Spoiler! :
Well, here ya go:
Spoiler! :
Getting out on the crowded, noisome streets again after hiding in the hazy neon twilight of an alley had been frightening; he knew that the hooded military men that had been trailing him since he arrived in Sector 7 chose this time, just after midnight, to hunt. Slumped down in the corner between the front desk and the parlor entrance from which rolled a fog of cigarette smoke and crackling voices, Shannon glared at the front doors, daring a soldier to come find him. He would fight like hell if it came to that, for there was no way he'd allow them to drag him back home.
Home. Did he even have a home anymore?
"Um, excuse me...mister?"
Shannon's head snapped up at the voice, but his rush of adrenaline and panic simmered to dull irritation as he gazed up into the delicate, harmless face of a little girl. Doe eyed and petite, the girl appeared ghostly in the grimy lighting of the foyer. Her jaggedly trimmed, short locks fell across her forehead as she peered sidelong at Shannon, and as she worried her lower lip, Shannon could see the charming gap between her two front teeth.
Shannon blinked at her, and she stared at him.
"Uh, d-do you need a room, mister?" she asked in a tiny voice, her cheeks flushing in some combination of fear and embarrassment. She could see the blood stains on the front panel of his issued navy-blue uniform, the trimming of dirt on his ankle-high boots, the quiet fury in his icy eyes. Even at the innocent age of eight, the girl knew well the signs of trouble, having grown up in such a hell-hole as Sector 7.
Shannon inhaled deeply, filling his cheeks with air, then exhaled in a puff. He felt a little bad for scaring the girl so badly with his appearance; surely that was why her hands trembled while clasped against her chest, why her massive eyes gulped his image unblinkingly.
"Yeah," he finally replied, unconsciously patting his thigh pocket. "I need a room. Are you the one I have to pay?" Flat broke, Shannon figured that this little girl wouldn't be difficult to convince to stay free of charge, but if the owner of the hotel were to confront him, well, that would pose an inconvenience. He didn't really feel like getting thrown out this evening.
"Y-yes," she squeaked. "Uncle isn't here right now, so I'll tend to you, mister."
"I don't have any money."
The girl didn't miss a beat: "That's O.K."
They stared at each other a little longer, yet again, before Shannon nodded to himself and began to stand. When he stood, he loomed a good foot or two over the tiny hotel girl, and she stepped back from the frightening but handsome young boy.
"What's your name, kid?" he asked, smoothing out his jacket with a disinterested expression blanking his pretty face.
"Lamb, mister," she replied. "May I ask yours?"
"'Lamb,' huh?" Shannon repeated, and the aptly named girl turned to lead him up a flight of carpeted stairs to the left of the front desk. "That's sorta a weird name, kid. But I guess I'm not one to talk; my name's Shannon. Girly-ass name, right?"
Their ascent up the narrow staircase stirred up dust and a faint mildew stench, and Shannon eyed the peeling floral wallpaper, water stained and faded, attempting to cover the walls. Everything about this place made Shannon's skin crawl, for despite his recent years slumming in various sectors of level 77, the grime and despair, the cloud of hopelessness that hung in the air in places such as this never failed to disturb him. No matter the filth he accumulated or the horrors he witnessed (and experienced), Shannon's wealthy upbringing managed to seep through the coating of dirt and blood to hinder him from ever growing accustomed to the destitution of level 77.
In the past few years, though, Shannon had never once met someone like Lamb. She didn't have the gray or freckled or wrinkled constitution of most people in these parts, her skin glowing almost pearlescent beneath her uneven fringe. Even her eyes, dark and glittery like the polished obsidian used for ceremonial weaponry in the military camps, were free of the tired haze brought by sleeplessness, hunger, drugs. Nothing but the fraying edges of her blue uniform, the scuffs and grime on her tall boots, and the dirt beneath her fingernails hinted that she was in fact an unfortunate member of this godless society.
She continuously glanced over her shoulder to make sure Shannon was still following though the floor creaked at his every footfall. She led him up to the second floor and down a dark, dank hall lined with butter-yellow painted doors, each numbered with two stenciled digits in green. Somewhere in the swampy darkness, Shannon heard a squeak and the patter of tiny feet. He shivered unconsciously. Lamb ignored the animal noises and looked back and forth as they passed door after door as if searching for the proper room for her free-loading guest.
In the silence, Shannon's nerves had begun to fray, so while she led him around a corner and down another hall, he tried at conversation:
"So, where is your boss or whatever?" he asked, scratching the side of his face.
"Uncle is with Betty right now," Lamb replied, as if Shannon should already know whom this 'Betty' person was. Considering the scandalous nature of Sector 7, he figured this woman was probably a prostitute, so he just replied with a noncommittal, "Ah."
"Is he really your uncle?" he then asked.
"No. He just asks that I call him as such. He doesn't want people to bother him for keeping a kid around." She paused finally, and Shannon almost ran into her as she turned to twist at the knob of one of the doors, but it clicked and didn't budge, so she moved on.
