Chimera

Chapter One: Lance

Welcome to Los Lagos, home to 20,000 people. A city surrounded by towering walls that block out the desert wasteland beyond. It was the only place Lance Esposito had ever known.

The walls surrounding the city were built to keep out enemies. Because the world was full of them. Rogues that attacked and raided villages, lethal mercenaries who would kill for the right price, and mutated animals on the lookout for prey. In short, everything out there wanted to kill him. And if it didn't want to kill him, it wanted to whack him over the head and rob him blind.

For that very reason, nobody was allowed beyond the wall. The Mayor's regulations, enforced by the ruthless Feline Guard, made sure of that. So Lance stood on the top of the wall, the closest someone could get to the desert, the closest someone could get to the wide world beyond that wall. Looking over his shoulder, back at the city, he could see the fields where the Los Lagos farmers were hard at work, tending to rows of corn, beans and prickly pear cacti, with their edible fruits. The crops were planted in such neat rows, almost as if they were standing to attention, desperately trying to reflect the manner of the farmers, who worked with the same precision and monotony as they tended to the plants. But if Lance looked forward, his eyes were met with a world of change and excitement. It was a wild world, feral and fierce and edged with danger, but also glimmering with a freedom, the kind of freedom that made his heart beat fast and strong in his chest. The desert was a barren, dry place of stark beauty. He could see groups of spiny cacti, mounds of weathered boulders, and rolling hills of dry, golden grass. The landscape was peppered with the stunning bursts of coral, violet and crimson that were blooming desert wildflowers.

He sighed wistfully. It's beautiful, he thought.

But it was a dangerous beauty, a lethal splendour. One minute he could be running through the cacti after a sapphire butterfly and the next he could be attacked. One of the giant leeches that hide beneath the ground could spring up like a trap and suction around his foot with its terrifying, parasitic mouthparts.

Then there was the fact that it was completely illegal to go outside the city. There was even a taboo on speaking about going beyond the wall. One careless word and he could lose everything.

But despite the dangers, Lance had always wanted to explore the land beyond the wall. He loved the wanderlust, the sense of adventure. He wanted to go into the wilderness, to roam the desert, to explore, to discover. Lance looked at the landscape with a wistful longing. There were amazing creatures and plants outside of the city, waiting to be uncovered. Not to mention the medicinal herbs that would be useful for the health of Los Lagos' citizens.

If only he could go out there, somehow...

He was jerked out of his thoughts as someone called up to him from the ground below.

"Hey! Lance, can I come up there?"

The voice belonged to a boy that Lance recognized instantly as his friend Jaylin. The two had been close for years.

Jaylin had short, curly black hair and almond brown eyes. Like most people in Las Lagos, he wasn't completely clean. His dark skin was covered in a thin layer of desert dust, carried on the wind from the desert, which whirled in stinging dust devils all around Lance.

"Come on up," Lance yelled to Jaylin. His friend scrambled up the ladder. Lance reached out a hand and pulled him to the top. Once he had a firm footing on the wall, he sat down, peering into Lance's face.

"I know that look. You're thinking about the desert again, aren't you?" Jaylin asked eagerly, looking into his friend's face with the eagerness of a young child.

"Yeah. I know that we're not even supposed to talk about going out there, but I have to. It would help the town in so many ways. I could find new medicinal plants to aid the sick, the mechanics could obtain tech from before the Great Deterioration to improve the machinery here, and we could find water," Lance said. The city needed water now, more than ever. The droughts were becoming more and more common, and the people were thirsty, dehydrating. If the city's lakes dried up, which was a serious danger, the life of every Los Lagos citizen would be threatened. They had to find water, and soon.