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I reached the next city south, Nikelda, around two AM. I was more than looking forward to some sleep. I found a large hotel that had a casino, so the lobby was still open even at such a late hour. After parking my motorcycle and chaining it up I entered and paid for a room for a night in cash. I was glad I bought sunglasses, a hat, and a few hair bands at the store we’d gotten passports at. When I reached the tenth floor there was somebody standing in front of the fifth door on the left, my room. I bent down and drew the small pistol and walked over to my door, keeping the pistol hidden in the small chance it wasn’t a pursuer.
As I got closer in the poorly lit hall, he made the first move, lunging for me, but I fired one shot at his head and he fell over dead before he could do anything. I looked over his corpse, seeing he was a police office. I pulled out his wallet from the pocket of his navy blue uniform, and saw a Twi-LIGHT ID card. I sighed and pulled him up, and dragged him over to the door to the stair well. I plopped him down on the flight of stairs below me, and when I turned around to return to my room, I felt a strong hand grab my ankle, making me fall forward on my face. I cursed and rolled over firing one shot at whoever was attacking me now.
I saw a sigh I didn’t expect, the corpse stood over me and hardly flinched when I shot him through the heart. I scrambled out of the way of his attack, for he’d drawn his blackjack. I could only guess what ever force was controlling him couldn’t manipulate him well enough to fire a gun. I wished I had my katana as I leashed out with a high-kick to his jaw bone, and I heard a crunch as he hit the wall hard.
That didn’t stop him though, he dove forward, smashing in the wall with the force of the strike from his blackjack. I cursed as I dove out of the way, jerking my right leg out to trip him when he dove for me. He fell for it, literally. He made a face-plant and I took my chance when he was off-guard to grab the pistol from his belt and fired a few shots to his head, and than to his heart. I didn’t move until I was sure he wasn’t getting up again. There was blood smattered on the floor and wall, so no matter what there were going to be a lot of question. I heaved up the body, and walked over to the elevator with my “prize”. I took us to the roof, and dropped the corpse next to the building on the far side where it wouldn’t be seen right away. I whipped the pistol down with my a napkin I’d shoved in my pocket from the fast-food place, and put the pistol in his right hand. At least then it looked like he was killed on the roof.
The chances were, even though I knew I’d have to get out of the building bright and early so I wasn’t caught. I paid in cash under a fake name with an altered appearance, so chances were the connection wouldn’t be made with all the drunks and gamblers in the casino downstairs. After returning to my floor, I entered my room wearily. Even though I wanted to sleep, the first thing I did was shower. I soaked my clothes in the skin to get some of the sweat and blood out of them. After taking my hot shower, I cut my hair until it was even with short, thin, and just pass my ears. It still moved freely though, since I didn’t do anything about keeping it in place. After rinsing my clothes to see, surprisingly, the blood stains had come out I hung them in the shower and as I tried thinking of any other way I could alter my appearance easily…none came to mind.
I was surprised how much I’d grown, even though I had no objection to the height part of it…I’d always been pretty much flat though, so even a little size on my chest was weird. I was surprised how much I looked like Akiko shape wise, but I didn’t have dainty upper arms or shoulders like she did.
I crawled into bed with my clothes still hanging to dry, and set the alarm clock for seven AM…four hours of sleep was better than none.
I woke up slowly, expecting it to be only seven but when I opened my eyes the number flashing on the clock said, 9:07. I cursed remembering how notorious I was for turning off the alarm, falling back asleep, and waking up at nine or ten. I scrambled out of bed and pulled on my dry clothes. I’d cracked the heat in the hotel room so they dried in time.
I didn’t have any personal possessions to clear from the room, even though I was careful to made sure the bullet shells in the trash can were hidden among other things, like tissues full of snot since I’d been sneezing my guts out.
I rushed down the stairs and thought the lobby, getting onto my motorcycle and blasting off without even thinking of breakfast or any other charming prize most people would call normal. Fries and a hamburger don’t fill a person up for very long. I got pack on the parkway as quickly as I could, greeted by hills and grasslands again. There were other cars and a few motorcycles in the flow of traffic, so I was expecting another dull day of driving, but I noticed a few black cars spaced apart behind me.
I looked at the GPS map on the screen and saw there was a rest stop not far away.
“Damn…” I muttered glancing back at them one more time. I accelerated a little and started bobbing in and out of cars, even though I refused to go into the other lane for a few moments to get ahead of the others cars. I’d always thought it better to get shot at than get crash head on into another car.
The sun was hot, which made me distinctly uncomfortable since I didn’t like the more than warm temperatures of the south. Hence why I usually didn’t go any more south than the capital city, which was more central, but since Twi-LIGHT had a series of strong-holds in the north I didn’t have much of a choice.