"Why are you in a place like this?" Shannon asked, not really caring if his questioning bothered her or not. "I mean, what are you, like five? What's a little girl doing working in a crack-house hotel like this?"
Lamb huffed indignantly, a small surprise to Shannon who had already pinned her as the timid and compliant type, as she replied, "I'm eight years old, thank you. My mother was a prostitute, so she couldn't keep me around. Obviously, I have no idea who my father is. Uncle took me under his wing in a rare moment of sympathy. He keeps me around to do maid work."
Shannon could only think to reply, "Oh."
"Why are you in a place like this?" Lamb asked hesitantly. "You can't be very old."
"I'm...fourteen," he told her after a moment's thought. "And I'm here by my own choice. That's all you need to know."
Silence fell again, and Shannon felt the same unease creeping into his stomach. He had never liked silence much; it allowed him too much time to think.
"Here's your room." They had come to an abrupt stop at the end of the hall, the last door on the left. Lamb jiggled the knob, set her thin hip against the wood, and shoved the door open with some resistance. Shannon looked over her head into the dimly lit room, the only light slinking in cast by a red neon sign across the street. The square of light fell across a small bed wrapped in sheets the same depressing shade of yellow as the door, and from what Shannon could tell from the dim light, the only other piece of furniture was the white bedside table topped with a shadeless lamp.
"Cute," Shannon muttered, but instead of offending Lamb, the girl grinned and motioned for him to slide past her.
"The window," she said, "opens, and the fire escape is just below it. Just leave and enter through it as you like. We never room anyone this far back in the hotel."
As he stepped into the small space, he turned and cast Lamb a grateful smile, surprising her by the sudden softness in his expression. Without another word exchanged, Lamb left Shannon to his own devices, softly shutting the door behind her before returning downstairs, never to know that Shannon began to cry softly in relief as soon as he was alone.
~*~
"Here's some breakfast," Lamb's soft voice penetrated the dusty air. Shannon hadn't even heard her enter his room while he sat on the edge of the bed, looking out the cracked window into the pale artificial sunlight. For nearly a week, Lamb tended to him like a doting parent, making sure he bathed in the small green tub in the adjoining bathroom, assuring he ate three meals a day, checking on him up in his cave when Uncle was elsewhere in Sector 7. Shannon, growing increasingly more moody as the days wore on, had initially been offended by her care, feeling like he should be treating her like a child and not the other way around, but now in the morning of his sixth day under her watch, a numbness had replaced the ache of his pride, a chill had fallen over his natural fire.
Lamb had silently watched the decline of his mental health and attributed it to being held up in such a dismal place, but she knew better than suggest he leave; what few questions of hers he answered had informed her that he was in no position to be out on the streets and that here would be his only refuge.
He didn't look up at her when she came to sit the tray of limp bacon and over-easy eggs on the foot of the bed, just stared unblinkingly out the window. His cool eyes remained transfixed on a fly buzzing, slowly dying on the window sill.
"I don't understand why you stay here, kid," he said, his voice airy. "This whole level is one massive rusting metal hell-hole." Lamb had come to love the smooth, musical quality of Shannon's voice, come to prefer it over the deep and rough rumble of Uncle's voice like all the other men that she had met, but this high pitched and brittle tone bothered her.
Instead of dwelling on Shannon's voice too long, she answered his words, "Where else would I go?"
He shrugged. "Up," he said.
"Up?" Lamb frowned, an expression too mature for such a doll-like face.
"Yeah," Shannon murmured. "Up. Like up to level 78."
Lamb blinked, astonished at the suggestion, and anxiety filled her stomach as if Shannon's words had poured melted wax down her throat to pool in her belly. She fiddled with the buckles of her jacket and smoothed down her shorts, fingertips grazing the pale patches of bare, lightly scarred skin on her thighs above her boots. Her flesh felt cold. "No, no, I could never go up there, Shannon. That's where all the military men are."
"But it's lovely, Lamb," Shannon murmured, eyes hooded. "Unlike here, the walls of the Infrastructure are a mile high, all polished all the way up...there are still plants there too. Sprawling gardens can be found in any of the ten Sectors. Acres of grass as green as emeralds hanging from the ear lobes of wealthy women fill the miles between the Sectors on which regiments of soldiers train. The air is clean and fresh, always smelling like cut grass with overtones of gasoline. Here, it's all cigarettes and smog. The buildings are too close together. The air feels like the walls are breaking out in a cold sweat."
Lamb just stared at the side of Shannon's face as he daydreamed aloud, mesmerized by his descriptions of a heaven beyond the crowded, dilapidated Sectors of level 77.
"A-are there animals there?" she asked tentatively. "Like, not dogs or rats, but real, wild things?"
Shannon's wide mouth titled into the smile of someone dying in his sleep, in the middle of a pleasant dream. "All kinds of wild things. Birds of all sizes and colors that nest in the Infrastructure's walls. They'll fly out over the inner Sectors in flocks to search for food, singing..."
