Firedown Sun

Today I was in step. Completely. I got off the bus and all of us, every sixteen year old, was doing the same. I even stepped through the door at the same moment when every other kid in Block 16 was going through their doorway and closed the front door with an echoing, single thud. And then we all stood by our coat closet and took off our coat to hang up, and hurried into the kitchen to grab our after-school snack. Today, it was a green apple cut up into slices with melted peanut butter in a tiny glass bowl to dip. It tasted of monotony.

Suddenly, there was a rap on my door. I turned around, and Resh had already burst through, having no respect for snack time. As strict as my friends can get with following rules, they can be just as bad as I am at breaking them, too. "Come on, come, let's GO!" she told me, dragging me after her, tearing my coat off the hanger and throwing my black gloves and hat to me. I caught them in confusion.

"What's going on, Resh?"

"There's a monster snowball fight and you HAVE to be a part of it! It's going to be a blast, you can't miss it. You just can't."

"Sounds disastrous," I commented, tagging alongside Resh, who laughed and pointed excitedly toward all the kids gathering around in the middle of the street. Well, to be precise: the EXACT middle.

I sighed. Why must everything be so exact all the time?

Naturally, Seem had been the one to put it all together for us. What, was this his idea of attracting the leaders' notice? As I saw him walking around, acting almost SUPERIOR because of how he could come up with all this stuff for us to do as a group, for him to lead, of course, I wondered if it was really even that great, anyway. Not that I personally knew any ways to get the leaders to like me. No, I just knew how to get them to think I was a crazy rebel with no respect for the whole of Monten whatsoever. Yes, great idea, Kitten.

"Hey, Kitten, you actually a part of this?" Seem called out to me, glancing over with a grin. "Wet and cold doesn't seem to be your thing."

"It's not, but I don't-"

Suddenly, a big, white ball smacked me in the face, and I caught some of the disgusting, slushy powder in my mouth. I spat and relentlessly sought for revenge. "You stupid genius!" I cried, grabbing handfuls of snow and mushing them together. "You'll pay for that, Seem! Come here, you, I'm going to hit you SO hard, you won't move for a MONTH!"

He laughed moronically and ran away from me.

And that was what started the war. Snowballs started flying everywhere without any more words said. Just one act of violation of respect and then it all began. I had my eyes on Seem, of course. I aimed and missed mostly. But, I felt great when I finally cornered him against a tree trunk and smashed his face with snow. Seem laughed through the whole thing, and threw tons of snowballs at me, yelling, "Right back at you!" And it actually started to be fun.

Especially when I realized something that brought a humongous smile to my face.

I spotted Lune and immediately stashed three snowballs in my pockets and one in both hands, hurrying over to him and calling out, "Hey, Drumer!"

The best part was, he didn't even see it coming. I threw them, and finally hit a target, even when he attempted to move away once he figured out my intentions. One got him square in the chest, two more in the stomach, and another skimmed across his left ear. The last one was lost because he practically tackled me, burying me in the snow. As I fell, my shirt rode up and snow stung my back in a wave of cold. I shivered as he lifted himself off of me, chuckling madly. "Got you," he murmured, sweeping his hand across the ground and sending a dusting of snow into my eyes. I smiled and quickly did the same, chasing him and making more balls of snow as often as I could.

From then on, he was the only one I aimed for. And I got him almost every time. It was more than satisfying.

I felt like I was drowning with pleasure.

By the time Seem called an end to it, we were all dripping wet with melting snow and sweat from all this chasing and fleeing. As the fight ground to a halt, I found every muscle in my body screaming, my fingers and toes numb and my cheeks aching from grinning and giggling so much. Lune, covered in snow from head to toe, didn't seem to mind all this exercise. In fact, he appeared ready to jog about six more miles through all this snow, up and down mountains, even at maximum speed. Boy, was this kid crazy.

"Have fun?" Resh asked, coming up behind me, her hair loose above her shoulders and all stringy with wet slush. "You looked like you were. You were running around, throwing snowballs and laughing. You probably had more fun than all of us combined."

I smiled at the exaggeration "After a while it was amazing. Just had to get used to the freezing wind and ...ow! Oh, my back's killing me."

