Rogue World

It was a morning like every other. The alarm went of but Alina didn’t want to wake up, until her brother whispered “The sky is pitch black.” She shot up and saw Elias, Fully dressed and standing at the feet of her bed with lost face, her brother never specified what color the sky was, he just always said black. Alina looked outside the window, there was sunshine, near their house there was a crack which let in enough light. She closed her eyes and breathed in heavily.
“This is not good.” She finally said.
“Yeah, tell me about it.” Elias whispered while getting down from their bed stairs. “The sky is never pitch black.” He finally said and Alina looked at him puzzled.
“Pitch black? You always say just black!!” She protested, almost annoyed.
“There are different shades of black!” Elias almost shouted, but then had to elaborate because he saw his sister’s facial expression, with risen eyebrows, head a bit tilted to the side and arms crossed. “There is charcoal, crow, ink, obsidian, pitch…”
“Yeah, you may not continue I am well aware of that.” She said that with quite soft and calm voice, however it changed drastically in the matter of a millisecond. “Why did you never specify?!”
“I don’t know! They were always the same shade!” and before Alina could have asked, he added “Charcoal, it was always charcoal black.” Alina turned around. She was now facing the wall. Her mind was not in that room anymore, it was calculating the risk, trying to figure out what will happen.
“Okay, what do we do?” she finally said and turned around, back to face her brother, who was packing things for school.
“What else can we do? We get ready, go to school and expect the worst.” Elias said without turning around. He finally packed everything and started to get downstairs from their small, loft-like bed area. Alina softly said to him before he exited.
“Bro,” she paused, “your eyes are glowing.” Elias looked at her and she added in the same soft voice “You wouldn’t want mom to see it.” He smirked and the glow slowly faded away.
“Thank you, fox.” And he went downstairs and through their studio and work area out into the corridor.
Soon enough Alina also got down. They had some breakfast, although neither of them could eat. It was tvorog, something like cotton cheese, again. You eat it with milk, but neither of the twins liked it because it made them sick, however, their parents never believed it and made them eat it anyway. It made twins furious and they never finished their portions and that made their parents furious, but there was nothing twins could do about it. After, so called breakfast, both of them went to classes. The courses that they did weren’t part of school or university program. This was a separate program that allowed people to jump from one profession to the other, with out any difficulties. This was not compulsory, but most kids still did it. It was solemnly based on different job experience and it normally run for a year, for most of the courses, other ones, broad careers such us doctors, they run for longer. These courses were run in different buildings, by new professors, who knew nothing about students previous life, apart from their grades, but today and the whole week classes would be about making right decisions and acting like an adult.
As Alina predicted, today’s lecture was about the danger of making the wrong choices, going the wrong direction and the danger of dragons. This kind of lectures, about dragon danger, came as often as sex education in Earths school, quite a lot, but here, students actually listened. It was important and could potentially save your life, its not like sex education is going to save you in anyway way from the disadvantages of sex life. This was the only association that Alina had of this ‘dragon education’ lesson. She liked Earths history, probably because in some way it helped her remember Agath’s history, so she read a lot of things about Earth and sometimes it was funny how simplistic it was, but she still liked it.

After the lecture, friends decided to go to the mall which was just right around the corner from their school. They spent quite sometime there, mainly just sitting in the café on the very top floor where they could see the upper world. It was like a terrace, big stone columns between which were huge, thick glass frames, at least that is what everyone thought they were, in reality they were a single sheet of diamond. Carbon which was taken from the atmosphere was collected, compressed under high pressure and temperature, thus forming diamonds. The cuboid shape of the diamonds where then horizontally cut and distributed to different locations. They called it- the diamond glass. This was an expensive but standard issue for buildings that are placed above the ground. Diamonds don’t shatter and can withstand extreme pressure and heat. Naturally, this wasn’t found in many places and the production of diamond glass was very rare and originated a few dozen centuries before the ‘modern’ day.
