Gamble of Thieves

Chapter One: Prayers in a Godless World

         Welcome to the end. The end of what, you ask? Put simply, everything. The Earth was gone long before our story begins, killed by what was once called Global Warming. All that is left is an echo of what once was; a barren wasteland painted red by a hostile sun. What remains of old Earth are stories, bottled memories to get drunk on when life on this scorched rock becomes too much. Though by this point, the stories have become fairytales; fabricated by nostalgia, and romanticized by longing for what once was, and never would be again.

       Our story begins in the last surviving settlement, a wretched place known only as Sanctuary. It follows a girl, still only a child, who deserved a life she did not have to fight for. Looking back, I realize just how young I was. Too young for what was to come. Sometimes I wish I could have stayed forever a child, staring out at the vast unknown, letting my imagination conjure up strange beasts and selfless heroes where there were none. Now my memory of youth has gone cold; innocence lost, childhood reminds me of a story I once knew, but have long since forgotten.

      How odd, that so much can change in such little time. Only become attached if you are prepared to lose, reader. This does not have a happy ending.

     Haunting laughter erupted from my lips as I fell. Head tipped back and smiling wide, it was a pleasure to be wicked. Wind wrapped around me as if to steal my breath, screaming at the ground coming near. There was something in me starving for the adrenaline of flight. I was the wild child, troubled and uncontrollable. "One day, fate will catch up with her," onlookers would say, sneers written across their faces. Evil, they called me. Absurd. But who were they to define me? We are taught to fear what is different, not what is dangerous. Death kissed my neck with his icy lips, loveless and strong. It was not sin that lured me to misbehave, but a longing for something more than the mundane. Did that make me wrong?

      For a luxurious second, I drifted between the realms of life and death, greeting infinity with open arms. I was floating, forgotten by gravity, and for a moment, I could almost convince myself I would never reach the ground.

     "Carmel?" came the voice that haunted my dreams. I opened my eyes to his gaze as he caught me; there was something about the way they stole sunlight and turned it into gold that made Adrian's eyes so hard to meet. The was a wicked gleam in his brown eyes, bubbling with laughter when he knew he should be scowling. It was impossible not to smile when he looked at me like that.

      Adrian was unforgettable to everyone who met him. To some, it was because of his towering height, his powerful shoulders, and the way he could make even the shadows bow before him. To me, it was this: the sinful sparkle in his eyes, and the unholiness in his grin, blasphemy that should have sent him running to repent. Most people found him menacing. Not me. Not when I knew the gentle soul living within. To me, Adrian was beautifully tragic.

     I blamed the fall for making it so hard to breathe. "You almost missed me," I growled, blood pounding even as the adrenaline wore off. He put me down softly.

     Adrian ran a tanned hand through his hair, glaring at the sun. "Next time wait for my signal before jumping off a two-story wall, then."

     The Divider stood before us like a tombstone, dark against the blinding red fo the sky. A two-story fence of solid steel, it was what kept the two districts separate. Sanctuary was not as the name suggests. While it may have been a haven for those fortunate enough to be born in the Capital, those from the Undercity sweltered in the cesspit of their own destitution. Three concentric circles defined Sanctuary: the outer rim, nicknamed the Undercity, hosted the impoverished, the ill, and the weak; the Capital was the middle ring, a place of prosperity, enlightenment, and the arts; then, there was the Center. Generations had gone by without a single visitor to the home of the Gods, the original saviors. They kept separate, behind their gold-plated fence, turned into legends by those who could remember them.