Chapter 1

Capture

THE WIND RUFFLED THE GRASS of the field and the sky overhead shone a brilliant blue. A young woman picked delicate flowers from the field, placing each into a woven basket. She wore a red dress that was laced with elegant ribbons that hung from her sleeves. Her face had a softness to it that gave her an almost goddess-like appearance. Her eyes, a bright blue stood contrast to her flaming red hair. As the breeze grew, Ila pulled several strands of loose hair away from her mouth.

"Bleh," she muttered in distaste. She reached down and pricked a pink flower from the ground and placed it gently into her basket.

Although on the exterior Ila seemed calm, on the inside she was boiling.

Why do I continue to do this? This is so stupid! I shouldn't be sitting here picking flowers when I could be out fighting the freakin' government! The government that enslaves all of its subjects into paying outrageous taxes and doesn't do anything in return except kill us for no reason! They drag us off to their factories and make us work for almost no pay and then keep us there so we can't run off! The only reason I'm still here is because we live so high up in these mountains! I would rather go off and join the fight against the government instead of waiting here to be yanked off by grinning men!

Ila recalled the conversation she had with her father before she came out to these fields."Daddy!" she exclaimed, "If we don't fight now, we're just going to be dragged off to the factories later!"

"I will not have my daughter off fighting in battles," her father told her sternly, "There are plenty enough men who are doing that already."

"But they aren't enough! They need more people!" Ila tried to reason.

"Then let other people send their daughters off into war, I will not stand to see my own daughter be killed in battle." Ila's father stood firm.

"Daddy, I promise I won't be killed. I'm not a child anymore," Ila pointed out.

"Wrong. You are still my child, no matter how old you grow," her father said lovingly.

"Stop trying to dissuade me by spouting out mushy words," Ila told her father, but she was still touched, "Please, Father, you have to understand."

Her father sat, his brow wrinkled in emotion. "Ila," he said softly, "I just can't let you go. With your mother's death only a few months ago, I would be devastated if another one of my flowers were to be plucked away from me. Please, no more about going off and fighting the government."

Ila couldn't bear to continue the argument with her father in so much pain, so she said, "Okay, Daddy. I guess I could stay. But I'll never stop wanting to fight the government. I'm going out to the field to pick some more flowers for you. That will make you feel better."

So here she was, picking flowers for her emotional father who couldn't let go of his dead wife. Of course, her mother's death had been hard on Ila too, but she had been forced to stop mourning to look after her grief-stricken father.

She felt something cold on her waist. She glanced down and saw the reassuring gleam of the dagger she always carried. Her father might be afraid of the Promortics government, she wasn't. She had trained herself in the use of daggers and she had mastered them. Although she could only afford one at the moment, she hoped to obtain more over time.

She proceeded through the field letting her hands choose which flowers she would return to her father. She had traveled quite a ways from her home, but she didn't mind. No one would bother her this far from civilization.

As she stooped over to pluck a purple lilac, the acrid stench of smoke filled her nostrils. Turned on to high alert, she whipped her head up and pulled out her dagger in one smooth motion. She saw a plume of inky black smoke fill the sky. Her blood froze. The smoke came from the direction of her house.

"Daddy!" Ila screamed in terror and gruesome thoughts began to play through her mind. She pictured two soldiers pulling her dead father out of her burning home.

Ila began to sprint towards her home. The basket of flowers fell from her hand and crashed into the earth. The wind picked up the flowers and bore them away into the breeze. Ila pulled her dagger from her waist and suddenly realized how puny it seemed. The small, six-inch dagger seemed awfully tiny when compared to the long swords the soldiers of the Promortics government carried. How was she going to beat them?

Ila somehow pushed the thought aside and continued to run towards her house. The smoke began to fill her eyes and mouth and she began to choke while her eyes watered. The determined girl finally made it to her blazing abode.

The home that she had lived in for the past year was now burning to the ground. Smoke poured out of its upper windows on the second floor while flames seeped from the windows on the first floor. No sign of Ila's father could be seen anywhere.

"Daddy!" Ila shouted in fear and desperation.

She threw herself into the fiery building and searched for her father. Ila stumbled into the living room and saw her father, bound and gagged to a wooden chair.

"Daddy!" Ila exclaimed in relief, instantly regretting it as smoke poured down her throat, sending her hacking for air that was not there.

Her father's eyes widened and he began making violent motions with his head in the direction of the door and fresh air.

"N..N- No…" Ila coughed, "I won't leave you."

She quickly cut the ropes that held her father captive and pulled him from the chair. Her father fell into her and the dagger fell out of her hands and skidded away. The frightened daughter pulled off her father's gag and together they both stumbled to the door and fell outside, wheezing and gasping loudly for air.

"Aw, how cute," came a male voice.

Only then did Ila realize what a dreadful mistake it was to have left her dagger inside.

Ila forced her head up. The man who had spoken was tall. He had long, wispy, silver hair that was pulled back into a ponytail and his goatee was also silver. His eyes were as black as coal and his mouth twisted in a grin. He held a small hand gun loosely in his palm.

"How touching, a daughter who saves her father from a dreadful fate now is embraced in his arms. How very touching indeed."

And with that, he shot Ila's father three times in his face.

Ila sat stunned as her father's blood trickled down her dress and arms. It was warm and sticky and had a strange sweet smell to it. And then she screamed.

"Nooooo!" she wailed at the very highest of her voice, "No, please no…."

The man who shot Ila's father watched for a moment, then pulled Ila to her feet, letting her father's body slump to the ground. She tried to slap the soldier as hard as possible, but he caught her hand in a tight hold.

"No need to get feisty, now," he said, "He had every right to die by lying to a superior officer of the Promortics government."

"Superior officer my butt," Ila hissed, rage filling her, "All you are is a man filled on power, feeding off the weakness of others."

The man laughed, "Maybe, but insulting me is not a good way to help yourself."

"Makes me feel a whole lot better," Ila snapped back.

"One shouldn't follow impulsive feelings," the man replied.

Ila harrumphed and stayed silent.

"Now, now. . .you don't need to give me the silent treatment. Actually, I'm helping you by taking you to a better home in the city," soothed the superior officer.

"The factories?" Ila asked in disbelief, "Please, we both know that the factories are dark pits of despair. I know people die by the hundreds every day in those god-awful places."

"Granted you will have to work a bit, but it's really not as bad as people make it sound," the man said.

Ila laughed humorlessly. "Who the heck are you?" she questioned harshly.

"My name?" the officer asked, "I am First Class Superior Officer Lan. I am head of all operations in this part of the country and have been given authority to find workers for the government's factories."

Ila snorted. "You mean to find slaves," she said bluntly.

Lan gave a smile that did not reach his eyes and said, "Yes, that is what I do."

Lan made a motion and two soldiers clad in black slipped from behind two trees and began to drag Ila away. Ila fought and tried to kick, but one of the soldiers slammed his fist against the side of her head and her vision clouded and the world went dark.