Lamb felt her chest begin to ache, paying only half a mind to the odd change in Shannon's voice as he spoke. She fretted for less than a second over his abnormal state, too happy to drown herself along with him in these fantasies of a better world. "Is that where you really come from, Shannon?" she whispered as if afraid her voice would disrupt the fragile veil of imagined beauty his words had spun around them.
Her precautions were useless; Shannon's half-lidded eyes snapped wide, and he glared down at his boots. "It would be better for you there," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "A cute little girl like you doesn't belong in a pit like level 77."
Though Shannon wasn't looking at her, Lamb shook her head furiously, lightly blushing at being called "cute." "No, no, no," she said. "They'd drag me back here for sure."
"So you've thought about it?" Shannon questioned, barely tilting his head in her direction.
"What?"
"You think you'll be brought back by the military men. That must mean you've considered the repercussions of going up." Lamb gulped in reply. Shannon nodded as if she had replied in the affirmative.
Finally, he turned about at the waist, and pulled the hot tray of food onto his lap, looking up at Lamb for the first time. His stomach dropped through the floor, and he almost dumped his breakfast down along with it.
"Lamb," he breathed. "What the hell happened to your face?"
Shannon felt a boiling rage begin to heat his insides as he took in the dark bruise and swelling distorting the left side of Lamb's soft face. Her left eye was nearly swollen shut, her skin a mottled dark plum color from cheek bone to brow. A cut ran down from her temple, the flayed skin around it an angry red. A tiny nervous smile touched her lips, but her eyes spoke fear.
"I-I fell," she answered unconvincingly. " I was trying to clean the banisters and I--"
"Cut the bullshit, Lamb," Shannon growled, yanked from his self-pitying stupor by the fever of his horror. Someone had dare touch his little savior, and Shannon would assure retribution. "Who did that to you?"
"It's nothing," she bit back, stepping away from the boy and clenching a small fist against her chest.
Shannon set the tray back on the bed and stood up, glaring down at the girl he had come to see as a caregiver if nothing else. "Don't lie to me, Lamb. Who did that?"
Beneath his burning blue gaze, Lamb crumbled, never having been much of a fighter. "These boys down at the market. I-I always go to get groceries in the mornings, and usually they only bother me a little, but-but...I don't know! They tease me all the time, calling me names. They yell at me, calling my mother a whore, and I try to ignore them, but it's hard! It's so hard, Shannon! So I told them to leave me alone today. I don't know what I was thinking, but I told them that I had a friend that would kill them if they bothered me anymore. I don't know why I said that. So stupid, but the oldest one got really angry, so he started calling me names and smacking me around, and when I tried to call for help, the others just laughed while he...Shannon?"
Shannon was looking away from Lamb, out the window with an eerily void expression. Painful little tears had surged up at the corners of Lamb's wide eyes as she tried to tell him what had happened, but now the misery drained from her with the color from her cheeks as she read the murderous intent on Shannon's face. She hastily wiped at her tears and began to backtrack.
"Shannon, it's nothing! It's really nothing!" She remembered the first night they met, the night she found him slumped in the corner covered in blood and dirt, looking like some sort of androgynous, clear-eyed angel cast down from the heavens like in those dusty old books Uncle had given her. Thoughts of what Shannon must have done to acquire those bloodstains had kept her from sleeping that night, and now the same disturbing fantasies exploded behind her eyes.
"Take me to them, Lamb," he ordered her, looking away from the window, a shadow passing over his eyes. In the cold sunlight and deep shadow, Shannon reminded Lamb again of that fallen angel, a being capable of any horror or kindness. She wanted to believe he could protect her, wanted to dream of running away from Sector 7 forever with him, but her fear had kept her rooted to the stained gray carpet.
She bit down on her bottom lip, her resolve slipping away again, and she bowed her head. "At least eat your breakfast first," she whispered. He complied, and no more was said until he cleaned his plate.
>>
After descending the rickety iron fire escape, the pair trudged down the nearly empty and silent street bordered by multiple storied apartment buildings with boarded up windows like pitted gray flesh bandaged in plywood, two ghosts haunting a deserted town. The sidewalk was fissured so that they had to watch their feet to keep from ripping, the street beside them narrow and soggy and littered. Shannon tried not to look at anything for too long, not the monochromatic graffiti, not the rats scurrying into the gutters, and especially not the damp, tearing flyers posted here and there on the concrete building faces that read 'MISSING: Reward if Found' above a black and white photo of a young girl in bows.
"Just go down to the corner then make a right. The market is on the next street over," Lamb instructed the boy walking ahead, her eyes lowered. He nodded to himself then began to dig in the hip pocket of his jacket, the buckles down the front tinkling lightly from the disruption. Lamb looked up in time to see him fish out a small cylindrical object, white and opaque with a cap. He twisted the top off then shook the container over a cupped palm, carefully emptying out two tiny pink pills into his hand. Tilting his head back, Shannon swallowed back the pills, closing up the container and shoving it back into his pocket as if nothing had even occurred. Lamb had seen him ingest the pills once before, also after breakfast, but that had been before they were on regular speaking terms.