Alina sat by the wall looking out into the green meadow that lay on the other side of the diamond glass. She could see a rushing river, cutting her way through the rocks of the meadow. She bet that the sound of the river was magnificent and wanted to suddenly end up on its banks, looking into the clear, roaring waters that will demolish anything on its way. Elias was next to her, trying not to look at the sky and focused on his piece of desert and a cup of green tea. Next to him was Nick. He was rather unusual. He might not be the smartest out of the whole group but he took interest in such peculiar subjects that were not connected at all. For instance identification of lichens and mosses, identification of bugs and intergalactic forest animals and of coarse, identification and nature of dragons. Nick was Elias’ best friend, the one who actually understood his love for the scaly animals. Then there were Busra and Jojo, the smarties, they were revising notes that they took during the lectures. Lastly, the person sitting opposite Alina was Ananya. She was looking out of the window. Just like Alina she loved nature, wasn’t afraid to get dirty. Two girls were talking about how amazing it would be to go out and live in the forest, all by themselves. They always sat opposite each other, easier to talk, easier to imagine, easier to communicate. The group would spend hours sitting in the corner of that café, sometimes preparing for exams, sometimes just chilling and enjoying a friendly arguments, however, today the group was divided, each pair had their own conversation. It all seemed fine but all of a sudden a boy collapsed, screaming, his whole body was convulsing in pain. He was holding his head as if it is about to blow up and he is trying to hold it in place. Everyone around him backed away and nobody even tried to help. It was quite sad that no one actually helped the boy to get up or gave him a painkiller. Instead everyone stepped away from him and watched. This wasn’t pluralistic ignorance as it would be counted and called on Earth, it’s a self-preserving act, Alina though. After a few moments the boy suddenly fell flat on his stomach and started to slowly disappear, only books were all that was left of him. Alina and the group were staring at the place where the boy was lying just a second ago. Horror. Everyone in the café were scared, everyone stood still, no one moved for a few seconds. It was a complete silence. No one panicked and after a few seconds everyone returned to their tables, a bit shaken up.
“It took another one.” Busra said sitting down and powerlessly placing her head into her hands, “He was in our class.” Everyone stayed at the same spot, staring at the books.
“Yeah, well, now he is on the Maze island, having a nice tan.” Alina commented raising her eyes and looking forward. She wasn’t smiling and her voice wasn’t cheerful, rather quite and worried. She regretted saying these words the moment they came out.
“Is this a joke to you?!” Busra suddenly exclaimed, her voice sharp, piercing the low voice tone of almost whispers, no one was expecting that and looked surprised. Alina’s face exhibited her favorite kind of expression, a risen left eyebrow “This is not a joke! People die there and you are making fun out of it!” The girl was almost screaming and everyone was kind of terrified by this, even Alina.
“Chill out dude! I was being sarcastic, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t think! I know damn well what can happen in the Maze, you don’t have to lecture me!” she said and then paused looking at her friend, something was up with her, something wrong. They have seen one or two people dissapare before and Busra’s reaction was never like this, “You’ve seen it? You’ve seen the dream.” Alina leaned forward on her elbows. Her heart started to beat uneven as she looked into her friend’s face. She managed to see that slight worry, doubt and sorrow that skipped through Busra’s face like a shadow. She saw it and the day became so much worse.
“What? NO!” Busra seemed tense, but Alina could practically see the worry in her friend’s eyes and body. There was no way back.
“Tell us, we are your friends.” Ananya came closer to her friend but before anybody else could have spoken another word, an alarm went off. The friends exchanged looks, they knew the drill way too good. It was the dragon alert, but the save heaven was way too far away from where they were. With all the people, almost in a panic, running, pushing and trying to get into different directions, the save heaven was as far as the Maze island.
Just like everyone else the friends rushed to the exit. Busra was panicking. Everyone else seemed tense, all of them wished it was just a drill, but a loud thud came from above and a green thick thingy, very close to the rope was seen dangling on the other side of the window. This was not an alarm. Adrenaline was pumping through the veins, fight or flight… there were too many people around them in the café, all squishing and pushing through. Women and children almost crying. Men were tense. As for the group of friends, most of them wanted to go with a crowd. Alina however had a different idea and Nick was on her side. She held onto her brother, not just because she was scared, but because they wouldn’t be able to stay together in the crowd.
