Impossible to Foretell

Chapter 21: Visitor

The moment I walked off in a direction other than my apartment, fear filled my veins. How stupid was I? Going for a walk by myself in the middle of the night while there were mass kidnappings going on? What a moron.

With a huff, I spun on my heel and headed straight for my home. The entire way back I mentally berated myself for making such a dumb decision. And I was supposed to be one of the top minds in the village. I make a lot of dumb decisions for being such a "brilliant strategist."

I got to my building and made my way up the flights of stairs to my apartment slowly. Ever since the war, these steps had become my arch nemesis. Nothing made my hip inflame quite like the three sets of stairs that I had go up every night.

When I walked into my apartment it was a sterile cold, and the darkness hid everything but a small circle around the door. What a lonely place.

But when I flicked on the light, it was definitely not empty. The armchair that I usually kept in the corner had been pulled out to be facing the door dead on, and in the dim lamp light, I couldn't see who sat in it. Behind the chair, there were three silhouettes. Two of them were very large and stood on either side of the chair like sentries and the third looked positively minuscule next to the other two behemoths.

I flicked the next switch on the wall and the overhead light threw the scene into sharp detail. The two large figures turned out to be the largest human beings that I had ever set my eyes on. They were almost seven feet tall and ripped like body builders with hair so short that it looked like peach fuzz on their large heads set on thick necks. The smaller person was a terrified looking young girl who I recognized from the scrolls that I had looked through as Anzu Midoriki. Her once curly, flaxen hair was lank and lifeless around her face, and her orange eyes glowed like bits of amber in the low light, holding pure terror. Her skin was incredibly pale like milk under her brown freckles.

Finally, my eyes drifted to the figure lounging in the chair like it was a throne. Kanaye grinned back at me, and I held him in my eyes with nothing short of pure, unadulterated hatred.

"What the hell are you doing in my house?"