Code of Shadows

City Out (Part 24)

Aala jumped in front of me at my words.

"No, go with your family. I should be the one alone," she argued.

"Aala, you know family is my first priority. I want them to be safe, and they will be safer with you than they will with me. Besides. I have Belle to help me through the forest."

"That is precisely why you should go with your family! You and Belle can protect them!"

"NO. You are going to go with my family in the group of four. You will be able to protect them better. It is what you have spent your whole life training to do." I saw a tear slide down Aala's cheek. "Please," I choked. "Do it for me. Protect them for me." Aala let out a sob, and drew me into an embrace.

"Fine, I will do it for you," Aala whispered into my ear.

.......................

The walk to the town wasn't far and what I saw when the town came into view completely surprised me. The town was not floating like all the other cities I had seen in Almosa. It was directly placed on the ground, sort of. The whole town was built on a few hundred feet of concrete. The only way to enter the town from the ground was one long stair case that was rather large, and rather long. It was not like the stairs at Pleaci, but there were still a lot of stairs.

When we finally made it into the town no one was their. Everything was boarded up and everything seamed vacant. I knew it wasn't. There were people in each house holed away in fear of what would happen if they came to the window and looked out. They feared the one week black outs. They thought they were dangerous, and I suppose they were if you weren't prepared for them.

We passed through a small market square, then turned down an ally way. We walked another few minutes before stopping in front of a small building with only a few windows. The rest of the group wasted no time at all. They all marched up to the house and through the door. But I didn't. This place reminded me of Pleaci. It reminded me of how Almosa was trying to kill me. Just being around a building that Almosa built to capture its citizens made me sick. Matter of fact, being in this town that was made by Almosa made me want to scream. I turned back to the forest of which I had come from. I wanted to run back to the forest were nothing was very complicated, and people weren't trying to stab me in the back when I wasn't looking. I fought the instinct that had started to crawl its own way out of a whole. I turned back to the house in front of me and finished walking through the door.

The inside was dark and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. I saw Mom shuffling through a drawer. When she finally found what she wanted and turned towards us. There was a small click, there was enough light to see almost everything in the small entry room.

"I really hate how they cut all resources off here. No transportation, no electricity, no nothing. It just causes problems," Mom said. Her face was now lit up, and I enjoyed seeing that face after seeing nothing in the wilderness for so long.

I looked around and saw that all the windows were completely covered and 'boarded' or more like steeled up. Nothing could see in, or more worryingly out.

Arin then grabbed my hand and smiled.

"I want to show you my room!" Arin giggled. He pulled me just like he had done in Pleaci around the whole house until we finally stopped in front of a door with several deep scratches in it, or more precisely, 5 scratches, all finger length apart.

"What is up with the scratches on the door?" I asked.

Arin frowned at me, "There are none. What are you talking about?"

Something was wrong, but I quickly covered up my falter with a "Oh, never mind. Just a trick of the light." But I knew it wasn't a trick. I was still seeing it. Some type of magic was coving it up for the common eye. I brushed off the uneasy feeling that the scratches gave me and followed Arin into his room. The lay out reminded me so much of Windsdover that I almost cried. Everything was so simply then. Then I was just Cait, not Belle. Back then I was not running from the government. Back then I was just a girl in the seas of Almosians. Arin's smile brought me back to the present.  This was my life now, and I had to deal with it and not show weakness, at least for my family.