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Chapter Two: New Genesis

The night was cold; I couldn't really sleep so I entertained myself boardly. I ran my hand back and forth across the cold, rusty bars of the cage that held me. Pulling my hand away and looked at it, my hand had turned the rusty orange-brown color of the bars. The color sort of spread through my hand like glass breaking, when it was done I just rubbed my hands together until the color vanished.

Letting my head flop back against the cage wall, I gazed dazedly out into the dark, dense forest. Something would occasionally rustle the bushes but would disappear seconds later. Now that I thought about it, it wasn't so bad sitting in this cage. I was alone, the sound of nature and the world was an intoxicatingly soothing. It wasn't long before I drifted off to sleep, soon I was dreaming. They were not very peaceful dreams either, nightmares from two years ago.

Locked in the dark for so long, completely cut off from everything. I hated these nightmares, they were so real. Especially that time period where I was completely over taken by fever and my skin would bleed. Then images of my younger brother would pop up; he'd be waving at ma, saying something that I couldn't hear.

It seemed like I'd just started dreaming when I was jolted awake by somebody rattling the cage bars. Opening my eyes I realized it was morning already, I'd grown to really dislike it when this kind of thing happened.

"Good, you're awake. We don't want you to sleep through this," one of the men said, "it wouldn't be proper."

"Proper my ass…" I grumbled, "What isn't proper is waking a person so rudely." I staggered to my feet irritably and glanced around. A rather sizable crowd had gathered much to my surprise. How did so many people gather without my noticing? I didn't really care, but it was still slightly baffling.

The village elders had gathered as well, the one from the other day was standing with a young girl. I gave him an irritatedly shocked frown, if that was who he'd been talking about the other day; she couldn't be more then sixteen or seventeen years old. I rolled my eyes and thought these guys must have been desperate.

"Young man, do you know why you are here?" lawman asked, he'd just popped up out of nowhere and startled me. It must really be early for me to be this out of whack.

"Yeah," he said, "But it's for a stupid reason. The only thing criminal about this is the fact, that old man over there singled me out, backed me in a corner and tried to force his daughter on me." I then turned and glared at the old man, "What's more important old man? Your daughter or preserving your people? If I remember correctly isn't blood thicker then water?"

"Silence, that is enough out of you." The old man snapped, "Proceed with the sentence." He then said to the lawman. He nodded and turned towards me, putting his hand on a crank.

"Sorry kid…" he said, then started turning the crank and the cage started to descend. I took a step back and looked around franticly, normally I could probably just slip through the bars. It's just peachy that the way the cage was built, that little trick wouldn't work. The cage was a few inches away from the surface of the quick sand when suddenly someone shouted.

"There's movement in the forest! It's New Genesis!"

Sure enough, a loud bang echoed through the air and the man that had shouted fell backward dead with a bullet in his heart. The cage jerked to a stop as the lawman stopped to try and calm the now panicking people.

"Hey, let me out!" I shouted, the lawman turned and looked at me. He had a rather strained look on his face; he then shook his head in a defeated manner and went to help the villagers. I was left ther hanging in the cage, a sitting duck in an attack that I wanted nothing to do with.

People were screaming as a flood of oddly dressed people attacked the village, they seemed to single out different people and kill them. Others, they'd carry off into the woods. I started to rattle at the bars, they were pretty strong. There was another loud bang, this one slightly louder then the last, and the next thing I know the cage is falling fast. It landed in the quick sand and started sinking, with me still inside it. I wrapped my arms around the part of the cage that wasn't sunk and pulled the small pocket knife out of my pocket, I'd put it there just incase late last night. Working at the lock on the cage, I tried to pry it loose, it was stubborn.

It seemed like only seconds before the cage was nearly submerged in the sand. I tried to keep my arms and head above it for as long as I could, but it was no good. I still hadn't picked the lock and I was running out of time, then I lost my grip on the bars. Save for my arms I was completely under the sand now, I was going to die this way. This really sucked; I didn't want to die, at least not this way. Just as I was losing both consciousness and any hope of survival somebody pulled my head out of the sand. The light was blinding for a moment before my eyes adjusted to the sudden change; I glanced around looking for the person who helped me.

"You sure are a magnet for trouble." Carmen said, she had me by the collar. She then leaned in close and said, "If I get you out of here, you have to take me and one other person out of here."

"W...what?"

"You are going to take me and one other person with you, in exchange for me helping you out of this cage. Now you've only got a few second left before this cage is completely sunk, what's your choice?" she said.

"F…fine, alright." I sputtered; the sand had really started to pull at my legs trying to drag me deeper into it. Carmon then took something out of her pocket and started to work at the lock, it only took her a second or two to get the lock undone. She then swung the door open and pulled me out.

"Now come on, we have to get Ally." Carmon said jumping down from the small tower. I stumbled after her; I didn't have the time or the chance to clean myself off so I was pretty bogged down by sand. I'd temporarily lost her, that is until she came out of a nearby cabin with a small girl, about nine or ten years old, in her arms. She spotted me and rushed over.

"Well, were do we go now?" she asked. I looked around quickly, there were still people being killed and dragged off everywhere. This wasn't going to be hard, just…interesting. I then motioned for her to follow me as I started across the village; I was making my way for the exit I'd planed on using the day before. It was closest and didn't seem to have as much activity.