Hexa joined Resh and I as Lune, who lived on the other end of our block, turned on his heel and hurried home. "Wow," she said, laughing. "Kitten, you're a natural at this. I mean, really. You're just... um, I don't even know how to describe it. You're just... good without even meaning to be."

"At what, at shoving snow in people's faces? Yes, I do believe I have a knack for that."

Resh rolled her eyes dramatically. "No, silly. I know what Hexa means, you're a natural romantic. You and Lune hit it right off! I can't believe you didn't tell us you were so good at falling for guys."

"No, I'm not." I felt a chill go up my spine. "I didn't fall for Lune, either. I d-didn't, I...I swear."

Both of my friends chuckled in disagreement. "Oh, Kitten," Resh teased. "You've just got to admit it. You two are, like, destined for each other. And even if he's annoying occasionally and he's completely missing everything and anything associated with tact, maybe things will work out. And, hey, maybe you could teach him how to be actually COOL instead of so Outcast all the time. I mean, he's smart and all. But, PLEASE! Like any girl would want to get stuck with him, if you know what I mean. Any girl except you, that is, of course... Oops, that last bit probably hurt your feelings, didn't it?"

I froze in my tracks and glared at them both. "Are you kidding me? Lune's...uh, definitely not the type of guy I need to be falling for. He's so wrong for me! I'm a rebel, and I'm...I'm..."

I could tell it was a lost cause. Great. My two best friends friends TOTALLY misunderstood. They thought I had my eyes set on Lune, of all people...

I shuddered and continued down the sidewalk to the last house on the girls's side. I was a rebel, Lune was an Outcast and he memorized rules and even made friends with Sorin! That was crazy! How could Hexa and Resh act like me "falling" for him was okay? It wasn't even close to okay! It was an abomination! It was unhealthy! And it would never, ever work. It wouldn't happen, either.

Groaning and wishing my friends knew better than to blurt out impossibilities like the Drumer boy and I becoming more than... whatever we were... I pulled my hood around my numb face. "Well, it's getting late. I'll see you guys tomorrow. And no more fantasies, promise?"

"Like we can keep that promise!"

Not trying to determine Hexa's meaning behind that statement, I walked down my slab of sidewalk and waved the two of them goodbye. They repeated the gesture and headed off, grinning at me like they were laughing at a hilarious joke. And if Lune was involved, it wasn't that funny. It was poisonous. I might die from even the mere thought of him. So I silently shut that idea- and the whole "natural romantic" thing- in a locked cage in my brain for later that night, for when dreams invaded and picked through my clutter of memories.

The door clicked closed beneath my fingers, and I let a hearty smile cross my face. If I didn't act cheerful and energetic for my mother, who knew what else would go wrong. I picked up my sluggish pace, even if it killed my muscles, and burst into the room where my mother sat, alone, before the Telo. It was off, I realized a moment later. Odd. Didn't my mother usually watch a stupid show about now? Or was it not working? Lune shadowed in the back of my mind, because of Robotic Phasing, and I bit my lip angrily. Go away, I thought. Go away, stupid Drumer boy.

"Hi, Mom. What are you doing?" I kept a lot of enthusiasm in my voice, but I couldn't tell if she realized it was fake. In fact, I couldn't read her face at all. It was blank, like she'd just seen the ghost of Nimeous Bloom or something.

I moved to her side.

She didn't even look over at me. She stared out into space, lips pursed in silence.

"You feeling alright? Need me to get you some cocoa?" I began to stand back up, but she grasped my hand and pulled me to sit on the couch beside her. By the sudden fierceness in her auburn eyes, which finally looked my way, I knew there was something really, really wrong. Her lips were pulled down in a frozen grimace, her shoulders sagging with some heavy burden. She abruptly looked seventy years old, not thirty five, like she'd somehow aged decades overnight. Well, not even. I'd seen her this morning.

"What is it?" I whispered.

Then her arms were around me, and she was pressing her thin form into mine, clutching me desperately, choking over each sob as they tortured her. She wept into my shoulder, and I could think of nothing other than the shock of what was happening. My mother was crying. Avalinss Zigbol, my very own mom, who had given birth to me at the innocent age of nineteen, was in tears!

