Cleo
Cleo led the group down the eerily monochromatic road, engulfed in a nondescript, gray something. None of them could place what it was that they were walking into, and they found themselves falling silent, wordless, plodding along like an assembly of docile sheep being led to their… well, whatever was to come.
She surveyed the area warily. Starting at the ruler-straight margins of this road, beds of stubby, splintered grass were splayed out in broad rows as far as the eye could see. Even the sky was a bland slate-colored blanket: not too stormy, not too fair.
Cleo tried unenthusiastically to make conversation, but, like the others, found that she had nothing to say. And so, resigned as they were, she kept quiet, brushing flyaway strands of hair out of her face when an imperceptible breeze pulled at her locks.
The truth was, she had no idea what she was doing. It went without saying, really, that Reynie had noticed this, and she was quite thankful for the fact that he did not bring it up, despite the looks he cast her every time she spoke.
As for Sticky, well… she turned to look at him, inspecting his profile, and found that he was looking back – out of the corner of his eye, of course, but still. For some reason, this made a small smile tug at the corner of her mouth despite the circumstances. To be perfectly honest, she had liked him, truly liked him, from the first day they'd met.
Goodness, that felt like ages ago.
In a wave of unexpected boldness, she gave him a quick nudge. He was visibly trembling, and when he caught her eye she mouthed, It's okay. This elicited a slow, wide grin on his part, and his shoulders relaxed slightly. When he nodded back at her, it was an unspoken "I forgive you."
"Now what?" asked Kate loudly, startling Cleo out of her reverie. They were standing at the top of a hill, and a large, heavily padlocked bar about ten feet high was directly in their way. A sheet of what appeared to be silver was seamlessly welded onto the underside, and it seemed as if this was driven directly into the ground. It was peppered with holes punched clumsily to create sinister gashes, edged in the daggers that erupt when a thin material is pounded through. As a matter of fact, this unforgiving stretch of metal extended from either sides, creating a boundary that the children could not easily penetrate.
"I could try to climb over," suggested S.Q. helpfully.
Kate and Cleo shot him equally dubious looks.
"Suppose you couldn't get back over," said Sticky anxiously.
"And how would we get over, anyway?" Kate pointed out.
S.Q. hung his head. "Sorry."
"It's fine," Cleo said absent-mindedly.
"What do you have in your bucket?" asked Reynie of Kate.
She contemplated the challenge. "I mean, I could probably do it," she said. "But I can't promise that I could get the rest of you over – or that we'd be safe on the other side."
"Constance?" said Cleo, gesturing to the girl. "What do you think?"
"Do whatever you want," Constance snapped. She was getting sleepier and sleepier, for some reason, and looking at Cleo made her recall that sad, unyielding wall inside her head. It was dizzying.
Kate and Reynie exchanged a fleeting look of concern, and Kate said quickly, "I think I can do it." She began extracting a thick coil of rope from her bucket, then scrutinized the wall in front of her. "There's nothing to tie it to," she mused. This evidently was no setback, however, as she merely rummaged around some more and came up with a tube of superglue and a heavy horseshoe magnet. She deftly bound the rope around the loop of the magnet and swiftly brushed a thin layer of the glue onto the magnet's two feet. As the others watched in confusion, she took two steps back and threw the magnet over the top of the barricade, where it landed with a satisfying thump.
"This stuff sticks to any surface," she said cheerfully. "Give it five seconds to dry."
Impressed, they all watched as she counted under her breath and looped the other end of the rope around her waist. With a reassuring grin, she began climbing it easily, hand over hand in one fluid movement. Although the rope strained against her weight, it was adhered firmly on the other side and she cleared the bar in barely thirty seconds.
There was a pause, and they waited with bated breath. What if there were Ten Men? What if McCracken himself was there?
Then, thankfully, she called out, "All clear!" and, as an afterthought, "Hurry!"
The rope was tossed over to them; Reynie and S.Q. helped Constance up first, followed by Cleo, Sticky, Reynie, and S.Q.
"Cool," said Kate appreciatively. "Now what?"
Everyone looked to Cleo, who abruptly remembered that she was the one who'd taken charge in the first place. Here they were, so close to what could potentially be all the answers – but what could also be terrible, terrible danger. And Cleo was at the helm.