Lamb eyed him warily, and after a few seconds of feeling her staring at him, Shannon turned and snapped, "What? Never seen a guy take pills before?"
"They're pink," Lamb stated. "What are they for?"
Shannon sniffed and looked away from the girl with the hideous black eye, easily reminded of the target for his anger. "None of you damn business," he replied lowly.
Walking in another uncomfortable silence, the two rounded a corner, and ahead sprawled lines of vegetable and fruit stands, tents erected to shelter meats and cooking supplies, venders walking about wheeling carts of sweets and cheap jewelry ahead of them. The whole place was alive and buzzing with movement and noise. The closer they got to the market, the more overwhelming the smell of raw meat overlapped by dying flowers overlapped by sweat grew, a stench as human and unpleasant as they came. Shannon's straight nose wrinkled a bit, but he kept the disgust off his face, preoccupying himself with his violent purpose.
"O.K, Lamb," he said, looking down at her for a brief moment before scanning the crowd. "Where are these guys?"
Wringing her hands, Lamb shook her head but answered, "They are probably over by the cigar tent. It's near the stall with all the brightly colored fabrics up there. The tarp is bright blue."
Shannon gave a curt nod and started walking a little further ahead, calling over his shoulder, "Keep yourself busy and out of trouble!" Moments later, Lamb lost sight of him.
Stalking forward, boots splashing through murky puddles and across the loose black gravel, a predatory animal closing in on his prey, Shannon's icy eyes locked on his target, a group of rough looking boys a little older than himself huddled in a pack in front of the haze-filled cigar stand. A moment of hesitation slowed his pace, his naturally self-preserving and rational side slowing his march at the sight of them, but it only took a second to remember the swollen purple bruise on a little girl's face. He continued forward without further delay.
One of the boys, a burly redhead with his hair buzzed, a cigar between his pale lips, and a sneering face marred with freckles and acne, inclined his head at Shannon's approach and smacked a few of the others to get their attention as most stood with their backs facing the approaching boy. "Look at this scrawny little punk," the redhead cackled, and a dozen beady eyes turned on Shannon.
Shannon halted in his steps a meter away from the huddle, and from this close he was forced to admit most of the boys had a significant size advantage on him, despite his height. He took a deep breath, puffing his chest out in the way he had seen street fighters do in a masculine display of intimidation. He could feel the curious eyes of bystanders watching him, anticipating his purpose, hoping for a show. Well, they wanted a show; he'd give them a show.
>>
Wandering through the stalls for the second time this morning, Lamb tried to ignore the stares she got from walking around with such an impressive bruise. Domestic violence was anything but uncommon in Sector 7, but not every day did one see a cherub like Lamb and certainly not with so obvious a display of violence. Not meeting the eyes of anyone, she swung about her gaze to try and locate a point of distraction. Her mind so buried in her thoughts, her eyes only leading her forward, Lamb failed to notice a person walking past her, causing her to bump her shoulder into the stranger.
"Oh, forgive me," she quickly apologized, looking up finally into an entirely shadowed face, the person's figure obscured by a dark cloak. The shadowed man nodded, and a deep voice said simply, "Watch your step," before turning and moving on with a rustle of heavy black fabric. Lamb stared after the figure for a moment, wondering why someone would so conspicuously disguise themselves here in the market, but shrugging off her questions with accepted ignorance, she moved onward, thinking again of Shannon.
Never before had she had someone to defend her as Shannon was at this moment, and the idea made her feel queasy. Growing up practically on her own had made her independent to a fault, then coupled with her natural tendency to worry about things beyond her control, Lamb felt the urge to cry just thinking about her friend facing those awful boys.
Back amidst the roiling smoke of cigars and under the uncaring gaze of hardened adults, Shannon crumpled into a large puddle, down on his knees with a blooming pain in his abdomen. When the disrupted, oily water beneath him cleared, he could just make out his reflection: a cut on his lip trickled blood down his chin, a bruise was forming on one high cheekbone.
"Pity, ain't it boys?" the redhead, whom Shannon had found was the alpha male, leered around the glowing tube of his cigar. "Shame we gotta bust up such a pretty face."
Another delinquent, a skinny, narrow-eyed boy with greasy black hair, piped up, "Probably shouldn't beat 'im up too bad, Reff. I bet he'd fetch a good price on the market, huh? Dirty old men pay big bucks for ones like him."
Reff guffawed and clapped his pal on the shoulder, the others circled about Shannon laughing in turn. Shannon looked up over his shoulder and scowled, pushing himself back up onto his feet, pants soiled and dripping. Tilting his head left and right to assuage some of the soreness from the blow to the face he had first received, Shannon glared at the chummy pair, silently flashing them the finger.
Reff's ugly smile dropped, and he scoffed, "Who do you think you are, kid? Comin' here to start a fight like you own the place. We've got no business with some girly punk like you."
Shannon wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You bastards hurt a friend of mine," he said. "I'm simply here to return the favor."