I then felt an absence, growing stronger with each one of my mother's sobs. Where was my father, Garran Zigbol, the one who had stood by my mother all these years, after being married as teenagers and working as doctors together, doing whatever doctors did, raising me together? Along with the wall...

"Dad," I said softly. "Where is he?" I knew this theory was right, because she stopped crying. I pushed her until I could see her eyes, gleaming from her tears that stained her rosy cheeks. "Mom, where is he? Tell me!"

She exhaled shakily and answered in a hush.

"He's been taken, Kitten. They took him away."

*

I sat, surrounded by gray. The entire place had dimmed. The walls, the lights, the snow falling outside. I stared at the Telo. I had found out from my mother that yes, it was not working, but, no it wouldn't last because the weather controllers needed only a little amount of time to fix the new problem and then everything would return to normal. To a sunny September and working walls and a non-broken Telo. To the same, brainless routine everyone followed. To a yearly schedule planned for each and every one of us since birth. To monotony.

My mother came in with a tray of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. She set them on the little table in front of the sofa and encouraged, "Eat. They are hot and delicious."

"Is the kitchen wall working?" I raised my eyes to meet hers, which were shining in sudden bursting energy, like she was willing to strap herself to a cannon ball and go shooting out to find my father.

"No," she murmured, sadness creeping into her voice. "I found a package in the box of food supplies. You just take the dough out, roll it all out into little balls, and then put them into the... uh, whatever it's called... and cook them for ten to fifteen minutes. It's not that difficult."

"The oven, you mean?"

"Yes, that's right. How'd you know?"

"We've been studying contraptions in school for years." I took only one. "Thanks for making them, though."

"You're welcome, dear."

Chocolate melted on my tongue as I bit down into the cookie. Even with the slightly burnt edges, they still tasted good. But Dad was missing. So I couldn't fully appreciate them. Or my mother's attempt to make me feel better. Which I should also thank her for. But I just stuffed my mouth with the cookie and planned on slipping back into gray silence again.

Then I saw my mother- Ms. You-have-to-eat-healthy-or-else herself- swipe a cookie and sit to wolf it down.

I chuckled heartlessly. "Watch it, you'll gain weight."

She nodded, smiling at the memory of the eating junk food vs. not eating it argument in the kitchen. "We're all a bit rebellious, aren't we?" She winked, and her reply struck me.

"What do you mean, ALL? You're always saying rebels are bad."

The smile remained. "Because I'm an adult. It's in the job description."

Well, that just made me want to grow up, didn't it? I sighed, trying to stomach the thought of my mother being rebellious. I snatched a second cookie after I finished the first, wondering how this might change things. Maybe my parents weren't so stupid and brainless after all. Did they just act this way to satisfy the leaders? Did every adult put on an act just to keep the leaders happy?

Certainly not Sorin. If he could be a leader, he would be. It was obvious how much he liked to be above the rest of us and follow every rule with EXACTNESS.

And then there was Seem. And others I didn't know as well. There were always a spare few of them in every age group. Only the strongest of the strong and better of the best got chosen, though. You had to be EXTRA special to be picked.

Hence the reason Sorin failed the test.

"Here, let me get you something to cheer you up." My mother patted my knee and stood slowly, tiredly. As she moved to the wall, I squinted, not understanding. Then, as she pushed a few buttons in the keypad, a hole formed in the wall all of a sudden, and a square of the pale gray carpet simultaneously hardened to red stone tile before my eyes.

A hearth. And a... a fireplace?

Then came the flames. I felt the inevitable compulsion to move closer, and I shot off the couch, kneeling on the crimson hearth with a contented sigh. "Beautiful," I murmured, putting my hands in front of the fireplace to warm them. "How'd you know how to do that? I mean... with the malfunction, shouldn't this wall be dead, anyway?"

Her laugh surprised me. She made it sound like it was obvious for her to know how to create a fireplace from the wall, and yet, it was hard to think she even understood anything at all except how to be a mindless robot. "You still can't imagine me that way?" she smiled. "Oh, Kitten if only you knew..."

I leaned closer to her, blinking gently and watching her expression. "If only I knew...?" I pressed.

