Meet our first protagonist, Kašxeni Khutgakóva, also known as the Red Ghost.
Author notes to be found at the bottom, so please read on.
The sun silhouetted her as she walked home, the dying rays of light in alternating shades of auburn and rosa and gold painting shadows on her face as she made her way through the narrow streets. She sounded sharp on the cracked pavement, each step a lock snapping shut - click, click, click, like the citizens were hiding themselves away from her rather than from Them.
Kašxeni Zhrygal Khutgakóva was the kind of girl that They liked to put on the red and black posters that hung in every school and street. Slender and lean, like she had been twisted into a shadow on a far-reaching wall, at times Kas seemed composed entirely of dark hair and eyes and skin, with the faint octopus symbol gleaming like wet ink on her collarbone. Her sinews ached from ballet and her muscles burned from fighting, her gaze was always sure and her hands never shook. Over one shoulder, she slung a bag - in one hand, she held a pipe. It wasn't much, as Ms. Romanova told her every morning when the younger girl left the house, but it would keep the vultures away until nightfall. Plenty of vultures in a city like this, Kas among them.
They liked girls like Kas, girls that embodied Their principles of strength and elegance and viciousness, especially when it shone so obviously through their eyes.
The vultures were numerous, and she couldn't help but glance over her shoulder as she turned one of the many tight corners that made up the narrows of the city, as though she expected someone to be standing there, waiting.
Usually there was, one of Them watching her as though to ensure she didn't fall prey to the shadows or fade away into the mists from which she had been woven, but tonight They had better things to do and the ancient stone grotesques that lined the building edges were alone, shrouded in shadow, but gloriously alone.
The rain was falling only reluctantly, drumming it's tattoo onto the cobbled streets and seeming to soften the entire world as it did so, creating a boundary of sound between Kas and the world. With the dark slicing through the sunset and the rain falling, she could almost imagine Sokovia at sunset as it might have been twenty years ago - all ghostlight and sound, footsteps on the ground and laughter reaching the sky.
She wouldn't have liked it much, she thought. She wasn't meant for open skies, or laughter - Kašxeni was a creature forged in the hard work of the Xona Ulaan, the finest gulag in all of Sokovia, and she hadn't ever allowed herself forgot it.
The streets were narrow and short and winding and from around one corner, there was a sudden shriek of metal, hideous as a human scream, and then an explosion, all red and orange and yellow and hot, so hot, hot, hot that the rain in the air vaporised and Kas had to duck into the nearest wall, wrapping her arms around her head and craning her entire body into the brick, shutting her eyes tightly as the debris, burning hot as the sun, rained down about her, all ash and smoke and hot, and it woke her again, scorched her blood red and set her heart beating.
She coughed into her arms, looked up, but the smoke blurred her vision for the two, three, four blinks that it took her to carve an image from the greyness before her - shades like ghosts moving, running, in the ash that showered down like snowflakes, settling on her clothes, on her eyelashes, forming delicate lattices in her hair.
She was glad for her pipe, that was certain.
A shade darted towards her, and rather than step back, she stepped forward, as though to meet them, whoever they were - but it was not a them, it was a Them, Their dark hair woven with charcoal and fragments of shattered glass and Their hands raised in a defensive gesture, wreathed in deadly red light.
Kas lowered her pipe. After a moment, They lowered Their hand.
They spoke Sokovian and gazed at her with dark eyes ringed in even darker shadows. "Ten komendanttıq sağat eto," They said, as though she could possibly have not known that it was curfew, and Kas put one had in her pocket to take out her pass, not moving her eyes from Their hands. It had to be one of Their miracles, didn't it, rather than just one of Them.
"Ruqsat imeyutjá qisqi soldatod," she replied, trying to keep the irritation that rose in her throat from twisting her voice - she didn't like being around These, and she never had. She kept her voice level, and her accent flat as it could possibly be. Withdrawing her pass and holding it out, Kas raised an eyebrow in amusement at Their reaction to the signature it bore. She may not look like much, Kas thought self-deprecatingly, aware and glad that she was one of a million girls in the city, but she was being looked after by people who mattered.
Over Their shoulder as They read her pass, she could make out faintly what was happening as faceless beings in black jackets swarmed the shades that had moved within the smoke, crowded in on them as though their very existence could be ceased if they were blocked from Kas' vision. Even as Kas watched, one of Them snapped a middle-aged man to the ground, raised a gun, and fired once.
It wasn't a click, but that was always the sound that came first to Kas' mind when she heard it, even if she was the one shooting. She could fire three dozen times, stopping only to reload, not even hesitating if her target was replaced with a breathing one, and every time a click was the first thing she thought of. A lock clicking shut, a final footstep, a deathwatch beetle ticktickticking. It was a definitive, final sound. One click, and that was it.
The middle-aged man slumped to the slick ground amongst the wreckage of the still-burning car, and They handed Kas her pass once more.
"Bytvy ostražitý-qiraği," They warned, and maybe there was a hint of concern there, misguided though it may be, a hint of concern that blurred the line in Kas' mind between the idea of Them and the idea of Her, a girl maybe twenty years old with a red jacket and blood on her face.
"I'll be careful," she replied, and watched Her as She nodded and turned away once more to face the men and women who, defiant, faced the faceless, even as their hands shook. But Kas made no move to walk away, preferring to wait and watch as the girl in the red jacket raised her hands, stared at the men and women, and ripped them apart with a single thought.
If Kas was a vulture, these were the wolves.
So, there is our introduction to our first character, Kas. Many thanks to Ruze a Koure for creating such an interesting character for me to write, and thank you to everyone else who submitted - your characters are still under consideration and no decisions have yet been made. The submissions are still open. The only character so far accepted is Kašxeni. I hope this chapter gave you an insight into the world that our heroes live in, as well as the type of people who live in it.
Please note that if you leave a review, your character will be given a better chance, as it shows interest on your part! The longer and more detailed the better - criticism and critique are much appreciated!
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this character.
A note on the Sokovian language used in this chapter:
Of course, there is no such language as Sokovian. The tongue you will see used in this fic is a creole of sorts, composed of elements from several linguistic sources, from a wide range of families. As a general rule, verbs will be from Slavic languages, nouns will be from Central Asian and Turkish languages, and grammatical features will be from Romance and Baltic languages.
Ten komendanttıq sağat eto- it is curfew, lit. the curfew be. Czech, Kazakh, Russian.
Ruqsat imeyutjá qisqisoldatod - I have a permit from my mentor, lit. Permission have-I mentor-from. Kazakh, Russian, Czech, Kyrgyz, Polish.
Bytvy ostražitý-qiraği - Be vigilant, lit. Be-you careful cautious. Russian, Czech, Czech, Kazakh.