“Listen!” she whispered “We need to wait. To let all these people go first. There is no point in getting out, we are too far.” Everyone were shoked and Busra almost yelled back at Alina.
“You out of your mind?!” there was definitely a conflict of interests, and there were no time to discuss it. They still tried to push through the crowd of people of all shapes and sizes. The stress of evacuation started to cause some conflict within people. Their powers were starting to show as a part of ‘fight’ response. Some things around Alina started to levitate. Some people started to turn to look at Elias and everyone in the group heard some sort of buzzing in their heads. Elias was able to read and manipulate people’s minds and feelings. Ananya’s hair started to stick out, away from each other and small electric charge was running through small strands of hair. Busra and Jojo were sweating, they were able to heal and in some way Johaness was able to control the cells inside a body. In fact, the closest person to him started scratching his neck. The air around Nick, started to heat up and cause a big deal to every one around him. He got a lot of mean and judgmental looks and comments on how he is cursed by dragons. Finally they made it out of the café into the large hallway, with a few doors. Another thud and some dust from the ceiling fell down. Everyone had to take cover. Without hesitation, Nick, who stood at the edge of the group, grubbed the others, on the other side, Ananya and Alina, and pushed them all in the small, practical room. Everyone looked around to make sure they all were present. The building went into an emergency lock down.
The friends sat underneath the big tables, which held chemicals, in full darkness, occasionally there would be a blue emergency lights entering the room. Other source of light were Elias’ glowing eyes. They were just glowing. His eye colour didn’t change, it stayed pretty much the same, green on the inside, around the pupil. The colour went to the blue colour the further away it got from the pupil and there was a ring of very dark blue around the iris. The glow mixed these colours together and it sort off had a glow of turquoise colour. Thanks to such a beautiful gift, Elias was able to see in the dark as if nothing happened.
Loud thud, coming somewhere from above. A test tube that was left by the student near the edge moved to the edge and the whole group watched it slam into the concrete floor. It started glowing yellow.
“What the hell is this?” Alina leaned closer to Ananya. Neither of them broke gaze from the puddle that was made by the bottle.
“A luminous substance” she answered
“Wow, what a surprise, clearly,” Alina started “But why did it start to glow when it hit the floor?”
“I don’t know man” Ananya looked at Alina, it literally looked as if the two of them were about to get into theoretical argument in which Alina would mostly rely on her rich imagination and not so rich knowledge of chemistry, while Ananya would do the opposite.
“Is this really a good place and time to do this?” Busra fearfully whispered into the direction of Ananya and Alina, the girls gave her the apology look.
“Did you hear that?” suddenly Elias spoke. Everyone looked around. There were multiple thuds and scratching, as if thunder was roaring above them. Group of friend were located almost on the top floor. Technically, it was the top floor, but due to safety reasons, there were a few empty floors above them. In the full silence, the thuds and scratching were more audible.
“What is it?” Jojo whispered in kind of panic.
“Struggle” Alina whispered back. Everyone tensed up.
“You mean that thing is trying to get inside?!” Jojo panicked.
“No” suddenly Nick said, sharply, cutting Johaness off, “There are two dragons up there.” A long silence filled the air.
“Hey, What is that?” everyone listened harder, “Are those footsteps?” Elias stood up.
“Slim it bro! You’ve gone nuts,” Alina also risen up and stood opposite him by the door way “there are no footsteps.” She loudly whispered but Elias seemed to be agitated.
“No, there are footsteps there! Somebody is up there!” and he was about to get to the door handle when he bumped into the invisible barrier. Elias raised his eyes and looked at his sister. “Let me pass.”
“No, you shall not.” She answered crossing her hands.
“There is a person up there that needs our help!” Elis almost screamed.
“And you are the one that is going to help him?!” His sister almost screamed back “Are you out of your freaking mind?! This is way too extreme, even for me. We are the last ones who will be doing any help.” Alina met a disappointed look from Elias “We can’t do anything to help him, if he is up there then maybe he is up there for a reason!”
