Night was a good time for me. We were made to sleep every two days to keep our energies up, and those quiet moments when all the wildlife had gone to sleep and there was no noise of guards marching up and down the corridors was the times that I snuck out of our room and up onto the roof.
This was a place I kept to myself, no one saw me leave and no one saw me return.
The sky was bright with pin pricks of stars and a wave of loneliness swept over me. There was a huge stretch of land just over the perimeter, miles and miles of no-mans land where no one usually came down. It seemed so far, but the miles only existed in my mind, as did the boundary. It was cold this night, and the air was damp, indicating an impending thunderstorm. As I thought this a flash of distant lightning came from in front of me and struck the plain below. I stood up from my position and climbed down the pipes that lead to the iron roof. I should get inside before Dennis wakes up, as he always does when he hears the crash of thunder and the drilling noise of the hard rain that follows.
I paused on a ridge halfway down, and looked out over the grounds below. Stillness came from all around and I felt the animal in me screaming out for me to jump and just run…run fast with the winds in my face and the rain on my back. But my common sense then said that would leave my family in a very difficult position, and the mood was lost as quickly as it arose.
The morning's activities were few and far between for Cindy and I. We still had normal training and classroom times scheduled, but they had been still lax recently due to many trainers being off ill with sickness. Cindy always marvelled at the normal human condition, the constant rebound of disease, illness and then more disease. She used to joke about that…and I stress the 'used'.
This morning Cindy was in the females' bathroom messing with her hair. She had grown a fascination with the long brown curls that had grown over the past five years, Sketch always insisted that she was to keep it up but straight after training she would drop it again. I was surprised he didn't order a goon to come and chop it all off.
As always I stayed in the exercise room for most of the morning, only leaving when we had instruction with Sketch.
It got colder all of a sudden, strange because there had been a recent heat wave that had hit Manticore in the past three weeks.
Then a huge explosion of noise and sound came from a bit down the hall, I jumped off the treadmill, pulled my shirt back on and ran out of the exercise room. I saw smoke drifting across the top of the ceiling, and as I neared the source of the explosion I saw Cindy enter from the outside.
"What the hell is happening?" I yelled at her over the noise of smaller crashes. Instantaneously two soldiers bolted down the corridor, one stopping to fill us in.
"The boiler…" he began, breathlessly conveying the news, "exploded…how we don't know but…the pipes…the pipes above the main hall have collapsed…"
Cindy's eyes grew wider and her tone was that of panic as she interrupted.
"Brinn, Logan and Dennis are in there!" she yelled, and the guard nodded.
"So is Sketch!" He yelled back before taking off in the direction of the boiler room.
I broke off into a sprint, with Cindy close behind as we headed toward the hall. Two guard attempted to slow as down but we knocked them down as we turned the corner and saw the heaps of rubble and metal pipes all over the large area below. To our surprise, as we stopped we saw Jace beginning to lift the rock as best she could off the four buried under. Our eyes connected, and she yelled:
"HELP ME!"
We dived onto the rocks and saw Brinn's hand lying out of a crack. Cindy and I pulled the largest rock off her body and as Cindy carried her off she pulled the two dazed soldiers up by the collar, demanding her help.
I pulled a series of rocks off Logan, who's leg was a little worse for wear but he managed to get up and help locate Dennis. Cindy and Jace worked together to help our baby brother, and by chance, out of the corner of my eye I saw a leg and the lower back of a man stick out of a pile of rubble. It was obviously Major Sketch. I heard a low groan and I heard something in my head say:' HELP HIM GODDAMMIT!" I went forward, but then something else said to stop and walk away. What I mean is that this was the man who destroyed Jace, who has tormented us for over seventeen years now. My Manticore training triumphed over my own free will though, and I began to pull a pipe off the fallen man. I looked up to see Jace above me, her face not displaying any emotion, boy that scared me. But then she reached down, and as we pulled the large tube off Sketch I looked into her face and there was a message there that I was surprised to see.
Sure enough, we rescued him, and we were congratulated. All three of my family were laid up for a while, but only with slight breaks in the legs and a concussion. Sketch was fine too though, but that day I shall remember for a long time.