"I used to be addicted to fire like you," she continued, "until I got older. Then I realized I could no longer be like that. I needed to raise a family soon, and your father... Oh, he HATED my passion for flames, just hated it! But he wanted to be a doctor like me, so I knew I had to leave that world behind." She lifted her palms to the fire's glowing heat, smiling at the way the flames crackled and sparked in the darkness. "Isn't fire just dazzling?" Her eyes shone orange-red as she sat by me on the hearth.

"So," I wondered aimlessly, "did you have matches?" She was right about me not being able to imagine her a fire addict like me. To me, Mom was just a rule follower. How could she have ever been something else? How could anyone change like that, just because that was what was expected? Who cared what the leaders expected of us? They weren't us. They had no right to decide what we should be like and how we should act.

"Lots of them," my mother laughed, looking like a small child given three scoops of peanut butter ice-cream instead of just two. Her entire face lit up as she spoke about her past life. "No one ever seemed to care about my idiosyncrasy as long as I didn't actually light things on fire. Then they freaked out."

I smiled. "I've considered burning the house to the ground."

"Really? I used to dream that, too!"

We chuckled together, both picturing the other with the forbidden fire sticks and not able to do so without being humored by the idea.

"It's in our blood, you know," she told me, lowering her hands into her lap. "Things like this don't just happen, they get passed down. Eventually, they get triggered by someone or something. Then its a part of us." Her face became sad. "I almost miss it. But then... but then I remember this is better."

"Why?" I bit my tongue as the word glided of it automatically. Stupid Kitten, you never ask why. But Mom answered.

"Because fighting how things are always brings pain and destruction. It gets so chaotic when people stick to their own, imperfect plan. We need someone or something to follow. Leaders. Rules. Expectations. And it's better to go along with a plan you don't agree with then to try and survive the world alone."

I thought of that. Me, alone. Surviving the world.

No matter how I tried to convince myself I could live on my own, the images wouldn't come.

"So why," -there it was again- "does it feel like, even with all these rules, no one does what they're told?"

My mother turned her brown gaze to my face. Her voice was soft and gentle. "Kitten, if there were no rules, no one would know right from wrong. Again, it would be chaotic. People could murder, steal, lie, without anyone to tell them that it wasn't okay. Because," she licked her lips deliberately, "it wouldn't be wrong without set regulations. So the leaders wrote the Doctrine for Monten. For us. No discipline system, though. That's what they need to establish..."

I blinked. "So, the city made a mistake, didn't it? The leaders messed up."

All she did was look away.

"Oh, come on. Just say it, okay? No one ever does. No one wants to admit Monten has problems, but it's true. Say it. Just once, I'm begging out. I just want to hear SOMEONE say it once!"

Mom nodded solemnly and stated, "The leaders messed up. They did something wrong. You're exactly right."

I wasn't sure what coursed through me as she said this, but I knew, at the moment, that she truly wanted change in Monten, in how it ran and how we were all programmed, how we couldn't speak our opinion or ask questions without fear of rejection. And that was what all this was. It was what stopped my mother. It was what was driving me.

Fear. Fear of being labeled different, Outcast. Fear of doing something wrong. Fear of not being loved or wanted. Afraid because I could feel it in the air. Afraid because I wasn't sure what I could possibly do in the world. And afraid because I didn't know what else to be.

I wasn't really frightened. Not the type where you scream and have nightmares. More like a numb darkness that surrounded my thoughts whenever I did a double-take. When I doubted myself. When I felt the need to stop being a rebel... And that drove me because I refused. I wasn't going to listen to Fear's every beck and call. I was my own person. Even when I shook in my own boots with fear of the world hating me, I stood firm and didn't move until I knew the sword hanging above me wasn't going to fall. No matter how close it got, it would only hurt me if I screamed and ran for cover and later found out it hadn't been going to fall and kill me anyway.

Maybe I also rebelled because I didn't want to be like the rest of Monten. I wouldn't end up like my mother. I was stronger than that. I would never become a used-to-be. I would stay me. I would stay fire-addicted, Outcast Kitten Zigbol.

I stood. "I'm going to shovel the sidewalk for Dad. He'll need a pathway when he comes home..."

Mom reached out toward me, like she could really get me to stop. "The Janitors will do that, don't worry about it, Kitten."

