The Cities
by Brittany Fehlig
Artist: Kira Dennis
Chapter One
“A dream is a microscope through which we look at the hidden occurrences in our soul.” -Erich Fromm
Darkness clouded his mind with an uneasy presence. Something wasn’t right; he could sense it. His mother sat across from him at the kitchen table, studying his focused view out the window.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Lena asked as she drank the last bit of tea in her cup.
He turned from his stare to look at her.
“Nothing.” he boldly lied. He knew he saw something moving out in the meadow. Why he didn’t tell her, even he didn’t know. “It’s just a squirrel climbing a tree nearby. It fascinated me for some reason,” he fabricated. “Nothing important.”
“I may be old, Michael, but I’m not at the age where I can’t tell whether or not you are lying to me,” she said, as she got up from the table and walked towards the sink. She turned on the faucet and started scrubbing her tea cup. She looked over her shoulder at Michael who was watching the bubbles from the soap slowly slide off of the porcelain and down the drain. “I am your mother, you know,” she said with a confident smile. “I know you better than yourself.”
So you think, he thought. Michael leaned back and put his feet up on the chair sitting across from him. He twiddled a small silver rod between his fingers before sticking it back behind his ear again. “Mom,” He called out to her over the loud rushing sound of the water.
“What is it, darling?” Lena glanced over her shoulder for a quick second, meeting his eyes before turning away to scrub another dish. Michael opened his mouth about to speak but then immediately closed it before saying another word about what was troubling him. He was very close with his mother, he hardly kept anything from her, and he wanted so badly to tell her, but he just couldn’t fit it into a simply calmed sentence about his worriment he had for her. He knew exactly what she would say. It would be the same thing she always said: ‘Michael you are so gifted. Michael you are blessed. Michael you are so special to possess such abilities that you do.’ And then after saying that, he knew she would then go on about how ‘proud’ she was of him. She would go on to talk about many things about how great and successful he is just like she always did before getting to her moral point which was that nothing should ever worry him about her because she was a mother, ‘and being a mom is the most highest leveled combatant status there will ever be out in the worlds.’ So it was almost useless to mention to her the bad feeling he was getting in the pit of his stomach. He decided maybe, just maybe this once, he’ll let this bad feeling pass over.
“What is it, Michael?” Lena asked again.
Michael blinked several times back into reality before answering. “I just realized that I forgot to tell you that I have to leave for the Rebel Academy right now, so I won’t be home for dinner,” he said.
Lena dried her cup, threw the towel over her shoulder and walked over to Michael who now stood tall beside the kitchen chair. She looked up into his cyan eyes and saw his irises swirl in the counterclockwise direction. As they swirled, the irises changed to a darker hue, transforming the color into a dark blue. “Something’s bothering you, Michael. You know you can tell me anything.”
Michael turned his gaze to look back out the window one last time. The scenery was beautiful. There were tall blades of grass that swallowed the solid ground whole. He remembered being a kid, hiding in the tall grass, sneaking up on his mother as she put out the sheets to dry on the clothes line and scaring her. She would scream in fright and then run after him, but was never able to catch him. He had always been fast, stealthy, and slick when he wanted to be. It somehow seemed more of his nature than playing with toys and having an imagination. Times were simpler back then. Now he used his abilities as a profession, and if he messed up, he was dead. Although it’s never been likely for him to mess up on such things as killing with precise precision. It’s almost as if he was destined to do it all of his life.
“I actually have to leave now,” he said rushing a hug and kiss in. It was only proper to use such a sly and realistic emotion to match his lie. “I’ll tell you later,” Michael reassured her.
Lena looked at him solemnly and then started crying. Though the tears started out as gentle, the longer she cried the more uncontrollable it became. The tears continuously dropped down to the floors to the point where puddles were forming. It was like Michael was literally seeing a stream of salt water hit the floor with a splash. He stepped back feeling a sudden overwhelming emotion of sadness and loss. His heart fell to the bottom of his stomach as he watched his mother weep tears of woe.
“Don’t cry,” he said softly. Hurt could be heard in his voice, but Lena kept crying, and as she did, the room seemed to get darker. The kitchen lights unsteadily shined before turning completely off. Sounds of thunder abruptly took over the noise in the room. Michael could no longer hear his mom crying but could see that she was. The loudness of the thunder rattled Michael’s ear drums it was so near. Lightning struck the drying dishes, causing the nice porcelain to burn to a crisp. Lena started screaming blood curdling screams. Michael could hear her screams over all of the noise it was so loud. Fright flashed over her face as she fell to the floor. She put her hand near her heart and started screaming again in agonizing pain. Michael could see that blood was seeping through her pastel colored dress and was trailing toward him on the polished wooden floors. He was in shock as he stared at his mother dying.
The scene of the kitchen flickered to the study. Michael could see the mahogany desk where Lena was now laying on top of. Her eyes were shut, blood dripping off of her fingers and onto the once clean carpet. “Mom!” he cried, as he ran over to her, the sight was too gruesome to even maintain.
“Mom!“ he cried out again as he put a hand to her neck to feel her pulse. When his fingers barely slid over to the vein, her eyes shot open and glared malevolently at him. Tears streaked the side of her cheeks and she screamed at him.
“It was you!” she yelled out. “You did this to me!”
Michael staggered backwards, falling into the chair behind him. “I...I didn’t mean to leave you,” he stammered.
“Why, Michael?” she asked, tears and blood liquefied together down her dress. “Why would you hurt me like this?”
“I didn’t.” said Michael in a panicky tone.
“You did!” Lena screamed. “You took the blade and drove it through my heart like I meant nothing to you!”
