GOLDEN AGE | ON HIATUS

III | SASHA

[ 03 ]

FOR A LONG TIME, Sasha had known that this moment would come. She'd always imagined it, dreamed of it, even. She'd yearned for it to caress her skin, its touch like ambrosia soaking into her flesh. An escape at last, into the outside world and the people with it. Sure, she'd seen people before, but the life that they'd led had been an extremely sheltered one, and outside of Crux agents and handlers, the only people that she'd met were news reporters, scientists and government officials. No real people to share their real stories and feelings.

The people that she'd met were little plastic figures, perfect and flawless and shiny, not a hair out of place, stiff clothes and even stiffer conversation, if you could even call it that. Cardboard cutouts of a real person, one-dimensional beings that were caricatures of the inhabitants of Semper City. Sasha wondered what it would be like to meet a real person, not like the ones you saw on TV. Teenagers with braces and acne and frizzy hair, adults with wrinkled faces and suits, shoes scuffed and the city air in their lungs.

She held back an exhale of awe as the crowd parted, revealing a young woman with a heavy dress and an embroidered apron, a scarf folded over her light brown hair, curls evading the hem. The woman was singing something about the fruit of the forest, her voice rich and smooth, reminding Sasha of pouring silk and delicate chocolate. Different flags ran from the corners of the square, fairy lights twinkling as the drum boomed. People listened, and Sasha held back a grin when she realised that they were as mesmerised as she was. This was what it was like to be a person alive in Semper City.

Able to see the things that they found beautiful, whether it was their country, family or lover. Sometimes her country was her lover, whispering secrets and lullabies in its gossamer tongue. Other times it had been her sanctuary, a place with her sister and grandmother, where she could always feel welcome. Until they had taken that from her as well, along with everything else in her life. Sasha had been the replacement for Narcissa Corvus after she'd escaped, the thirteen-year-old sister of a musical prodigy with a voice that dwarfed Petra's in comparison and all of the tact that she had not been blessed with.

Her accent still thick, and her Usnayan still seamless, and the pang in her heart still fresh, Sasha had known ever since that long airplane ride with a grill over her mouth and unfamiliar people speaking English with accents that she hadn't known really existed. The foreign land was America, she'd been told by a man with a black suit and shoddy Usnayan. She'd never been in America before, only seen it on TV. They were full of mean blonde girls and muscly boys, cheerleaders and lockers and things like homecoming. In Sasha's school, they'd walked from their homes and ran around fields as their parents worked.

Four years had passed, and Sasha's English was even better, but she hadn't forgotten anything about home, her real home.

She wondered whether her grandmother was even still alive, whether the men who had taken her had kept Petra and the old woman safe. Sasha hoped that they had - and if they hadn't, she would make them pay, every last one of them.