I hadn't taken off my coat, so I just zipped it all the way up, pulled the hood around my face, and slipped on gloves and a hat. "I'll come back inside when I'm done," I told my still reaching mother, opening the door and slinking out. Snow piled up around my ankles as I stepped down. Nasty stuff. I swam through it to the door Hexa had sliced in half. Dragonblade shone with moonlight inside the storage place, turned off now from lack of solar energy and my power-starting finger snapping. I took the blue shovel and cleared the snow off the front step first. After that was swept clean, I started on the sidewalk. Who cared if the Janitors would come later? I could do this just fine.

My muscles were still sore from the snowball war, but I ignored that and kept shoveling. My head was spinning from all the confusion I'd been through the past few days, which didn't help, either. But still I kept shoveling, my mind circling round and round with all the crazy stuff going on inside.

I began pondering all the recent disasters. Going from hating Lune to feeling fine around him and then being accused of being his "match". Turning enemies with my own bedroom wall. Starting a fire at the ruins and getting us sixteen-year-olds in trouble. And my father's disappearance.

My hands blurred to a stop. An idea formed in my head that snapped of a piece of my self-esteem.

Was it my fault? Was my father being brought face to face with the leaders because of my rebellious acts? The fire, of course, at the hospital ruins, and then the classic not-walking-in-step problem. Maybe they had finally gotten fed up with my disobedience and imperfections and blamed my father. Guilty by association.

I let out a giant sigh and shoveled the last bit of sidewalk. They might be punishing him because of me. Because of how poor of a Monten citizen I was.

I threw the shovel to the ground angrily, and it landed in the snowbank to my right. In my whorl of rage, I spotted a figure ghosting down the road toward me. My teeth clenched together. They wouldn't take my mother, too, would they? But then I recognized the figure, and I gasped quietly, running the last four feet to meet them and throwing my arms around them.

"Dad!" I practically screamed. I held him close to me, feeling his warm breath in my ear. "Dad, you're here!"

He hugged me awkwardly, and I felt his shock. Then he just began teasing me. "I thought you were angry with me." He pushed me slightly off to scrutinize my face. "You feeling green? Because last I knew, with that last, uh, discussion-"

I shook my head over and over, refusing to let go. I hugged him a second time. "You're here, that's all that matters."

"Garran?" Mom appeared on the doorstep, her eyes lighting up in surprise. She hurried toward us, calling his name repeatedly. "Garran, Garran, Garran!"

"Yes, I'm here. Don't worry. I'm home."

As my mother joined the embrace, I felt connected to my parents finally. At last, we were an actual, loving family. No matter whose fault this all was. Dad was home.

And we held onto each other, never wanting to let go, the isabelline snow drifting gracefully through the silent, night air, and we stood in the middle of the road with the moon watching us closely from the dark sky, eyes squeezing shut to keep ourselves in the moment, to never break the bond that clasped us so closely. Because all three of us knew it would only take a few words from the leaders to tear it apart, to turn our family into shattered glass.

My arms constricted, and I ground my teeth together in defiance. No. They wouldn't ever separate us. Not again. Even if I had to march up to the sun and scream my demands to the leaders themselves, the relationship I felt growing with my parents would not be broken.

They'd have to go through me first. And I wasn't going down easy.

*

When I pushed my door open, my wall was screaming insults at me. "You're a good-for-nothing rebel! Can't you get to bed on time, you lazy lump? It's a half hour after nine o'clock. Can't you tell time? You stupid Outcast!"

It didn't take long for me to get fed up. Pulling out my matches, I held them up for the robots inside that wall to see plain and clear. "See these?" I taunted. "I'm THIS close to using them on YOU!"

There was a crackle of electricity, and a much kinder voice hissed, "Oh, Kitten, you don't mean that. You couldn't possibly do something so stupid."

Well, apparently I could.

I struck the match, and beautiful heat sprouted from the red phosphorous end and the wall shrieked in terror as I brought it face to face with my flame. "Want to play with me? You play with fire."

And with that, I tossed the match across the wall's screaming surface.

