Everlasting

Escape

Sylrie sat on the tiny mattress in her prison cell, and wrapped her arms around her chest, shielding herself from the cold. It was one o'clock in the morning, and she couldn't sleep. Every time she tried to lay down, she had imagined some scenario where Leif's parents had seen them embracing and that she would never see Leif again. She and Leif had stood like that, with their arms locked around each other, until his parents had knocked on the door. She stared out of her tiny window and felt a slight wobble. She frowned and pressed her back into the corner. The prison trembled again, and again, and again, each vibration growing stronger and continuing for longer than the last one. Then the screams started. She heard all of the people in the cells around her being dragged out of their rooms, cuffed and marched towards the front of the prison. Then her door rattled. It was a very, very small rattle, the kind of rattle that happened when someone was turning a key. Sylrie grabbed a chair from the corner and held it over her head. The door creaked open and a figure in a lapis-lazuli cloak slithered in through the crack. Sylrie threw the chair, hard, and it cracked over the stranger's head. They chuckled and brushed bits of plastic off their shoulders.

 "You have a good aim, Mysteria girl. Maybe you will be able to join the assassins, or maybe even one of the field teams. You remember me, don't you?"

Sylrie gasped as the figure swept off their hood. It was the girl from the town square, the one with the red and black hair and glittering eyes. The one who had saved her from execution. 

"You," Sylrie whispered, stunned. "You're Mysteria?"

The girl, Twyla, froze.

 "How do you know?" she asked, her emerald eyes suspicious.

"It's kinda obvious. First, that hood you're wearing isn't from anywhere I know about, and I know a lot of places. Second, you didn't even flinch when I threw the chair, so you either have incredible endurance or you expected the attack. And third, one of the inmates who was being dragged away said 'Mysteria'."

Sylrie folded her arms and waited patiently for Twyla to get over her initial shock at the fact that she had just been beaten by a twelve year old girl. Then, surprisingly, Twyla started to laugh. 

"What's so funny?" Sylrie grumbled, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. 

Twyla wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes and smiled. 

 "You, kid, are going to make a great Draconian assassin." 

 "A what-the-what assassin?" 

 "Draconian. The Regs call us Mysteria, but we call ourselves Draconia. The Regs are non-magical people." 

Now it was Twyla's turn to wait patiently with her arms folded, giving Sylrie time to process this information. 

"What makes you think I'm going to join the Mysteria? And what are you going to do with all the prisoners?" 

"We're rounding all of the Regs up and slaughtering them in the town square. And, since you're a Mysteria, you don't have to be executed. But just in case the guards spot you, wear these." 

Twyla pulled a pair of glittering earrings from a hidden pocket in her cloak. She handed them to Sylrie, and she examined them. They were silver X's, studded with black, indigo and white gems. Sylrie raised her head to thank Twyla, but no one was there. The door was still unlocked, and Sylrie slipped outside, looking both ways down the hallway to make sure she wouldn't be spotted. There was no one in sight, and the cameras hung on the wall, their optical lenses smashed to bits. The place felt like a ghost town. Sylrie shivered and sprinted all the way to the front door. Once outside, she grabbed a gun from the security booth and sprinted down the road towards town.