"Go home, loser." Reff waved him off. "Play with yer dolls and leave the real men alo--" But he was cut off by a swift uppercut to the jaw. Reff stumbled back, his muddy eyes alight with fury as Shannon stood defiant before him with bruising knuckles. The audience of boys ebbed away from Shannon, watching for their leader's next move, but Reff still seemed a little shocked that this doll-faced punk had caught him off guard. He rubbed his jaw then snarled, "So that's how you wanna play, kid?" And then he lunged. Nimble and slim, Shannon was able to dodge Reff's hulking advances quickly and effectively, his agility due in part to the deluge of adrenaline pumping through his veins. Shannon landed a skillful blow to Reff's cratered face, blood gushing from the nostrils of his broad, busted nose like a stream of wine from a tapped cask. Sputtering and spitting, the older boy sprayed blood out in a scattered shower from his lips as it poured, and Shannon held up his hands to avoid catching the foreign fluid on his own face.
"Disgusting pig," Shannon muttered under his breath, disgusted by the red spray. He wiped his hands on the front of his jacket and prepared for the next volley of punches.
>>
As Lamb passed through the section of the market in which the air was thick with the metallic scent of freshly slaughtered meats, she heard gravelly, clipped growl from one of the stalls. Tied by a thick rope to a spike hammered into the ground lied a large dappled animal, the size of the scary, sleek black dogs with the pointed ears Lamb had seen bouncers at clubs tie up near the back doors to ward off anyone attempting to sneak inside. The animal was definitely not a dog, though, with its spotted black and white body, thick, fluffy tail, little round ears, and dark circles ringing its yellow eyes like the smeared makeup on a lady of the night. The striking creature bared its teeth at her and attempted to pace around on its short leash. Saddened by the animal's captivity, Lamb dared to look up at the stall keeper, a rotund bearded man nearly bursting out of his uniform jacket, dark chest hairs curling over the opened collar. He was busy hacking away at some thick slab of meat at a smaller table perpendicular to where he displayed his product.
"Um, mister?" Lamb cooed, cupping a hand beside her mouth. Probably only registering some sort of foreign noise from over the thud of his cleaver against the bleeding, marbled muscle, he tilted his head on his thick neck, aiming an ear toward the front of his stall before going back to work. Lamb pursed her lips and looked back down at the animal. It had stopped growling and now sat on its haunches, staring at her eerily. She noticed then the fraying of the rope near the spike, what looked like the animal had been gnawing away at the fibers. Wondering if butcher had noticed this but soon forgetting about it, Lamb offered the animal a tentative smile before looking back to the butcher.
"Excuse me, mister!" she called out more confidently, and with the downward swing of his blade, he paused and looked over. He squinted either from poor eyesight or the glare of the gray daylight from outside the shade of his brown tarp. Leaving his knife wedged in the meat slab, he waddled over to the front table. His eyes, heavy with bags and shadowed by thick eyelashes, continued to squint at Lamb even as he neared, and he stared at her a moment before speaking:
"How can I help ya, little miss?" he asked in a gruff voice that reminded lamb of Uncle, a voice that came with too much smoking. He seemed kindly enough, though, and Lamb remembered herself enough to offer a sweet smile.
"Mister, I was just wondering about this animal here," she said with a point and a nod at the quietly squatting creature down by her legs.
The butcher scratched at his stubble and looked at the animal with contempt. "Oh that damned thing," he muttered with only mild venom. "She been comin' around to steal my pork shoulders. She likes the taste of raw meat, that devil. I finally caught her and tied her up to keep her outta my wares."
Lamb's mouth twitched. "And you didn't just take her outside the Sector?"
"Naw," the butcher said with a wave of a pudgy hand. He absently straightened up some of the steaks on the table, making them look more appetizing somehow Lamb supposed. "Too much trouble. Besides, she's a nice lookin' animal. I figured I could make some money off'er."
"She seems a little wild for a pet," Lamb commented, leaning forward to bit to test the possibility of petting the creature, but she growled again. Lamb retracted her hand, and the butcher chortled.
"Ha! You better watch it, little miss. I don't doubt she'd eat ya alive if she got the chance. Civets--that's what her is--they're nasty creatures. I read up on 'em, and they like the taste of human flesh more than anythin'."
Lamb frowned. "Then...why on earth would anyone buy her?"
The butcher shrugged, his belly bouncing a bit. "Dunno. I figured she might make a good stew." With a wave of his hand, the butcher dismissed Lamb and the subject and went back to chopping beef. Lamb looked down at the poor creature straining against the rough rope, doomed to be cooked in a thin broth someday, and sighed. She had no money to buy the animal even if she had the ability to cart it outside the Sector to let loose near the wall of the Infrastructure where most untamed animals roamed. Again risking her right hand, she slowly, carefully reached down to pat the civet's head. Its black lips curled back on one side, but she did not move or growl. Lightly with her fingertips, Lamb touched the soft dappled fur on her head, and when no attack occurred, the girl gently rubbed, delighting in the soft warmth of the civet's fur. Straightening back up, Lamb smiled sadly at the captive animal, and the civet in return stared up at her with some animal equivalent to reverence. Lamb gave her a nod then walked away to await Shannon's return.
