Eutopia - Apocalypse

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Eutopia had no idea as to how long they were airborne and the solid flump of the ground beneath her bare feet as they landed was just as much of a surprise to her as it had been when she’d been whipped away from it. After holding her arm to steady her, the guard at her side moved behind her to take hold of her wrists once more as Jinn addressed him.

‘Take her inside, Jackson. Put her upstairs for now. Make sure she’s secure and post two on watch, one front and one back.’ Jinn gestured to the tallest of the four guards, who was leaner than the others, with messy light brown hair and similar eyes. ‘Jonathon right outside and Jackson, I want you up top.’ He gave a little grin. ‘Not that I think we’ll be interrupted anytime soon, but nevertheless. I’ll be back.’

Eutopia watched, half in terror and half in awe, as Jinn stepped back from the little group where she stood, made insignificant by the height of the others around her. A strangely muffled creaking started to invade the silence that settled upon them, quiet at first but growing gradually louder. A flash of brilliant white, made all the more radiant by the dull stone of the broken buildings that blended into the deep green of moss and undergrowth surrounding them, left her fixated. Though Eutopia had seen the Angels flying and had just flown with them, she had never seen one actually take flight. A huge wall of feathers barred her vision of the trees and brush that were clustered either side of the worn path they stood on

‘Wow,’ she murmured under her breath, taking in the huge span of the Commander’s wings. She couldn’t help it. Eutopia had never seen anything so terrifyingly beautiful before. Jinn laughed, a cold, mirthless sound, before the taut muscles of his chest flexed and a rush of cool air washed over her face, along with grit from the ground which was stirred in a flurry. It forced Eutopia to close her eyes for a few moments and when she opened them again, he was gone.

‘You heard the Commander,’ Jackson said, sounding amused as he gave Eutopia a little shove and made her stumble towards the building in front. It was the tallest standing structure as far as the eye could see and had at one point, though never in Eutopia’s lifetime, been a ten-storey building in the middle of a very up-market shopping district. Six of those floors had survived the last seventy-five years or so.

Surrounded by the oak and ash trees and claimed by the wild undergrowth it had been the perfect forward-operating-base for the Angels stationed in the Wolds. ‘Jonathon with me, Adrien and Blaze, you’re to stay out here. One take the front and one take the back. I’ll be up top once she’s inside. Seems pretty pointless to me, am I right, Blaze?’ Blaze scoffed, his golden eyes flashing with a glint akin to that of a sword catching the sun and Eutopia knew he’d been the guard Mike had clashed with. Her stomach flipped, sickeningly.

Inside was much cleaner than Eutopia had been expecting. The floor was a worn, smooth stone that she had no name for. It was cool beneath her feet and tiny flecks caught the light on its surface as she was ushered inside, down a small but wide flight of steps into an open space supported by thick pillars of the same stone as the floor and bordered by a myriad of tall windows that had long since lost their glass.

‘This way.’ Jackson tugged her to the left and deposited her into a little room that was devoid of any furniture. A thin, slitted window provided just enough daylight for Eutopia to see by as a solid clunk behind her made her jump and turn around.