Hiee! Just got back from a weeklong vacation at Myrtle Beach (the weather there is sooo much different from that in Canada, let me tell you). My spoils? About a pound and a half of manga which is simply not available in Canada and a kickass Sohryu Asuka Langley model for fifteen bucks! Also, I got me an online Neopet. While I was surfing the site, however, I found that there's a Neopet named Alaryan!! Does anyone know if this is a fluke, or if I actually had something to do with this? I'm just curious is all. Email me and tell me, purty please!! –Lady PhoenixDagger *//.^*
*****
Mira opened her eyes to a field of utter whiteness broken only by the twisted hunter green metal corpse of what was once Zach Gaevrien's van.
Cold…
She sat up.
I'm in the snow. Dawn danced upon the pristine crests, forcing the telekinetic to squint against it. Tremulously she stood up, her back against the bole of a tree, fully aware now that her body felt completely alien to her.
What happened?
Fuzzy half-memories began to surface as Mira forced herself to move towards the deeply rutted road that would eventually take her away from this grave of twisted alloy and to the Ichara home. Memories of black cars screaming into the van, of metal crunching as huge men and women wrenched off the doors assaulted her.
Were they fighters?
Shouting. And sharp pains. Needle-sharp darts dipped in muscle relaxants. Mira knew their sting all too well. And collars. She dipped her head, feeling the chilling metal of the collar grip momentarily at her chin. Snow spattered with rusty-coloured blood crunched under her bare feet, though only the sound told her it was trodden below her feet.
No bodies, though.
At least they remembered to take away the evidence. Black Hood had been uncharacteristically sloppy of late. The smoke from the Ichara chimney was visible on the horizon now.
I killed as many as I could.
A memory of a huge blast followed by piercing pain and mind-numbing cold.
They shot me?
Mira laid a hand on her right breast, only to be greeted by that same searing pain, though by now it was less. The collar had shut away her telekinetic power, but not her unnatural healing process. It was that alone which kept her from freezing to death. She smirked in spite of herself. The stupid bastards had to have been new. No veteran would take such a huge chance as to leave a Black Hood freak for dead.
They used amateurs this time.
Still totally numb, Mira ran her hand over the wound in her breast and brought it up to her face to see the extent of the damage. Suddenly, her heart seemed to freeze solid within the confines of her chest. Hanging from her fingers was a small silver locket on a delicate silver chain. Black Hood agents had certainly come, that much she knew, but she had not been alone when they did.
But she was alone now.
"No…." Her tongue felt unbearably thick in her mouth as she forced the word out.
Where else could they have all gone? Mira forced herself into a clumsy, half-loping, half-falling run, desperate now to get to the Ichara house.
Please God, not Black Hood...
*****
So ends the first part of Alaryan's Keep, "Freaks". Stay tuned for the second part: "Humanity Stolen"Ja ne!
--LPD *//.^*