What am I doing? I wondered as I bobbed in out of lanes trying to lose the Twi-LIGHT cars. I have no idea where I’m going, what I want to do, and how I’m going to do it. Not only did I ditch my only ally, now I’m on the run with no plan. There’s always Skyevi’s Sword, but how far is that old relic going to get me? I want to get to Akiko, but I’ll get my ass kicked and served to Trenxi on a golden platter if I go alone. All I’m doing is pointlessly running away from the boogie man at this point.
Where am I going now? I only want to get revenge against Trenxi and stop his invasion. Face it, I was better off with Cloud and Niketa than I am alone. And now I can’t even call Rei. I’ll only look like a coward.
“To hell with it all…” I growled pulling out of traffic and onto the grass. I moved smoothly along it, my vehicle making no more noise than it did on the road. I turned around and went opposite of traffic along side the road, and I drew my freshly re-loaded pistol and fired one shot, shattering the glass on the first sleek black sports car. They returned fire, but I hunkered down so I was a smaller target. I pressed a button next to the GPS screen and inner layer of the two layered black metal tear rose up making the only target my head if I looked up, and my arm when I fired.
I turned around quickly, following the flow of traffic this time as I fired two shots at the skulls of the two passengers of the two cars. They both fell forward dead, and the other cars scattered as the Twi-LIGHT agent car turned sideways and crashed into a civilian car and another Twi-LIGHT car. The final Twi-LIGHT car came skidding to a halt, but not in time since it also joined in the pile up. I sped up two one hundred and twenty a miles an hour passing the cars on the road like they were standing still.
I kept up my speed until I noticed how low on gas I was getting, and slowed down before rejoining traffic. I got a few odd looks from drivers as I lowered the inner tear, and I was pretty sure they figured I had something to do with the crash they’d heard. I’d gotten far enough away that the drivers ahead of the wreck were far behind me. I still had my baseball cap and sunglasses on when I pulled into the gas station. Since the motorcycle was a hybrid, it took a very long time to go through a tank of gas.
A young man in jeans and a dirty T-shirt and denim jacket sauntered over saying,
“How can I help ya?”
“Full her up, please.” I replied. “I’ll be paying in cash.”
I looked past his shoulder and looked in the little shack with a credit card machine and TV, and saw a little rubber made full of spongy circus peanuts. I wonder what Could would think if I really did get him a bag of spongy circus peanuts… I smiled a second, before shaking my head thinking forcefully, Shut up, you’re never going to see him again if things go as planned.
He nodded saying,
“Yes ‘mam.” He inserted the gas pump head into the hatch under the secondary tear after I pointed it out to him than asked, “Did you hear about that wreck? Nobody really saw what was going on, though they said some guy on a motorcycle started shooting at a Twi-LIGHT car. Three Twi-LIGHT guys died, the other three were inured pretty badly. The civilians weren’t hurt, so they think it was some kind of attack.”
“Not surprised, Twi-LIGHT has a lot of enemies nowadays.”
“Mmm. That’ll be fifty five dollars and nineteen cents.”
I paid him cash saying,
“Keep the five bucks, I don’t have anything smaller than a ten.”
“Thanks!” He said cheerfully as I pulled out and got back on the road quickly.
At least he didn’t suspect me, or start pointing any fingers.
“Let’s see…three more Twi-LIGHT guys dead, I can add that to the total of how many people I’ve killed. I wonder if I ever really will lose count…” I muttered to myself.
It was around dusk when I left the main road and exit on to a cut-off. The road was mainly gravel, and deep in a forest. Around three PM, the hills and plains melted into trees and dense forest. My stomach growled loudly as I eased to a stop and looked down.
I was at the edge of a cliff looking down into a ravine of strong and thrashing clear blue water. I nudged the kickstand down with my foot as I hopped off my motorcycle and looked to my right. There wasn’t a bridge as far as I cloud see on either side of the ridge. The east side of Mt. Nimeloplous towered above me, making things seem even darker than they really were. There was a path around Nimeloplous, and with that a person could reach the sacred mountain range that guarded Neivila. Skyevi’s Sword was in a temple on the peek of the largest mountain in the country, Ragnarok.
I looked at my GPS one more time before sighing and saying,
“Well, this is a charming dead end to run into.”
I may of lost Could and Niketa, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be waiting for me at the next city south, Myildaypain. If I got back on the parkway, and went westward to the town of Kikaya, than I’ll be able to get some supplies and direction so I can get to Neivila.
As I turned around and made my way back to the parkway, I remembered the legend my mother had told me about Neivila. I’d looked into it a little more when I was older, and I remember saying,
“Mama, I want to go to Neivila! I wanna meet Skyevi!”
