Chapter 1: Three Green Eyes
Tender footpaws scratched against the damp black cobblestones, flinching slightly at the sharp broken stones poking up from the muddy puddles created from the rain washing the dirt and grime from their hiding places. The black night sky provided the only sounds, the steady patter of rain and a faint low rumble of thunder in the distance. A young riolu, no older than six, ran as fast as his minuscule stride would allow. In his paws was a now soaked white paper bag with an almost illegible red and blue slip of paper stapled to it. Rain dripped down the riolu's dirty sky blue cheeks like tears, flowing into his panting maw and causing him to let out a stifled cough. Despite his need to breathe, he dare not make a sound.
One false step caused the central toe of his right leg to dig into one of the sharp stones, cutting into it and letting out a silenced cry of pain and a drop of crimson blood, which mixed with the rain water and disappeared almost immediately. The pup ducked out of the main street and into a side alley to crouch down and take hold of his wound, trying to hold back tears any child would let out from such a sudden sharp pain. He didn't have time. His other now shaking paw tightened its grip on the soaked paper bag, reminding him of his mission.
He stood again and peeked out to scan the almost pitch black row of houses. There was no power for lights and too much fear for candles to be lit to indicate any life in a home. Darkness was the illusion of death and in death there was safety. The riolu choked back his tears and started running again, praying they would not hear his labored breath; the monsters with the three green eyes.
They traveled in the dead of night, stealthily stomping through the deathly quiet streets. Everyone pretended they couldn't hear, and the beasts pretended they weren't heard. They went about their business in a coordinated dance; sliding against walls, which left deep scratch marks in the rotted wood; pointing the lights strapped to the firearms they carried into windows and into places just wide enough for the emaciated forms of the citizens of the colony to squeeze into; and returning to formation, a black clad flood with dozens of bright green eyes.
He had heard too many stories of them. The children and adults alike did not hide the truth even from a young innocent like him. If they caught you in their beams, you died. The beasts made no sounds. Their weapons spoke for them, and their language was not one of mercy. The sound of their predation on the poor fools who dared to be out after dark brought him many sleepless nights. His mother slept near the window to shield him from their lights. He prayed they never passed by his home. She would surely die protecting him.
But it was on this night that he sought to protect her. She had begged him to stay, assuring him that she would make it through the night. He knew she was lying. He had seen the blood. It dripped from everywhere it could, sneaking out to leave ruby red stains on her sunflower yellow fur, her blanket, the floor, the rim of the pot that served as their toilet…. She was in constant pain. Even her soft smile had become a strained worried lie to her child that everything would be alright. She had tried to put off getting the medication she needed to have a little more food in the cupboard. Her hesitance had sent him out that night. He had heard that a kindly old lucario physician, who had on more than one occasion given him a cup of broth to satiate his painful hunger without having to be asked, had gathered the ingredients needed to make the life-saving medication. The old lucario had seen what his mother had been doing and, knowing that she would wait till the last minute, had mixed the necessary ingredients so that she could have it closer by than the far edge of the colony.
The riolu had not argued with her. He couldn't risk her changing his mind. He had pulled the door closed, knowing she was too weak to follow and ran out into the night to pick it up. The old physician had tried to keep him at his home for the night as well, but he knew he would wake up all alone if he did. She would die, the only one in his family left in his life.
He wasn't too far now. Their house was one at the end of the street, the one with the half caved-in second floor that had forced them to seal it off and live in the one room ground floor that served as their kitchen. They had even had to take apart the table to make room for the collection of blankets and one pillow each that served as their beds. He could see the house growing larger before him. He wanted to cry out to his mother to tell her he had made it. His paws were quaking, still holding an iron-tight grip to the soaked bag of medicine. Tears of relief were welling up in his eyes.
He stopped. His ear twitched at a click coming from behind him. His blood ran cold, and the tears of relief began to flow as bitter tears of terror. He turned slowly around to meet the piercing beam of a light mounted on the barrel of a black metallic gun and three…green…eyes.