"Er – it can't be that far," she said. "Look, I think the doors are up there."
"So you're saying we should just… keep walking?" asked Sticky.
"Oh, great, it's not like we've been doing that for the past million hours," said Constance, arms crossed.
Reynie shushed her and spoke up, "I don't see why not. We've come this far, haven't we?"
"Of course," said Kate, nodding. Cleo wondered vaguely why the two of them appeared unable to take their eyes off of each other, but shook her head, prioritizing. Right now, they had to get to the next – for lack of a better word – checkpoint, and face whatever perils that might entail.
The walk this time was much shorter; hardly three minutes had passed when they reached a small booth. It was black, opaque, and utterly boring save for a speaker through which somebody inside could ostensibly speak.
"Hello?" said Cleo, clearing her throat. Sticky tapped the side of the strangely-placed kiosk.
Everyone jumped when a deep, rather pleasant voice said, "Who is it?"
Kate opened her mouth to say something, but Reynie gently touched her arm and shook his head not to. He nodded at Cleo, who understood what needed to be done. It was the truest test of loyalty.
"Cleopatra Valentine," Cleo said shakily. "I'm… with McCracken."
"Who are the others?" the voice asked gruffly.
"Um – prisoners. No, accomplices. They're –" She looked helplessly to Sticky, who tried wildly to improvise as well.
"We all go to the same school as Mackenzie," he said in as confident a voice as he could muster, "and…" He faltered.
Reynie jumped in. "We're visiting McCracken today. Right now. For, um, educational purposes."
"We have his seal of approval," added Cleo. "You can look up my name, you can ask him, he knows me."
There was a pause, as if the person were deciding whether or not to trust these children – who, after all, had given extremely feeble excuses – but after what felt like an eternity, he slid a laminated card through a tiny slot near the bottom of the booth. "Your name is in the databases. I'll let Mr. McCracken know you're here."
The gate in front of them raised, and they filed through. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, there was a building.
It was large, square, and constructed almost entirely of cement with steel fixtures. Not the most welcoming of structures, but certainly nothing overly ominous. The front was wholly occupied by a gigantic frosted glass set of doors. The group stopped short in front of it, hovering on the sidewalk, which had merged into perfectly circular cobblestones in the same drab hue as everything else in this disturbing place.
"Should we go in?" asked Sticky in a hushed voice.
"I say we go for it," put in Reynie, jaw set.
S.Q. scratched his head, looking, as usual, like he didn't know exactly how he'd gotten there, and Constance shrugged. "I'm too tired to think straight," she managed to say, struggling to keep her eyes open.
Noticing this, Kate hitched the girl up onto her back, and turned to Cleo. "Let's do it," she said grimly.
"He'll let McCracken know I'm here," murmured Cleo, repeating this to herself. Panic fluttered in her chest; what if she let them down? What if she wasn't quite brave enough to help her new friends? What if she could never make it back home to – no, she mustn't think of that. Shaking her head once again, she took a deep breath and pulled open the double doors.
A/N:
Hey guys! I hope you liked this chapter. I took into account what Shia F mentioned about imagery, and while this imagery was rather depressing, I really tried to be more descriptive. Definitely let me know how you liked it.
I've been debating about the rating, since I did switch it back to K from T as I had rated it T without any reason to, but recently as I started working on future chapters, I realized that there are some darker themes and concepts, similar, I believe, to the books. So while there definitely won't be sex or violence or crude language or drugs or anything of that sort… well, this feels rather silly, to be honest, because this really isn't a big deal. But I understand that if there are younger readers out there, I certainly don't want to be giving people nightmares.
A little background on the upcoming installments to which I am referring: I've always been an avid reader of dystopian stories. Not in a twisted way, like I'm not obsessed with horrible post-apocalyptic tales, but I've always been intrigued by them. If that makes sense.
At any rate, this idea has been in my head for awhile, and I thought that I could incorporate it into this fic, since to me, this isn't just fanfiction: it's turned into a piece of writing that I am actually passionate about.
Sorry for waffling; I just wanted to explain that and see what you guys think.
As always, thanks for your support! Please review and let me know what you thought of this chapter, and if you have any POV requests for the next one, since as of now I have no idea/preference. So, Sticky? Kate? Reynie? Constance? Mackenzie? You name it!
Okay, bye!