She’d told me the legend after I wondered into the undergrounds of the government building and came across Skyevi. When I touched the sphere she slept in, I saw a vision on a young girl with long blond hair looking on over a mountain range. She was on a cliff of a very tall mountain, with a sad expression on her face. She had a katana, bow and arrows, and wore the attire of a priestess, all white clothing. Her eyes were a medium blue and looked like they led to a number of different dimensions. She’d drawn her bow and took aim with an arrow and pointed up to the sky. It was twilight, and when she fired the arrow it started to shine in mid-air. She held up her right hand and chanted syllables of some dead language, before slowly fading away.
In the second vision of this girl I had, who I’d always believed to be Skyevi in a human form, she had her katana to the neck of a young man who looked like Trenxi, just more human and less creepy. His eyes looked alive, not cold and dead like Trenxi’s. Her eyes were hard and impassive as she killed him.
My parents thought I was just making things up, though they both knew there wasn’t anything normal about being able to approach Skyevi like that. They even said, that unless Skyevi was completely dormant, nobody could ever enter the undergrounds of the castle. They’d all go mad and kill themselves. The first time I went down, the underground was off-limits since the last ten soldiers they sent down all fell to what the soldiers called, “Skyevi’s Scowl” because they said that when ever it was stormy for a long amount of time, Skyevi would started acting up. They’d joke around and say she didn’t like the bad weather.
I looked into more about Skyevi…and how she came to be in modern day, since the sacred city was only a world of myths; there was no rock-solid history about the place. A lot of people scoffed and said, “There’s not even a city’s ruins out there”, even though those that were involved with the government knew otherwise.
Akiko never was too interested; she’d always had a boyfriend around so I remembered. She’d only had one boyfriend I liked, though I’ve forgotten his name. I didn’t like any of them, and I tried convincing her not to trust these guys since they were A, against the government and wanted to kill her, or B wanted her for her money and power as an heir. Did she ever listen? No. I’d only directly hated Trenxi though. I remember one of the times he came over for dinner when our parents were out but I had Akiko babysitting me; he asked a lot of question about Skyevi. My visions and all the stuff about Skyevi’s liking to me was always kept a secret, I don’t know when Akiko betrayed that.
I was really young when she got together with the first boyfriend she ever slept with, even though I asked her what the red spot on her chest was when we were swimming at the private pool, but she’d said, “I’ll tell you when you older.” That night, I looked it up online and got an answer to my question. From there on, I didn’t like any of her boyfriends.
In the long run, Akiko was a bit of a slut but otherwise normal. I’d heard my parents arguing about me a number of times, and I couldn’t count how many times I’d heard my mother or father sigh after I pulled an all-knighted with kendo training, “If only she could be a little more like Akiko…” They’d never said it to my face, but I had good hearing and could sneak around quickly and quietly.
When I was thirteen, Akiko was with the boyfriend before the one before Trenxi and I was training while they were alone in one of the living rooms. It was the first time I’d really started doing heavy-duty training with a real katana, and now a bamboo sword and I heard Akiko scream when I was training. I came running down, my hands shaking with a bad grip on my katana. Her boyfriend’s older brother had come, and was forcing himself on her when I got there.
I reacted without thinking; I ran forward instead of threatening him, I slashed a deep wound in his back and rolled him away from her with the scabbard to my katana before stabbing him through the solder, and holding my blade to his neck growling,
“Get out of here now, or I will kill you.”
With the help of his brother, who didn’t try attacking me after my display of violence, helped his brother away and evidently lied to the hospital to get him treated. Akiko was in a state of shock at the time, and she’d hugged me saying,
“You could have been killed! Kershul’s brother is dangerous!”
I told her I was fine a number of times before saying,
“Look, I gotta clean up all this blood before mom and dad get back…”
She took care of the carpet, and I cleaned my blade. I was shaking as I watched the blood mix with the water and disappear down into the drain. My mind spun randomly about if it would be seen, but I figured if anybody asked question I could say I got hurt, or was soaking a pair of underwear…
I never saw Kershul or his brother again, but I was sure they were still alive and less than optimistic at the prospect of seeing me again. Kershul was pretty small, but his brother looked like a body-builder. I don’t think that I’d of been able to take them on if I only had a bamboo sword back then.
Maybe I was smarter then…I’d just start attacking weapon or now if something like that ever happened again.
Uhh, idiot? The more sarcastic and synclinal part of my mind cut in. You did let it happen…only difference from then and now is that you were in cold storage when Trenxi seduced Akiko.
I shook my head and tried to focus.
I need to get a map of the mountains, a pack to fill with food and crap, and some warmer cloths. I’d also better get some ammo for this little crap pistol Rei gave me. Only five shots…
Akiko’s boyfriend after Kershul she was more careful with. She never went over to his place, and only invited him over when our parents were around. I also convinced her to carry a cell phone, since she’d always objected to one. My cell phone was speed dial on every number.