>>
In past years spent wandering and hiding throughout the ten Sectors of level 77, Shannon had been forced to learn the art of the street fight in order to survive. Soft, pampered, unprepared, Shannon had nearly lost his life on more than one occasion during his first year on his own, a child in cities full of heartless, violent adults, but as Shannon's mind quickened, shutting off all unnecessary functions such as hindsight, acknowledgement of pain, the ability to feel fear, those hard years blurred into a single training session. Reff continued to pound at him, to yell insults and projecting saliva mixed with the blood gushing out of his nostrils, but Shannon's anger served to deafen him to the world.
How many times had he heard these uncreative yet continually stinging insults? If he allowed the blood to spill out of his nose, to paint his teeth, if he allowed his 'pretty face' to contort in all manner of animalistic grimaces, full lips pulled back, clear blue eyes narrowed, would anyone still question his masculinity?
Reff lifted a black boot up from a puddle, aiming his toe toward Shannon's stomach, but the boy blocked with his forearms, stumbling backward into one of the supporting poles of the cigar tent. He didn't bother making sure nothing had been broken by the vicious kick, only jumped back into the makeshift circle bordered by cheering, jeering adolescents. Just as he made to swing his own boot up and around toward Reff's thick neck, Shannon thought for a split second of the little girl for whom he was fighting. And as Reff expertly caught Shannon around the ankle, using the boy's momentum against him in order to swing him around and down into the muck where above the breathless boy he would threateningly loom, preparing to administer a final blow, Shannon could only hope Lamb at least was alright wherever she was now.
>
Consequently, Lamb was thinking about the same about her defender, but her outlook was significantly less optimistic. She feared the worst for Shannon, and anxiously wringing her hands, she forced herself to walk through the market in wide arcs around the cigar stand to avoid interfering...or seeing her friend get slaughtered.
Just as she rounded a corner, passing piles of overly ripe bananas and red onions, an awful, pain filled howl rang in the damp air. Lamb stopped, stood still, stared. Her hands shook then all at once her self control shattered, and she began to run in the direction of the noise, the direction of the cigar stand.
"Oh god, oh god," she panted, tears already pricking at her eyes in anticipation of finding Shannon broken in the midst of her tormentors. "Please be alright!"
Nearly slipping on the loose gravel more than once and having to rudely shove her way past strolling market-goers, Lamb's eyes eventually locked on the blue peak of her destination, and when she darted around to the front of the stand, a cloud of choking smoke assaulting her lungs, her froze in complete shock.
Shannon was lying on his back, struggling to lift himself up by the elbows, but he wasn't the one howling. The redhead that had punched Lamb in the eye that morning was curled up several feet from Shannon, crying and cursing in a puddle of his own blood. His po scrambled around and did nothing to help their leader who was immobile with pain and fear, a large, spotted animal crouched and growling between Shannon and him.
"The civet?" Lamb breathed in surprise. Shannon's bloodied, bruised face read total shock, but when his eyes locked upon Lamb standing slack jawed at the corner of the stand, his features fell in relief. She hurried over to his side, Reff's cries ringing in her ears, her doe eyes asking many questions. Just then, Reff regained his footing and vaulted to his feet, allowing Shannon and Lamb a front row view of the spurting, shredded stump that used to be Reff's right hand.
"The hell...is that thing?" Shannon gasped, still trying to catch his breath from being tossed like a flour sack onto the gravel.
"It--she's a civet. Some sort of wild animal that apparently likes the taste of human flesh. I thought the butcher was kidding about that part," she said, the last bit mostly to herself.
As if aware she was being discussed, the civet opened her mouth, revealing a row of tiny, sharp white teeth, to let out a keen hiss then a warbling growl, delinquent blood dripping off her snout. The butchered hand sat at her paws, a dirty lump of peeled flesh and broken bone, and Reff continued to scream in agony. By now, a crowd of market-goers had gathered, and sensing Shannon's nervousness beneath the many eyes, Lamb moved to help him to his feet. He stood shakily as he looked around the crowd, looked at the disgusted and horrified faces of the boys that had witness his duel, looked at Reff, the red ape, as he staggered and uselessly kicked at the civet who only scurried away, picking up Reff's dismembered hand as she darted toward Lamb.
But as Lamb shied away from the animal that approached her like a beloved owner, proffering the hand like prized game, Shannon scoured the crowd for any sign of--
Like a dropping bomb, Shannon's heart plummeted from his breast to his feet.
"Come on, Lamb," he hissed, gripping her by the arm and pulling her into the shelter of bodies. Lamb hobbled after him, the people parting before the jogging pair like clumsy waves, but she had difficulty keeping up with his long stride. Behind them, the civet created an uproar in the crowd as she bounded after Lamb in a blur of black, white, and red.