“Yeah, what reason? To become someone’s dinner?” Elias questioned “Let me pass Alina.” Jojo, Busra and Nick rose up and stood next to Elias.
“He is right Alina, at least we need to try and see if we can help.” Alina just rose her eyebrow and the invisible barrier vanished. Elias reached out for a handle and pushed the door open. The four of them went out, quietly and carefully. Alina stood in the doorway with Ananya and watched as the other group made there way along the corridor’s wall.
“Unbelievable.” She quietly said, and shook her head. “Where did this heroism suddenly came from?” The question just hanged in the air. Alina and Ananya stood in almost complete darkness. Both of them were facing the door, finally Ananya spoke.
“Do you know that your eyes always look luminous,” Alina looked back at her friend and even though Ananya couldn’t see her face she imagined it confused, “They always look as if there is a glows stick behind the iris. They don’t glow, they just look bright enough.” Alina’s eye colour was quite fascinating. It was like cracks on thick and heavy, but yet very light ice, on the deepest lake on the planet. Depending on the weather or maybe even the mood of the girl the eyes would change colour. She knew it was just a reflective factor but it fascinated many people.
“This information isn’t quite helping, buddy.” Alina spoke and turned back to the door, her eyes looked a bit ghostly.
“We need to go and help them.” Ananya said and moved closer, “Its your brother out there along with our friends, we have to help them.” There was some truth in Ananya’s words, but with one exception. Alina understood that she wouldn’t quite phrase and justify her actions as ‘help’, it was more like ‘making sure that everything is okay and nobody screws up any opportunities’. The girl though about it while they almost crawled along the corridor wall, Alina in front, Ananya at the back. As usual, Ananya was a little bit freaked up and now and then would grab onto Alina’s hand. To be honest, neither of the girls wanted to be there at the moment, but some things are stronger than habits, patterns of behavior. Guilt, attraction, bond, honor, loyalty, control. A few of those things drove Alina most of her life. She wanted control, wanted to know everything from the first hand. She loved her brother and friends, she was loyal to them, but control and that fear that something would go out of control, that she might not be there to figure it out made her do things that some people wouldn’t. They got to the stairs and heard nothing but the roars of the dragons.
“What the hell are we doing?” Alina quietly whispered to herself before making her move up the stairs and at the end of which they discovered all of their friends.
“Whats up?” Alina whispered and made all of them jump from their places by the ajar door.
“What THE HELL were you thinking!?” Busra hit Alina rather hard on the shoulder and sent her a little backwards where she was caught by Ananya.
“You know that we have NO survival skills or instincts. So, what is going on?” Alina quietly whispered leaning closer to the door.
“Nah,” Nick turned around and looked at the girl, “Think of it as a fight response, instead of flight.” Nick said it trying to light up the mood and Alina just whispered back “How noble.” Adrenaline was pumping through her body, but curiosity killed a cat and Alina was that cat. She craved adrenaline, the danger was exciting to her. However, most of her friends didn’t share that feeling. Elias was the leader, driven by kindness and always willing to help people in need. Altruism was pumping through his body same way as adrenaline through Alina’s. Jojo and Busra usually went with the flow. They were too intelligent and many times the main reason why they ended up somewhere was mainly because they wanted to gain knowledge, and also guilt was responsible for some of their actions. The three of them were pretty easy to figure out, they were straight forward people, however, the other three were a complete different story. Nick was a lot like Alina, or so his friends though. In reality, he was a loyal, withdrawn person. He liked danger and had a lot of secrets. Nick was the rationalist, the one who would come up with tactics in their troubles. Alina, well, she is a secretive realist with trust issues. She was the devil of the team. She could come up with anything that would in one way or another contradict something or more like everything, needless to say she was just as good at noticing patterns and getting out of sticky situations. Ananya was a hyperactive, positively charged walking brain, she was somewhere in between street smart and book smart. She was the opposite of Alina, the angel of the team, always finding something to cheer them up. As a result, they were a perfectly functional team or group of friend that would get into trouble whenever they could.