Every time she went out on a date, I’d end up sitting on my bed staring at my cell phone until I sighed and started doing pattern dances with my katana. After the battle after Kershul’s brother I stopped using bamboo swords, and only carried real katanas after that. My parents objected, but I couldn’t tell them what happened since Akiko had sworn me to secrecy.
A few boyfriends later, she hooked up with the only guy I didn’t like. For some reason, I couldn’t remember his face or name. I do remember Akiko lied to him and pretended she was only a normal person working at a flower shop to earn money for herself and little sister. When she introduced us, I had to wear super floppy cargo pants since she said I couldn’t be carrying a katana out in the open. He never met our parents, since in the “Lie Life”, as I nicknamed it, they were dead and we were orphans.
Arg, here I go again…thinking of the past. It’s been like seven years since this all happened…I need to focus on the present.
“Even if it was a few years ago to me…” I muttered as the stars filled the sky and the moon traveled upward.
I reached the town Kikaya around dawn, and pulled my cap back on and tucked my short hair under it after I put my sunglasses on. I found a diner that was open and pulled in. A waitress came over to the table I plopped in in a few seconds since I was the only one there.
“Good morning, how can I help you?” She asked brightly pulling out the little notebook she wrote the orders in and a pen from her apron pocket.
“Morning.” I replied taking the menu she handed me.
“Would you like to hear the specials?”
“Sure.”
She chattered about the specials for the morning, and when she was done I ordered a large breakfast of home fries, three egg omelet, bacon, toast, and an onion bagel.
“Hungry, aren’t you?” She asked sliding the little notebook in her pocket.
“I drove here all night. I plan on hiking up the mountains.”
“Ahhhh.” She said with a knowing smile. “You hikers are determined to get to the mountains ASAP. You’d be surprised and maybe even disturbed how many people I’ve had tumbling in here with bags under their eyes getting breakfast before setting out. I do have a suggestion though, get some sleep before you go.”
I smiled casually saying,
“Thanks, I feel like a zombie too.”
After breakfast, I found an open store so I could buy some hiking gear. A got a backpack and the special gloves, along with a mini-cooler to put in my backpack.
After that, I went to the super market and got two gallons of water, along with health bars and other stuff that didn’t need refrigeration or cooking. So, mainly health bars and two bags of chips. When I got a bag of the spicy cheese covered kind, I saw normal wavy laze and grabbed those thinking of the old bag under the floorboards in the church.
I found a hotel, and decided to wait until tomorrow morning at dawn to head out. I hadn’t drank any coffee, since I had a phobia of it ever since I was sixteen, and since I never really was sixteen and a half, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, or twenty, I had no intention of trying it…even though I wasn’t very tired. I wasn’t up for much combat, but not ready to take a nap.
Well, I should be thinking fifteen really… I thought as I entered my hotel room (with no stalkers this time) A was abducted about a week after my sixteenth birthday…
I flopped on the bed and rested a moment before pulling my wallet out of my pocket and calculating how much I’d spent.
After making all my calculations, I came up with one thousand left.
“How did I spend two thousand dollars so quickly…?”
I muttered to myself, since I had only paid and not really didn’t attempt to remember how much each meal and hotel was… I stretched and pulled out my laptop to check e-mail. The first thing I did when messenger popped up was appear offline. When I signed on, I a little window popped up saying,
“You have one contact online.”
“Rei…” I muttered. “She’s always online ordering parts.”
I clicked the messenger to the front, and when I saw who was online I instantly appeared online. I opened the messenger window and typed in my message.
Akhy: Maaya? Is that you?
I waited impatiently for her to respond, and was about to send a nudge when…something responded. The message popped up in the messenger window, but it didn’t have any contact name beside it.
She waits.
Akhy: Who are you?
She’s waiting.
Akhy: What are you?
She’s asleep, and will awake in rage if nothing is done.
Akhy: Who’s asleep?
Unless the one who she summoned speaks to her again, she will awaken in rage and destroy all that is.
Akhy: Why would she awaken in rage?
She does not want her power used for wrong. Her power is too massive for her to awaken. If she gives her power to the one she summoned to stop the one who uses her power, the person will die but it will only be one sacrifice.
Akhy: The one asleep; is it Skyevi?
No.
Akhy: Who needs to be the sacrifice?
The one she summons.
Akhy: Who is the one she summons?
The one that must die for this world.
Akhy: You said, that! You’re repeating yourself.
You speak so quietly. Come closer to the sky and hear her words.
Akhy: Who’s words?
I waited a long moment for a response of any kind, but none came. I felt my shoulders fall after few long minutes of waiting in dejection.
“What the hell was that? Did it mean Skyevi?”
Come closer to the sky… I though over the words a second before saying aloud,
“The sacred mountain!”
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