"Shoo! Go home!" Lamb called, stumbling as Shannon weaved them between anonymous men and women with his head ducked low. It didn't make sense to Lamb that the civet would have shown up to rescue Shannon, to end up in front of that cigar stall of all places, but upon noticing the cord tied around the animal's neck like a noose, she then remembered the fraying rope that would end up holding the civet captive for only a short time, remembered the longing in the civet's wild eyes after Lamb had stroked her head, then the entire crazy situation began to make some sort of unbelievable sense. But this running Shannon was doing with Lamb in tow had yet to make sense in her head.
"Shannon!" she called out, staring wide-eyed at his head of furiously whipping curls, and she thought randomly that he was in need of a haircut. "Shannon, why are we running?"
They burst from the crowd, the two of them stumbling from the swarm only a moment before their pace picked up full throttle, a racing civet happily trailing after them.
"Just go, Lamb! We've gotta get out of here," he called, his voice high pitched with fear. "We've gotta get out!" He looked over his shoulder long enough for Lamb to see the wild terror on his battered angel's face. She looked back in turn when she noticed his gaze directed over her head, expecting to see the civet running after them--she couldn't possibly be the reason for his fleeing, right?--but saw not only the civet but three cloaked figures running full tilt behind them, cloaks flying back as their boots pounded against the wet ground in time with their steady, athletic breathing.
Swiftly vacating the open square in which the market had been erected, they found themselves trapped once more on the narrow streets of Sector 7, their only escapes obvious alleyways to their left and right, conducive only to turning them into easy targets. The one way to go was forward, onward. The boy kept his eyes on the towering wall of rusting pipes and wire and overgrown plant life just beyond the low-lying buildings at the end of the road, the Infrastructure's inner wall. Shannon breathed hard and fast, his heartbeat pounding like battle drums in his temples, but he screamed at himself inside his head to just keep running!
Their boots splashed up brown water, gray dirt, the clammy air smacked their pale faces chapped and sucked the moisture from their lips, and steam rose from street vents around them like the welcoming smoke of the blazing underworld, blurring their vision, but Lamb and Shannon just kept running. Further back one of the hooded soldiers yelled out some incomprehensible order to the fugitives, but he went ignored.
Closer, closer now.
The crumbling concrete buildings began to thin, but another corner had to be turned to avoid a line of vacant storefronts. Shannon nearly lost his balance trying to whip around the corner, but Lamb kept him on his feet, now doing her damndest to keep pace with him despite her small stature. The civet yipped on their heels, and Lamb was reminded of the way she had rescued her friend and wondered if she could rescue them once more.
"Civet!" she cried, earning a sharp glance from Shannon as she waved behind her. "Get--get them!" But the civet just bounded after Lamb, apparently working on her own mysterious animal agenda.
And then Sector 7 ended in nothing but a wide, charcoal lot of gravel and dead weeds that met only the obstruction of the Infrastructure's quarter-mile high wall. Straight ahead, large illuminated red letters protruded from the patchwork metallic surface of the lower border of the wall reading ELEVATOR. Lamb's eyes went wide, and the pieces began to click together. Her brain's ability to process information seemed to triple in speed, whether from the adrenaline rush or a potent fear, she did not care to know the difference. Had it been only this morning Shannon daydreamed aloud of the upper level? It seemed so much longer ago, a different lifetime perhaps...
"Shannon," she mouthed, but the air ripped the name from her lips. Out here, without the barrier of the buildings, the wind howled mournfully, stirring up a low layer of dusty fog, but the red sign glowed like a beacon just beyond their reach. Hope surged unbidden in her small chest, and for a moment, she imagined reaching the great iron gates of the elevator, of ascending safe inside with Shannon to a new and better world.
Then this world came out from beneath her feet.
The air was squashed from her lungs as she fell face-first to the ground, tasting dirt and blood from a newly split lip, and an immoveable mass held her down as Shannon bolted ahead. He paused only to look back at the girl, shock alighting in his face upon finding Lamb tackled to the ground by a pursuing soldier. The civet had bounded past the man and girl, but finding her young master gone from the boy's side, she slid to a stop. They were meters from the elevator gates.
"Lamb!" Shannon bellowed, his feet propelling him forward while his eyes willed him back. The civet spun around and bolted toward the soldier removing himself from the breathless little girl and pulling her up by the biceps to keep her captive but upright. The other two hooded figures continued to run after their prey, the civet cutting right between them to catapult herself on to the third soldier, right over Lamb's head. The soldier cried out in pain as she dug her black claws into his unprotected face beneath the thick hood, knocking him flat on his back. Disoriented, Lamb looked back and forth from her furry rescuer and the still fleeing Shannon, too confused and frightened to think of much more than the importance of escape and survival. She staggered to stand then began to run again, her lungs filled with acid flame that came searing through her throat at each panted breath.
"Just run, Shannon!" she screamed, flailing her arms. "Run!"
Shannon spared her one final backward glance before launching himself at the criss-crossing iron gates blocking off the metal cavern of the inter-level elevator. His hands locked around the latch, yanked it open with a rusty screech, then proceeded to pull open the gate when a gloved hand came down on his shoulder, gripped, then flung him back on his butt. A shadow passed over him, and then something heavy, blunt struck him blindside, throwing him on his stomach in the dirt and causing stars to explode in his vision. The soldier above him replaced his sheathed sword in his belt and waved over his companion. Lamb watched this all as she ran toward them on thin, weakening legs, failing to come up with a brilliant, way to get them away from her friend, a way to escape with him still.