“No,” he said in an almost hushed whisper. Her voice traveled through his ears, never leaving sound.
“You said you would be back,” Lena cried. “I waited for you, and when I thought you were home, it was someone else. Someone else who did this!” Lena ripped the front of her dress open, the nice flowered buttons fell on to the desk with clinking sounds. Michael could see the stab wound right by her heart. Blood surged from the wound and shreds of flesh hung from it. Michael turned his head, not bearing to see anymore. “Look at me, Michael!“ she cried. “Where were you?”
“I...I can‘t.”
“Michael, if you were here this never would have happened.” She gargled out the words as blood started pour out of her mouth. “You killed me.”
Michael stood up from the chair and took Lena by the arms and shook her. “No!” he yelled back at her. Tears ran down his face. It was only moments ago he was just talking to her, having his last conversation with her.
“Why, Michael? Why?”
“I just...I just left you,” he said softly as he fell to his knees. “I left you when I knew I shouldn’t have.”
Suddenly the thunder stopped rolling and the lightning stopped striking. Everything then went black and Michael’s ears started ringing. He sat straight up in his bed, sweat drizzled off of his nose from his hair. He clutched the sheets close to him in comfort, realizing it was just a nightmare. His heart ached from the fresh memory of their last exchange of words. The burden and sense of guilt of knowing he should not have left her when he clearly felt something was wrong had been weighing on his shoulders. It was to the point where he felt like he couldn’t stand up anymore.
Michael threw the sheets off of him as he got up from the bed and headed over to the closet where a mirror hung beside it.
“God damn it!” he yelled as he punched the wall. His fist sunk into the plaster creating a hole. He stared into the mirror, at the image looking back at him. He saw that he wore nothing but a pair of black and grey striped boxers, which now looked stuck to his muscular thighs due to sweating. His thick brown hair was soaked and lay flat against his head, the bangs covering part of his eyes. He ran his fingers back through his hair and readjusted his boxers, taking another look at himself. His eyes glowered green and his pupils were slit like a cat‘s. This was normal for him, whenever he was in the dark. It made it easier for him to see.
A knock sounded at the door causing Michael to jump in surprise and accidentally push the mirror off the wall and fall to the ground. He picked it up and hung it back on the wall. “One second,” he called out. Michael straightened the mirror and then saw that it was slightly cracked at the top causing him to have a double image of his head. Although they both were him, the head on the right seemed to look different. There was something more sinister the way he looked. His hair was like a silver white and his eyes were a midnight black as if there was no soul beyond them. He leaned in closer to the face that stared back at him and saw it was wearing a malicious smile. Michael reached out his hand to touch the mirrored image, and as he did, the smile dropped from the face instantaneously. “Kill them,” it said in a horridly deep voice. Michael jumped back and in a reflexive motion punched the mirror in front of him. Shards of glass scattered to the floor by his feet and the mirror itself crashed to the ground once more. The door swung open with a large bang as it hit the wall behind it. Orion stepped into the room with a dagger in his hand.
“Are you alright?” he asked looking around the room and then at the hole in the wall and broken mirror.
“Fine,” said Michael as he sat back down on the bed and cradled his head with his bloody hands.
Orion threw his dagger across the room where its blade landed wedged between the wall fixtures. He walked around the glass that was on the floor and neared the window. He gently pulled back the curtains, revealing a large crescent moon. Sapphiress could be seen in the distance. “Whatever happened in here,” he said, looking back at Michael, “clean it up. Myka will get pissed if she ever sees this and you know it.”
“Myka is a lone predator that feeds off of the emotions of others. If anything she’ll feel sorry for me for about a week and then destroy something that means the world to me.”
“Well we don’t have a week to find out if that happens,” said Orion. Michael looked up from his bloodied hands and raised an eyebrow.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Come with me,“ he said. “There’s something I have to show you.”
“Whatever it is, can it wait?” said Michael. He could start feeling the pain in his wrist.
“Nope. I need you up and dressed. We are all waiting on you.”
“We?” he asked.
Orion nodded. “Everyone is here.”
Michael immediately got up and slipped on a pair of pants that were lying by the bed and followed Orion out into the hallway. He trailed behind him as he fixed up his hair the best he could and wiped down the sweat off of his chest with a rag he got from the bathroom. They neared around a corner leading to another long hallway. A lot of the Safe Houses owned in Sapphiress were known for their long confusing hallways. They were used to throw off intruders. Only the actual residents knew every inch of the Safe Houses.
Michael would have been confused by all of the right and left turns they were taking if it had not been for Michael spending most of his childhood years in the Safe House they were in at the moment. But Orion knew it best seeing how he never had parents and was raised here by Safe House Guardians.
“Why are we heading towards Inventory?” asked Michael a little confused. “We always go to the library for our meetings.”
“I know,” said Orion. “But like I said, there’s something I have to show you.”
Michael and Orion neared around yet another corner before coming to a dead end. At the end of the hall were two titanium doors with curved, bold symbols painted across it in bright gold. Orion raised his hand and pressed it to the door, along with Michael. The door jumped open slightly from unlocking and they both pushed it open and walked in. The room was like a training room. On the racks were everything big from any type of blade and hand held weapon to small poisonous and sedative darts. Lifelike dummies sat in the corner, and there were obstacle courses stretching out in the farther back of the enlarged room. Metal tables lined up against the whole perimeter of the room except for one. That one table sat in the middle of the room where Michael saw his father Tasen and sister Myka. They both were hunched over the table analyzing something. Orion walked up to the table to get their attention while Michael plucked a metal spear similar to his from the shelf in front of him and started twirling it behind his back and stabbing a nearby dummy dressed in Radical clothing.