To Where the Sun Rises (Part 2 of 'A Tale of People and Apples' Trilogy)

Chapter 1: The Wolf Massacre

18 years ago.

Lleyton slumped in his chains.

Each bullet that he heard in the distance firing felt like it impacted his own flesh. Tears streamed down his face. He heard a bullet fired every moment it seemed, and he knew what each piece of metal dispensed meant.

His former city, lightly guarded, was invaded. He watched helplessly as his defenseless people were gunned down by cowards with weapons. Every single one of them, from the balcony of his palace that he was confined to after losing the war to his siblings.

His view added a sadistic and twisted insult to injury. It was only a couple of months since the phony war was launched by his siblings upon him and ended, without them finding a shred of evidence implicating any of his people as the killers of their Inspectors.

Lleyton was not stupid. He knew this was the real plan all along. This grand orchestrator framed his people launching him into war, waiting for this exact moment where Lleyton and his people were most vulnerable, gathering his tyrannical grandfather Samuel's former soldiers and the non-Gifted to serve.

He couldn't do anything but watch in agony. He himself in cuffs and chained to his balcony overlooking his once great city. His once great people. Screaming and running helplessly, hoping for their leader who could not come to their aid.

He lunged angrily at the man who entered his chamber, the man who was responsible for all of this. He knew it was him before he entered, but he hated himself for being correct all the same.

Solan approached his cousin, a knife in his hand. An expressionless yet somehow happy face. He tried to cut Lleyton's cheek, but no blood spilt.

"As I thought," Solan said to him, taking a seat across from his chained cousin. He brushed dust from the great black table of Lleyton's chamber.

Yulia screamed for Lleyton as Solan's men chained her and collected her newborn son for themselves.

"I'll kill you," Lleyton could only say, angry tears streaming down his face as he kept lunging towards his cousin as he watched his son taken in front of him.

"Now, why would you want to do that, cousin? I'm here to offer you something."

Lleyton continued to strain his muscles. Pure anger attempted to tear the chains from their walls, hopelessly. Sixes, invincible beings like Lleyton and his siblings, were probably as strong as the Orcas, but neither Sixes nor Orcas could rip chains from their bolted roots, possibly not even Bears for that matter.

With his hands clasped, Solan said, "Please calm yourself. I'm sparing your wife, and I'm sparing your son."

Unbeknownst to Lleyton, Solan would also be sparing three other Wolves, and taking two of them for himself.

Lleyton calmed slightly, having thought they were walking to their deaths.

"I will be taking your wife, Yulia, and your son, Markus. Once you've done what I've asked, I will give you them back. I am a man of my word, cousin. You know this."

Perplexed, Lleyton asked, "Do what?"

Solan leaned forward, and said, "I know you remember what you saw. In the caves when we were young, when we watched Lisla die before us. Her bizarre yet... tantalizing death."

Lleyton looked to the ground somberly. As the bullets kept firing, his people dying, this monster before him reminded him of a childhood trauma he had tried to bury for years.

His eldest sister, while on a research expedition with his great-aunt, was reduced to ash within a south-west cave of the continent, her death excruciating and her screams etched in Lleyton's ears for the entirety and eternity of his immortal life.