"Common, stay close…" I hissed. I had been to busy trying to get her to move faster that I didn't notice one of the strangers that had attacked the village was standing right behind me. I walked straight into them knocking both of us over, they jumped up quickly and said,

"You insolent dog, how dare you…" the stranger stopped, I jumped up and glared at them. Then something made me shiver,

"Wait…I've seen you…" I muttered. It was the guy from the forest, the one that killed the man who tried to kill me.

"You're on of them aren't you?" the guy asked. I answered this by swinging my bag around and whacking him in the face. He staggered back and I took this chance to make a break for it. Carmon, the little girl, and I made it to the woods and managed to hide there till the fighting stopped. When it did, we noticed that the strangers were still there, Carmon just shook her head.

"New Genesis…this is the second time they've attacked us. It's not safe here anymore…"

"Carmon? Can we go home now?" the little girl asked.

"I'm sorry Ally, we can't go back there, it's not safe." She replied. I huffed and started walking away from the village, running my hands over my face trying to get the sticky sand off. My skin was starting to turn the color of the sand so I was having a hard time telling what was sand and what wasn't. Carmon jumped up and started after me, little Ally close behind.

"Where do you think you're going?" she demanded.

"Anywhere but here," I grumbled, "I need to get this stuff off, it's irritating…" I added, more as a note to myself then anyone else. Carmon then grabbed my arm and stopped me.

"We're coming with you." She said.

"Heh, no…" I said flatly, pulling my arm out of her grip and continued walking.

"You lying, no good…aarg! You promised!" she shouted, I rounded quickly and snapped,

"Could you keep it down, more of those New Genesis people could be about."

"We're coming with you, that was the deal if I helped you." Carmon said.

"No…I want to be left alone."

"Too bad, you agreed so now you're stuck with us." Carmon snapped crossing her arms. I just waved my hand absentmindedly and continued walking, they followed close behind. An hour or so passed and Carmon finally spoke up,

"If you're still having trouble getting that sand off, there are hot springs not too far from here."

"And how do you know that?" I asked.

"I only spent all my life in that village, I know about just about every luxury spot within two miles of the village." She smirked, "Besides, you could use a bath."

I glared at her then turned around and trudged off into the woods. This went against my better judgement and way beyond my normal living standard. I had only agreed so I could get out of there. Little Alley came running up to me and pulled on my sleeve,

"Where are you going to take us?" she asked.

"I'm not taking you guys anywhere…" I grumbled.

"Why not? I thought we were going to be staying with you."

"Because, you two are going to go off on your own and leave me alone." I stopped for a moment and looked down at Alley, there was something about her that seemed familiar. Shaking my head I then added, "I'm not a people person…"

"What! Why not?" Alley asked. My eye twitched slightly, I'd almost forgotten just how much little kids loved to ask questions.

"That's none of your business kid." I turned and stormed over to a tree and started climbing, this was the only way I could think of to get away from them. I was about half way up when something nailed me in the back of the head. Nearly losing my grip I looked around madly for the source of the attack, then looking down I saw Carmon glaring up at me tossing a few stones around in her hand.

"Alley can't climb trees," she said loudly, "get down here, we're going to the hot springs."

"Crazy woman," I grumbled rubbing the back of my head, that had rather hurt, "What makes you think I care where you're going! I got you out of that village didn't I, and you got me out of the cage, that's fair enough." After that was said, I continued climbing. When I reached the top, I made sure to double check that I was alone, then gazed around at the surroundings.

It was night and the sky was clear and the stars were shining brightly. Turning my attention to the landscape I looked around for some sort of landmark, a very large tree sounded nice. A small cloud of white steam could be seen about a hundred meters away inching above the treetops. I tilted my head thoughtfully, a bath did sound nice, I hadn't gotten all the sand off and it was making my head itchy. If those two happen to drop by there anyway, it didn't really matter, I figured.

Lifting myself up out of the tree branches, I was able to walk along the top of the trees. It was considerably convenient that the tree branches were so thick and crowded that they made a sort of makeshift floor, or ceiling depending on the perspective. It also helped having a rather cat like sense of balance. It wasn't long before I reached the source of the steam, it was definitely hot sprints, and there were at least three of them.

Climbing down from the treetops, I jumped down from the lowest branch, which were at least five or six feet from the ground. I silently pondered how I was going to get my clothes clean, just toss them into one of the springs while I used the other one? I just shrugged and muttered about how I was wasting time, it had become a reoccurring habit of mine to sometimes talk to myself. I set my bag down on one of the giant stones next to the nearest spring, and then I took my tank top off. I looked it over for a moment and thought I should probably get another one, or at least one that wasn't so worn and it was getting kinda small. Tossing it in the spring I then turned my attention to stretching my arms about, they were stiff and sore. The hot water would help relax my sore muscles.

To Be Continued-


(Insanely evil laugh) Neyahahahahahahahahaha! No Ed fan service for you! Whahahahahahaha! –Cough, cough, cough- heh…sorry…it's late and tomorrows my birthday and I'm getting manga! FullMetal manga! (Squee!) And I'm all happy and can't sleep, so that means…I just finished this chapter! Yey!

(Sigh) I just want to note…I know, I'm seriously neglecting 'Gates' and 'Harry Potter and the Quadwizard Tournament' and 'The Dawn of Haymaker' T.T. I've got the next chapter for 'Millennium Awakening' all written up and half way typed. Neya, I've got like three weeks of school left till summer vacation (O.o oh hey! Only three weeks! –Only just catching on- Kewl!) Now I'm rambling, so I'll just go to sleep now…please review! Reviewers get hugs! (I've been givin' hugs a lot of hugs lately…oh well! Hugs are a good thing!)