“What do you guys see?” Ananya whispered, a bit alarmed and a long silence filled the air as the kids were gathering around the lightly ajar door. It was the only source of light and sound for a few seconds, until Ananya’s scream that blew up Alina’s eardrum and gave her a headache, escaped girls lungs. Everything slowed down for Alina. Pain inside her head started to explode with her every, even the tiniest movement. Everyone jumped and looked at the girl who stood leaning on the wall with her hands on her mouth and her chest flying up and down. She was almost on the verge of tears. A step lower there was a person who was holding his figure pressed against his lips, showing them to be silent. His eyes were wide with concern. Alina was opposite of Ananya, leaning on the wall with her hand pressed against her ear, her eyes were closed and with all her body and face language it was clear that Ananya screamed way toooo close to Alina’s ear. The girls head was pounding and a high pitched ringing was permanently stuck in her head, and for a few moments it was the only thing she could hear. Another person was next to Alina and trying to get her attention onto him, he had a green bandage on his upper arm with a cross on it. Alina saw him speak but didn’t hear a word he said.
“Are you alright ma’am?” Alina finally heard him muffle through the ringing sound in her head. “I need you to let go of your ear,” he guided her. Alina saw her friends pass by her, people in black clothing were showing them the way out, but they didn’t go all the way down, they stopped a few stairs down.
“Is my sister alright?” Elias spoke to the man with outer concern. The man only nodded with out looking at the boy and without stopping doing what ever he was doing, others were around the door, there were about 20 of them.
“We are going in” the leader, first person they saw said, and for a brief moment looked back at the students, then swung the door open letting the light in.
Alina’s head was pounding even harder after the med was done with her ear, she was able to hear and the ringing sound was gone, but the headache didn’t go away. ‘Something is off’ the girl thought.
“Alina, you alright?” Elias came to his sister right after the med left them. He was concerned just like the rest of the friends.
“Well, if we need to temporary make someone deaf or to experience a terrible headache, we know who to ask.” She answered, her voice low and her gaze a bit lost. Nick stepped up and spoke up, clearly he was talking to Elias.
“We need to leave, there is nothing else to do here, we can’t help those men but we can at least try not to interrupt them, let them do their job”. Elias nodded and looked into the opening. These men where the dragon police, they made sure that people are safe from dragons and that nobody gets hurt, especially students. Elias grabbed Alina’s hands above the elbows and was about to pull her off the wall but she grabbed him back.
“Something’s off” she said with her eyes focusing in her brother. He definitely didn’t understand what was going on.
“Stop being melodramatic Alina,” Nick said from downstairs “Don’t tell me its your telekinesis speaking. Come on, we have to get out of here before we get hurt!” Alina straighten up and stood away from the wall. She looked quite pissed off.
“You mean ‘before YOU get hurt’” she made an accent on to the last part, her eyes looked narrow and her eyebrows were closer together, making a wrinkle in between them visible. Her eyes flashed and filled up with rage “Some thing is off and if you want to go then go, nobody is holding you here.” She turned around and faced the door. Sounds of a struggle were coming from the outside and occasional roars. Alina peaked out from behind the doorway. She saw dragons before, but never up close and never fighting. There were two dragons, one much bigger than the other, they were fighting and didn’t seem to care for the people who were surrounding them, in a huge circle. They were biting, scratching, pushing and beating each other as hard as possible. Their wings were wide open and they would try to attack each other with them. Their tails, generally had no purpose, but the smaller dragon was able to tangle it around the feet and the body of the opponent. The bigger dragon only had two back legs, but his wings were sharper than a scalpel, but it didn’t quite help against extremely tough dragon scales of the smaller, green, almost snake like dragon. These kinds of dragons were called Shé dragons or simply, Snakes. The bigger dragons, such as the second one on the roof, were called Fènnù dragons, or dragons of wrath. There were other types of dragons like Wùxing dragons or petite and Shilòng dragons or animal-like dragons.