Dragons of War - Rising Storm

Chapter 17 (3/3)

The girls talked and talked the entire time we spent in the baths. Jen remained mostly to herself but even she joined into the banter. I listened to it quietly, not minding being left to the sidelines, but my mind was in other places anyway.

My fingers prunes, I left them with the excuse that I still had messenger duties. Maybe I did, but that wasn't why I left.

After a quick and awkward walk out of the baths, I dried myself. I paused for a moment with the clean clothes below my hands. There was a number 424 on the shoulder that my fingers brushed over, my personal role number, but it was the fabric I was more interested in.

Who had cleaned that outfit? The Cleaners did it for everyone, even the army. I might've known them. Did they know me anymore? I shook the thoughts away and put the clothes on.

I left the lockers feeling much better than when I had entered but there was still something dragging at my heart.

As if my feet had a mind of their own, I walked through the endless corridors and passages of that stone maze. I passed quickly moving figures, busybodies and late-night workers within the army. Some no longer wore their uniforms and were chatting in groups. I could hear them clear down the passages. Others were silent and slow, just taking a casual stroll.

But I was like none of them. I didn't know what I was.

After 15 minutes of unhurried steps, I finally paused on the edge of a stairwell. Below me, spread out the main caverns to the colony. There were people everywhere, and my eyes narrowed with suspicion. It was a later hour. The army dined much later than the rest of the colony. Why were most of them not at their beds? Wasn't there still curfew?

My feet carried me further down the stairs, even as my eyes remained locked on what I saw.

People, in groups and alone, huddled near the stone walls. Some sat, some stood. Some paced, and others had their arms crossed with an intent look in their eyes.

The main galley where the colonists ate was already shut down and dark for the night. There was trash and broken chips of pottery all over the ground. Remains of what I could only guess was plates and bowls. But why break them? What had happened?

A full story below me, I could see everything. But I normally entered the Army's Galley through the back, never even laying eyes on the rest of the colony. Had something changed in such a short time?

I turned my head away to enter into the galley but then was stopped in my tracks. Like a switch clicking on in my mind, I felt the pills in my system wearing off. There was a grace period in the morning and evening, just before a pill would begin to wear off and I would take another, that my mind felt different. It was about time I took one for that night.

The eyes of those people behind me seemed to grow into a new intensity that I felt in every nerve. It tickled the surface of my skin and when I turned back to look again, I realized the intent of their eyes.

They were there begging for scraps. Something I had seen few of in my time before the army because of the tight regulations against it. It was something that would get you a nights stay in jail. I would know. It had happened to me by accident a few times.

But how could there be so many?

My curiosity stronger than my hunger, I turned away from the Galley and instead headed down the rest of the stairs. Once my feet touched the lower level those eyes all around shifted to focus on me. Many pretended not to notice me, but I noticed them.

My feet, silent and careful, I walked among the people there. Some followed me with their eyes, others rose to their feet and walked away. But not a single one of them said a thing. Not one followed me, or even acted like they cared.

Where had their fight gone?

My feet slowed after the galley was almost out of sight. Yet the people around me continued, even around the bend. My feet stopped entirely and my eyes scanned the scene around me.

Among them, I saw so much more than standing a story above.

Their eyes were dark and shifty, with bags underneath. Their cheeks were sunk in, and below the ragged clothes, they all wore I saw the sharp protrusion of their bones. I turned on my heels to take more in, but I could hardly believe what I saw. How had it come to this?

Then I froze, and my heart dropped from my chest.

The face in front of me was one I had grown so accustomed to seeing every day. Her glow a reminder to everyone that things could be worse. Yet there she was, just as sickly and emaciated as the people around her. Matilda, the one girl whos personality, shape and glow everyone thrived from, was staving.

Things were worse.

My mouth dropped and I took a step away. Matilda's head turned and she saw me, but I could not lock eyes with her. How could I? When food was the last thing on my mind just moments before?

She rose to her feet but before she could say or do more I turned on my heels and raced away.

I kept going further into the main cavern. I didn't care where I went, so long as I escaped from that place, that scene. The hunger, the pain, the loss.

How could I be living my best life when they were living their worst?

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