My name is Cyrena. I am fourteen and a half years old. I come from Shiganshina. I was there That Day. I survived. My mother is dead. And my father, well, he might as well be…
Sun light slowly fills the room, illuminates her skin. Cyrena squints and shields her eyes, blinded by its heavenly rays. She rolls onto her back and lay still, staring up at the ivory ceiling. Colorful refractions from her mother's blouse bounce of the beads and dance on its surface. Her white comforter is glowing as dust is dancing around in the still air. It is ethereal, she thinks, yet such beauty can do nothing to lift a heart like Cyrena's. So heavy and full of emptiness, it aches fresh but with old wounds. The calmness of it all settles over her like a metal blanket and, despite the necessity she doesn't want to move.
It's time to start the day, Cyrena.
She tells herself and seems to sink deeper into her bed.
Get up.
She turns her head and stares at her mother's glittering blouse and a skirt lain out neatly for her on the back of a mahogany chair. She remembers the lights at her mother's show, so blinding and beautiful, especially at that last one. Blue hydrangeas, and clear blue skies, lilac perfume and white sunshine. Mother was young and pretty. Her mother received a lot of gifts from hopeful suitors in the interior. That blouse had to be worth more than what most families make in a year in these parts. Still, that blouse was one of the only things she has left of her mother, plus her heart is too full of emptiness to feel any guilt about wearing it. So in one swift and determined will, Cyrena is up, dressed and headed down stairs before her mind has a chance to say no.
Her feet are heavy down the creaking wooden stairs. She lives in a farm house in the South side of Wall Rose, along with the odd couple, Oby and Merrigan Lou, and her sister, Alani Fletcher. Alani was with Cyrena during the Titan attack, but before they lived together in an orphanage. They are not real sisters, but she likes to pretend they are. Alani is blind, but she's the most cunning sonuva bitch Cyrena has ever met. And Oby and Merrigan, they're pleasant people. The girls used to call her Mother Mary when they were young, and they said she has a heart made of honey and stars in her eyes. Oby wasn't too nice, though, he loved beer a little too much. None of that matters, Cyrena knows, because today is the day she leaves for the Cadet Corps. One step closer to dad, she's been thinking.
"Mornin'" Merrigan says when she hears Cyrena. "Want some breakfast?" Her fiery red hair is up in a ponytail and she has an apron wrapped around her waist. She stands in the kitchen stirring a pot, Oby is at the table reading a newspaper, a cup of coffee in his other hand, and he doesn't even look up. The two of them are facing away from Cyrena so they don't see her frown, when she scans the room there is one person missing.
"Where's Alani?" she says finally.
"She left early to go fetch some firewood." Merrigan answers innocuously.
"By herself?" Cyrena asks dubiously.
"Of course not, she took Boris."
Boris is the dog. They have him and a cat named Lovely who is MIA also.
"No goodbye?" Cyrena asks, hurt.
"I guess she couldn't take it." Merrigan shrugs sympathetically. "Oh honey, don't worry, I'm sure she'll be back before your time, and even if she's not this isn't goodbye. You'll see, in three years' time you'll be graduated and then we'll have you back full time. We'll be a family again." She says cheerily, with a grin that slices her face in half. Her words were meant to be cheerful, but it ends up feeling like a punch in the gut. For one, she isn't planning on coming back. Not after the three years, not ever, which is a betrayal to Mary, a woman who sees her as family. She opens her mouth to speak but the words die in her throat. Instead, she smiles.
"I can't wait."
(PAGE BREAK)
"Straighten those spines piss ants!" The Commadant stands above us on what looks like a gigantic rock, or a mountain. His voice is rough and commanding, like it's struggling through sand paper.
"The 104th Cadet Corps starts now. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Cammadant Keith Saides and you will grow to hate me! Training is gonna be a white knuckle-ride through hell! If I've done my job right you'll be waking up in a cold sweat from nightmares of this place for the rest of your miserable lives!"
Cyrena scans the rows of new cadets, everyone's face is the same, terrified but determined. They all have something to prove, it's all in their eyes.
"Right now you're nothing. Livestock. But over the next three soul crushing years you're gonna learn to take down your own Goliath! Remember this moment when you come face to face with it. Now is the time for you to ask yourself this question: am I a fighter? Or am I feed? Am I gonna be ground to human bits between to boulder-sided sizers? Or am I gonna be the one to bite?"
Cyrena gasps at the memory of them, of their mindless, dead eyes and that terrible moment when they are on you…
And then she thinks of her father.
I am a fighter. She whispers, shaking. I've got warrior's blood in my veins.
And the fear in her seems to disappear, for now.