Ranking

Four

Green.

Uma sat up on an unfamiliar matress, the ordinary color clouding her mind.  Her head was--thankfully--no longer pounding.  And her feet--were those bandages?  Ah, yes.  They had been scraped bloody.  She scanned the strange place that was not at all like her room in the Pales' living quarters.  It looked relatively clean, and the furnishings were unique.  A makeshift couch made from two chairs and a sturdy plank lain across them.  A lamp compiled of a bulb, paper, and wire.

She spotted her dirty jacket with a layer of dust on it in the corner.  Uma kicked her legs over the side of the bed.  She would take her things and leave, but not before thanking her caretaker.  And then promptly kill him.

Scooping up her jacket, Uma paused.  Leaned down.  Picked up Alock's head.

She studied his cold skin, its unnerving paleness.  Stroked his dark eyebrows.  Ran her fingers over the dry lips.  Caressed his cheekbones.  And finally, lightly touched his eyelids.  He could have been sleeping, the grey eyes set to open any minute.

So it wasn't all just a dream.

Alock's blood was now dry.  Uma gently put his head down and examined her own hands.  They were trembling.

His blood had been on her hands.

Her feet propelled her to fling open the door, to run, to escape.  She felt the crazed need to clean her hands.  Yet when she turned a corner, Uma crashed into something--someone.

The young man in the dark shirt and pants didn't appear surprised.  He was taller than her willowy stature and not particularly muscular, but he was lean and strong.  Uma shut her eyes, trying to find his energy flow to take him down.  He stood motionless, blinking the only indication of movement.

It wasn't there.

Blinking furiously, she scanned his face.  It was quite a face.  Messy dark hair.  Tall, regal nose.  Full mouth.  Strong cheekbones.  Chestnut eyebrows.  A whitish scar that ran along the jawbone.  And the greenest eyes Uma had ever seen.

She honed in on his scar, which she had found to usually have a high concentration of energy.  Nothing.  The handsome young man didn't move or speak.

Uma stared at him incredulously, every part of her shaking.  What had he done to her Gift?  He stared those deep green eyes right back at her.  Uma turned on her heel wordlessly.  She returned to the room that she emerged from.  Shaking as she yanked on her jacket.  Shaking as she pulled up Alock's head.  Shaking as she slipped on the boots at the foot of the bed.  Her legs quivered as she walked out.

She turned the corner, only to find the young man no longer there.  Uma blinked, questioning her sanity, all the while letting out a breath of relief.  The sobriquet is really quite fitting.  Continuing down the seemingly endless hallway, she cradled her friend's head as if it were a baby.

Uma examined the dirty tiled floor by her feet as she moved by, analyzing every little detail.  Here was a jagged V-shaped crack.  She took a few more steps, the heels of her boots barely making a treading sound on the ground.  A wilted brown root of a plant.  Many steps later, a bit of dirt.  Not far from that, an especially shiny white tile.

Continuing on, Uma noted small observations about the hallway.  She'd been walking for nearly ten minutes, and yet the end still seemed like a tiny speck.  Her bandaged feet were rubbing uncomfortably against her boots and--

She almost missed it.

The glint hardly hit her eyes, but it was enough to make Uma stop in her tracks, blood pulsing with alertness.  She turned to the source, and sure enough, there it was--the gleaming alabaster tile.  Uma walked slowly toward it and crouched down, examining it further.