AWAKENING
The Ace waited for the axe to drop but it never came. She heard the call for execution and the hush of the crowd, but it was obvious that something was holding the executioner at bay. She kept her eyes pinched shut because opening them just to see a blade come down on her neck wasn't something that she needed to experience in the small amount of life that she had left.
The silence was suffocating suddenly and something was different, she realized; the silence was different. Now instead of the whistle of wind against the back of her neck or the caw of crows in the distance, she felt and heard nothing. It was true silence besides the buzzing of her muscles. Her arm twitched and she realized that she was holding her own body at a 90˚ angle, not the blood soaked chopping block that haunted her dreams ever since she rose to the rank of spade.
"You can open your eyes now," said a sort of sardonic female voice from above her. A hand wrapped itself around her upper arm and pulled her up into a kneeling position. Her eyes shot open, or at least she thought they did. She was welcomed with more darkness and not the executioner, but another person. She looked up to the girl standing next to her and a million thoughts came flooding through her head.
Pulling her arm out of the stranger's hold, she scrambled to her feet and stood straight next to the girl, whom she sized up in a matter of seconds. The stranger wore a cropped, grey sweatshirt, zipped over a black camisole and khaki shorts. Her hair was the first thing to draw the spade's eyes. A bright red mess of straw covered the girl's head. On her face, she wore a grin that unsettled her to no end. She was strangely calm and her eyes were large and staring. Instantly she was classified as a possible threat to the spade, but no action would be taken yet.
"Rio," stated the girl, offering her hand.
Her name is Rio. There was obvious hesitation in the spades movements as she started to grasp the situation. She lifted her hand in reply and shook the girl's.
"Soku," she replied, pulling her hand back and folding her arms behind her back out of habit. "Am I dead?" she asked, already pretty sure of the answer. The girl, Rio, smiled again and crossed her arms in front of her, leaning back into a wall that Soku hadn't clocked as existent a second ago. The messy, calm girl shook her head and looked around herself, giving Soku the impression that she had just as much information on their situation.
"I hope not," Rio replied, "that just brings up the question of Heaven, Hell or…" she hesitated and her lip twitched slightly into what Soku could only guess was a smile, "limbo." She almost sounded like she enjoyed the situation. There was no fear in her voice, only expectation. As for the spade, the only thing that she feared in this room was the girl in front of her.
DESTINYISLAND
It had been three days. Three days and the teenagers took shifts every day to watch as zero progress was made in the case of their visitors from the sky. Nothing was new. Nothing had changed.
The door slid open as silently as a creaky, one and a half ton door could. Light slid through the space with the younger adolescent and fell on the singular leather chair in the room that was currently occupied. The boy walked to the chair and placed a hand on the shoulder in front of him. The silver-haired boy woke easily, with not fight, and looked up to his friend with glazed over eyes.
"Hey Riku," the younger boy said with a smile as his friend shifted in his seat and rubbed a hand over his eyes. Riku stood and patted a hand on the brunette's shoulder.
"Have fun." He said before heading out of the room. The remaining boy shook his head at his friend's seemingly careless attitude but smiled nonetheless, seeing as though he had been there from between two in the afternoon until now, nine at night. The boy walked over to the end of one of the beds in front of him and grabbed the chart for the red headed girl. The alpha-numeric sequences on the page didn't help to ease his mind. All he could do was take the freshly unoccupied seat and wait.
AWAKENING
Soku had felt her way around the room at least a dozen times. It was a circular room with a diameter of at least twenty feet. It wasn't that there wasn't light in the room; it was more like the empty space was filled with black. The girls—the only occupants of the room—could see each other easily with no hint of light and there was an echo of their words that went on for miles. After her thirteenth lap she balled her fist against the wall and pounded hard at it. No noise escaped as her fist smacked against the hard materiel though she could have sworn there was some sort of reverberation happening.
"You're not going to get very far with that," Rio mused, picking at her nails. What she didn't say was that she had already attempted that. A minute prior she punched, kicked, rammed and scratched at the black until she actually felt herself getting tired. She gave up quick enough.
Soku ignored the incessant nagging of her brain to silence the girl right there and then. It would be easy probably. Instead she continued to rhythmically hit the wall while addressing the girl.
"You say what you think. I get that." she hissed, "I respect that, but right now it is not helping anyone." She thought back to the courtyard and the look on her Jack's face as she made her way to her supposed death. What could they be enduring now because of her? Did everyone witness her being spirited away? Of course they did and the queen wouldn't stop until another Ace of Spades spilt blood.
Soku grimaced and with one final push of effort planted her foot firmly against the wall in a swift kick. A yell escaped her mouth and she grabbed her foot in pain. She spun around in a circle before falling on her backside right in front of the wall. She quieted, drawing the attention of the other girl who stared along with her companion. Suddenly her pain wasn't as important. In front of her, sprawled across the wall was a crack of yellow that now spread light through the black.
DESTINYISLAND
The doctors said the same thing every time one of the teenagers came to be with the girls. There was only one problem and that it couldn't possibly be the reason for both of their vegetative states. The red headed girl had an unusual flaw in her anatomy. Her heart beat out thirty more times than a normal heart would in a minute, like it would have been with a quick scare. It should have died out years ago with the rate it was going. Instead she pumped the same amount of blood as her friend did and her body seemed to function just as well.
The boy shook his head and replaced the chart at the foot of the bed in front of him. He shifted his gaze back and forth between the two girls and sighed, taking his seat again in the leather chair. The fabric creaked under him as he settled in for what he assumed would be a long night.
AWAKENING
It happened in a split instance. As soon as the crack appeared, it spread all along the room and separated into thousands of smaller cracks. There was an ear shattering sound like someone took a wrecking ball to mirror shop. Then a flash blinded the two girls before leaving them in the dark again.
Silence.
Rio looked up from her hands that she had used to cover her face from possible shrapnel. There in front of her sat the girl that she had just met and found rather boring. Now she was the most interesting person in her life. Something that this girl had done broke through the impossible wall. Something Rio couldn't do, the girl had done.
In front of her hovered a platform of stained glass, seemingly made from the remanence of the wall. It didn't move or fall. It just hung in the air in front of the eyes of its creator. Soku stood and stared into the deep black of the now open space before them. Rio stood and made her way to the girl in front of her, stopping to pat her on the shoulder playfully before taking the first bouncing step towards freedom. The clomp of her boot echoed against something in the distance and she smiled back at Soku, beckoning her to follow.
As more and more platforms appeared, Rio climbed while Soku stood standing in the same spot. She didn't know what she was expecting. What was she going to do if she found a way out? Not just sit in the same spot and wait, right? Slowly she shifted her foot onto the platform and when she felt that it didn't move under her weight she pulled herself up a step. With a look up to Rio who was looking back at her with a grin, she shook her head but continued none the less.
"Ready or not." She told herself and started up the stairs towards the girl in front of her.
DESTINYISLAND
Something wasn't right. He could tell even before his eyes shot open in the dark, trying to assess what was going on with his other senses. Something was off but he couldn't tell what it was. He could still hear the beeping of the machinery but something was hitting his ear wrong. Then he realized something had changed.
The second heart monitor had shot up in speed to join the other in a race and they were neck and neck at the finish line. He called for a doctor.
Thanks so much for reading. This story is a lot like the game in the aspect that once you get off of Destiny Islands, things move faster and are more interesting.
Id love to hear questions, comments or concerns. I live off of reviews. You are all lovely.