I may have made a mistake in saving Sketch, but in the process I discovered something startling in Jace. You see the message she conveyed to me was:
"Are you sure?"
This was a place I kept to myself, no one saw me leave and no one saw me return.
The sky was bright with pin pricks of stars and a wave of loneliness swept over me. There was a huge stretch of land just over the perimeter, miles and miles of no-mans land where no one usually came down. It seemed so far, but the miles only existed in my mind, as did the boundary. It was cold this night, and the air was damp, indicating an impending thunderstorm. As I thought this a flash of distant lightning came from in front of me and struck the plain below. I stood up from my position and climbed down the pipes that lead to the iron roof. I should get inside before Dennis wakes up, as he always does when he hears the crash of thunder and the drilling noise of the hard rain that follows.
I paused on a ridge halfway down, and looked out over the grounds below. Stillness came from all around and I felt the animal in me screaming out for me to jump and just run…run fast with the winds in my face and the rain on my back. But my common sense then said that would leave my family in a very difficult position, and the mood was lost as quickly as it arose.
The morning's activities were few and far between for Cindy and I. We still had normal training and classroom times scheduled, but they had been still lax recently due to many trainers being off ill with sickness. Cindy always marvelled at the normal human condition, the constant rebound of disease, illness and then more disease. She used to joke about that…and I stress the 'used'.
This morning Cindy was in the females' bathroom messing with her hair. She had grown a fascination with the long brown curls that had grown over the past five years, Sketch always insisted that she was to keep it up but straight after training she would drop it again. I was surprised he didn't order a goon to come and chop it all off.
As always I stayed in the exercise room for most of the morning, only leaving when we had instruction with Sketch.
It got colder all of a sudden, strange because there had been a recent heat wave that had hit Manticore in the past three weeks.
Then a huge explosion of noise and sound came from a bit down the hall, I jumped off the treadmill, pulled my shirt back on and ran out of the exercise room. I saw smoke drifting across the top of the ceiling, and as I neared the source of the explosion I saw Cindy enter from the outside.
"What the hell is happening?" I yelled at her over the noise of smaller crashes. Instantaneously two soldiers bolted down the corridor, one stopping to fill us in.
"The boiler…" he began, breathlessly conveying the news, "exploded…how we don't know but…the pipes…the pipes above the main hall have collapsed…"
Cindy's eyes grew wider and her tone was that of panic as she interrupted.
"Brinn, Logan and Dennis are in there!" she yelled, and the guard nodded.
"So is Sketch!" He yelled back before taking off in the direction of the boiler room.
I broke off into a sprint, with Cindy close behind as we headed toward the hall. Two guard attempted to slow as down but we knocked them down as we turned the corner and saw the heaps of rubble and metal pipes all over the large area below. To our surprise, as we stopped we saw Jace beginning to lift the rock as best she could off the four buried under. Our eyes connected, and she yelled:
"HELP ME!"
We dived onto the rocks and saw Brinn's hand lying out of a crack. Cindy and I pulled the largest rock off her body and as Cindy carried her off she pulled the two dazed soldiers up by the collar, demanding her help.
I pulled a series of rocks off Logan, who's leg was a little worse for wear but he managed to get up and help locate Dennis. Cindy and Jace worked together to help our baby brother, and by chance, out of the corner of my eye I saw a leg and the lower back of a man stick out of a pile of rubble. It was obviously Major Sketch. I heard a low groan and I heard something in my head say:' HELP HIM GODDAMMIT!" I went forward, but then something else said to stop and walk away. What I mean is that this was the man who destroyed Jace, who has tormented us for over seventeen years now. My Manticore training triumphed over my own free will though, and I began to pull a pipe off the fallen man. I looked up to see Jace above me, her face not displaying any emotion, boy that scared me. But then she reached down, and as we pulled the large tube off Sketch I looked into her face and there was a message there that I was surprised to see.
Sure enough, we rescued him, and we were congratulated. All three of my family were laid up for a while, but only with slight breaks in the legs and a concussion. Sketch was fine too though, but that day I shall remember for a long time.
I may have made a mistake in saving Sketch, but in the process I discovered something startling in Jace. You see the message she conveyed to me was:
"Are you sure?"