Chapter 7: Escape
– Seven years later –
Elliott was a big girl now – 12 years old. That was a lot, she thought. The years had flown past. But as Elliott grew stronger, her mum grew weaker. Before, when her dad was still alive – because Elliott was now certain he was dead – she'd been a nice and funny person. Now she was like an old lady. Always complaining, telling Elliott what to do even though Elliott never listened. She was even worse than Aunt Amy.
Not only Elliott, but also her hatred for the Styx had grown larger in time. She loathed them with her whole heart.
Elliott couldn't live like this anymore. All her mum did was worry about her. And what would happen if the Styx came for them. There were spies everywhere. They couldn't trust anyone but each other and Aunt Amy. Elliott didn't even have a real friend. There were people here that she hung out with sometime. But she didn't really trust any of them, and behind her back she knew they called her 'half-breed' and other mean nicknames. If Elliott had known what a sheep was, maybe she would have felt like the lone black sheep in a herd of white ones.
That was the reason why she now stood before the mirror, cutting her long, black hair off. She cut it short, for she was going down to the Deeps now. She was crazy, possibly, but anything was better than staying in the Colony.
Elliott had heard many stories from people she knew about the Deeps. But she suspected that most of them had been fabricated or exaggerated by the Styx themselves to scare people.
But Elliott wasn't scared. She was a survivor. She left her old home with a huge backpack filled with necessary items and went down.
She couldn't say goodbye to her mum. If she tried to, her mother would stop her from leaving. And Elliott didn't want to be held back anymore. She was the commander of her own life, and she was ready to drive it the directionshe wanted.