Flames ate away at the wood, soon becoming charred and curling away into black ash. The wall's shrieks became more hysterical. I'd known that was coming. "Kitten, how could you?!" the wall questioned me in a desperate, scared mechanical voice and water suddenly poured from the ceiling. That, to be honest, I hadn't seen coming. I blinked away the droplets that splattered against my forehead and blurred my sight. It was icy cold and shivers began quaking up my spine. The fire on the wall sizzled out by the synthetic rain, leaving a nasty black burnt spot behind, and I could hear the mechanics in the entire room dying down. Great. Now I was out of power. Which meant no heating blanket. No Waking Song. Nothing. I was stuck in a void. An oblivion.

Tomorrow morning was going to be interesting.

I stripped off my wet clothes as the rain drizzled to a stop. I threw the jeans and shirt onto the floor to take care of later. "Mental note to self," I whispered, trembling with cold as the last few droplets from over my head fell on my bare skin, "put wet clothes in dryer. Wake up on time. And DON'T be late for school. Mom'll kill you."

Practically naked except for my thin, white underclothes, I curled up under the ice cold covers. They were soaked, but it could always get worse, right? Sighing, I pulled them up to my chin, turning onto my right side and closing my eyes, forcing myself to forget my trembling body and to focus on getting a good night's sleep, even at 38 vspm- violent shivers per minute.

I knew I had succeeded in falling asleep when I heard the deep, rumbling voice of one of the leaders in my ears and I was suddenly curled up on a freezing concrete floor behind my father, sitting with his back straight in a wooden chair in the darkest room imaginable. I was still only wearing underclothes, which was rather embarrassing, considering my whereabouts. I hoped, in this darkness, no one noticed. I wasn't one for showing off my body. Not that I thought I was ugly or anything. I was just uncomfortable without proper layers to wear.

"State your name," the oldest leader said. The eldest one was always the one to do most of the talking, unless, of course, he was so old he couldn't speak without mumbling or drooling or something. That had happened before, and it wasn't easy to hold back your laughter when you're an eleven year old with a drooling leader.

"Garran Zigbol," my father stated in a miserable voice. He must be tired. I knew he just wanted to go home. But I couldn't stand, couldn't call out to him and try and plead for the leaders to let him go.

"Are you the father and guardian of sixteen-year-old Kitten Zigbol?"

"Yes," he replied softly. Didn't they know that? Why were they asking? I ached to rush to his aid, but I knew it wouldn't help even if I could move.

It was too dark to see the leader's faces, and the only light in the room shone directly onto my father, brighter than the synthetic sun. And yet, like a moth, I was drawn to it, glancing up at it over and over, only to lower my gaze moments later when my eyes started to burn like crazy and white-yellow dots spattered wildly across my vision.

"Do you know your daughter has a high tendency to break rules, such as the one against having matches?"

"Yes. She's been that way since she was young."

"And do you realize what that could mean to the city? How dangerous this could be for all of us?"

My father paused, then spoke in a harsher tone. "How dangerous is a little girl when all she does is hold a burning stick in her hand? She wouldn't do harm-"

"She would have no chance of doing harm if you would take the sticks away from her altogether!" the leader shouted. I flinched, but my father just scoffed, like he'd expected this reaction. "You must report her or be punished. Make your choice, and choose carefully."

I wanted to move to his side. I wanted to rebuke the leaders for treating him this way, for training a killer-bright light on him and holding him hostage when he couldn't even see who he was talking to. They might as well have strapped him to the chair and tied his hands with rope. Here, he was a prisoner. Here, he was already being punished, and without any punishment at all.

I had to defend him. I should stand up. Report myself to the leaders. My father didn't need to be treated this way. It was cruel. It was inhuman. It wasn't even lawful!

"I... choose," my father whispered, "to remain... silent."

Eyes bursting open, I heard laughter and the dream faded away. I couldn't even remember what it had been about. Just that it hadn't been very pleasant. I rubbed away the sweat beading on my forehead, then caught a glimpse of two forms leaning over me in the darkness.

"Hey-"

A hand clamped down hard on my mouth. "Quiet!" a familiar voice hissed. "You'll wake up your parents, Kitten!"

"Hexa?" I mumbled beneath the hand. I sat up a little, then groaned as my mouth was set free. "Resh, you too?"

They laughed again, softer this time.

"What are you two DOING here?" I asked incredulously. It MUST be against the rules to leave your house this late at night. Not that I cared, but my two friends should. They always had before tonight, anyway.

Resh's eyes were twinkling wickedly. "Bothering you, of course!"