In this moment of great stress and terror, Lamb's young mind invariably wandered to an old comfort, those battered books Uncle had salvaged for her. Her favorite had always been the thin leather bound book with not title, nothing redeeming save for the story within. The words had told of a handsome prince, captured by a witch jealous of his beauty. Determined to keep him from ever finding true love, she had taken him far away from his home, up into the mountains only to transform him into a swan and set him loose in the wild.
Shannon's arms twitched at his side, and he tried so hard to move, to get up and get out and get Lamb, but he couldn't connect those desires with the muscles in his paralyzed body. He vaguely registered the voices of the two men above him, heard the word "fox" above all other words, then he heard a growl.
Lamb jolted back as a rush of air flew past her, the wind solidifying into the form of the civet. Behind her, the attacked soldier bounded clumsily, his hood torn off as well as one ear and a good portion of his hooked nose. Lamb willed herself to run out of his path, but the soldier was quick in his fury, and he took grip of her hair, yanking Lamb alongside him.
Lamb screamed and cursed like she had learned to do, and she clawed at the soldier's arm, dragging her boot heels in the dust. She looked again at Shannon through a stream of hot tears. What was the story? Had the swan died alone in the lake in the mountains?
Lamb called out Shannon's name over and over until she couldn't even hear herself anymore. The civet leaped at the soldier that had clubbed Shannon, but he was quick, swatting the creature aside midair. The other soldier bent down to lift Shannon up like a fainted bride, the boy's dark head hanging limp on his neck just like his drooping limbs. Back in the dirt, the civet would not take defeat, so instead of backing down, she latched onto the soldier's ankle, eliciting a furious cry. He batted at her head to no avail, and then something exploded in Lamb's right ear. The civet went limp, and the soldier kicked her body off his foot, the hole in the back of her striped neck oozing dark blood over her monochromatic fur. He pushed back his hood then, revealing a head of golden hair above a coldly handsome face distorted in a deep scowl. He looked at the man still dragging Lamb alongside him, giving him a curt nod in thanks before turning to the third still disguised man and instructing him noiselessly. Lamb felt as though she had been submerged in water, her vision blurred by tears and all sound sucked from the wind-swept lot like a vacuum.
The golden man pulled open the elevator gate the rest of the way before stuffing a hand into his pocket, the golden buckles of his military gray uniform gleaming beneath his black cloak. The soldier gripping Lamb by the scalp released her, but entirely drained, she slumped to her knees, eyes travelling from the innocent, dead civet to Shannon seeming just as dead in the arms of the faceless soldier.
The story, the story. The image of the swan prince floating alone on the glassy surface of a fairytale lake flashed over and over in her head, keeping her conscious, keeping her from losing it completely in the face of her entire world's destruction. She felt her lips form the word "no" and "please" repeatedly, but she heard nothing.
From his pocket, the golden soldier produced a crumpled piece of paper, shook it out, studied it. A flyer, bold-faced words above a dated, black and white photo. He nodded absently to himself, nodded at the man that had been mauled by the civet, nodded to the elevator. Lifted to her feet, Lamb was caught into the soldier's grip by the collar of her uniform jacket, the taught fabric closing off her airways as he pulled her closer to the gaping black maw of the elevator. The red glow of the sign illuminated the face of her captor, sparkling on the blood that painted the majority of his disfigured face just before he tossed her inside the elevator with very little effort.
Lamb pushed herself off the cold and wet elevator floor, all three walls around her smelling of mildew and decaying organic matter. She looked over her shoulder into the reddened face of the soldier before he slid the gate shut. Just beyond the gate, beyond the one-eared devil, beyond her streaming tears, Shannon had opened his eyes to look at her. His lips pulled back to show bloodied teeth, and Lamb strained to read his lips as he tried to speak. A sentence, repeated. Only one word, the final word, could Lamb make out: "Kill."
The story, Lamb remembered then, had ended with the swan prince finding true love in that of another swan...
The golden soldier sauntered toward the elevator, gripping the thick rod of the switch that would direct the elevator up to 77--up to heaven--or down into the unknown. Shannon's eyes closed finally, shutting out that bright, beautiful blue from Lamb's view.
And when the witch discovered the swan prince had found love...
The soldier pulled down the lever, stepping back into the hazy red gleam as gears and pulleys and hidden machinery groaned into life. Lamb crawled to the gate and pulled herself up by the icy iron bars, her knuckles white as she gripped the metal beneath her fingers.
The witch had taken out her magical bow and magical arrow...
"Shannon!" Lamb screamed, and though she couldn't hear her own voice, she could feel the cry resonate through her entire body.
...And shot them down.
>
And inside the cage of the elevator, Lamb plunged into the darkness.
END PART I
continue to part II
Gender:
Points: 240
Reviews: 33