matter because it isn't our universe. Lastly, please review! Criticism is welcome, and encouraged!