I pushed the blankets off of me, no longer freezing. But then I felt the breeze coming from the open window, and I stared at it, goosebumps appearing on my arms. "How did you-"

"We had a friend help us. Now come on, get dressed warm because it's windy out. Come on, Kitten, hurry up. They're waiting."

"Who's waiting?" But my voice was cut off as a turtleneck was abruptly pulled over my head and Hexa was complaining about my wet hair. "Oh, right," I mumbled. "It rained in my room last night. Er, earlier, anyway. Wait, what time is it?"

"One in the morning. What do you mean it RAINED?"

They kept getting me dressed into warm, thick layers, seeing that I was hardly capable of dressing myself in this sleep-deprived condition. I had started shivering again, even wrapped up in all this cotton and denim. Slowly, they managed to prepare me for the winter weather and then I felt like a hippopotamus, an animal from the olden days. Ankun had told me about it, about how big and fat it was. Not that he'd ever seen one himself. Everything he knew, he got from either blind Asrid or his books.

I explained to them about the offensive wall and how I'd lit it on fire after getting fed up with its crap, and then it had poured water from the ceiling. The look in their eyes told me they knew something else about the power shortage I was experiencing, so I asked them, "Is there something more I should know about?"

Resh gave me a small smile, but it didn't come close to meeting her eyes. "Yes, everything's shutting down. Sure, the malfunction's been doing that, too, but this time it's real. Things have stopped working. Or started, in some cases. Like the kitchen wall. It's giving out food again. But anything associated with us teenagers in Block 16 is dead. It's like, because of your act against your wall, our walls clicked off, too."

"I thought it was because of the water!" I said, eyes wide. "I didn't know lighting my wall on fire would do this to everyone! I'm so sorry!"

They both stared at me like I was insane. "You've got no reason to be spreading apologies," Hexa muttered, laughing without humor. "Besides, it's made you popular. You should be BOASTING."

"Popular?"

"Come on." Resh grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. "You'll understand soon enough."

As she dragged me out the window, and I tried not to fall out head first- being tired was leaving me utterly useless- I tried to figure out how freaking out at my bedroom wall had anything to do with any other kids. Resh called out to her motor scooter, and it lifted into the air- THEY COULD FLY?!- and carried us down. Hexa simply leaped into the tree and climbed to the ground. I was terrified she would break her neck, but she landed perfectly in one piece in the snowbank next to Resh and I, so maybe she'd had more practice in leaping out of two-story windows into trees than I knew.

"Hello," someone on the sidewalk greeted. My head snapped up in surprise, and then I scowled. Of course he would show.

"Morning," I growled.

"What, he doesn't even get a GOOD morning?" Resh laughed. "Gosh, you're such a pessimist!"

I stuck my tongue out, not sure if it was directed at her or at the Drumer boy. I lowered my angry gaze knowing she was right about the pessimism thing either way. I was NOT in a good mood. Not this early, and absolutely not with Lune by my side.

"So what's going on, then? You said I'd understand, and so far, I'm only confused further."

Resh rubbed her scooter lovingly, whispering, "Take us to the hospital ruins, Lyrick." Then, to me: "You'll figure it out when we get there. It's not hard to guess."

"Wait, I have my own scooter," I protested, just before Lyrick could fly down the street. "It'll only take a minute," I promised everyone. Everyone because, in a sudden moment, I realized there were a lot more people gathered around than I'd realized. Yes, there were my two best friends and Lune. But then there were the eleven other kids stepping onto their own modern scooters, watching me with almost AWED eyes. I cringed with the "popularity" and headed to where Dragonblade lay in the corner of the pitch black basement-of-sorts. As I snapped, the scooter groaned in exhaustion but the engine sputtered to life, and I rode out to the mob of my so-called followers.

"Ruins," I ordered Dragonblade. "And fast. I want to get home and get back to SLEEP." Choking out a metallic cough, I wondered if my scooter was laughing at me. Was that even possible? Whether it was or not, it zipped along toward the ruins, and fourteen other engines sparked to whispering life- mine roared more than anything- and arrived at the ruins in no time at all.

There, we realized not only had our plans been suddenly sketched out, but they had also failed.

We were met by flashlights and booming voices for us to turn around.

Turn around or else.