The Battle of Tyrell: Cynthia by Nicola Collings (books for 9th graders .TXT) 📕

                “Very. Careful you don’t get lost. Even I do sometimes.” Danin sat opposite.

                “Anyway, there’s talk of moving the operation up to Guarda. Or part of it. They say the studies can go even further! Think of the opportunities!”

                Danin wrinkled his nose like a child. “I do not care, Heartlib. Remember what they did to us in Arcanouwa? Those months in those tiny rooms with only a slither of light and mashed food twice a day?”

                “Yes, but we’ve come so far since then!”

                “It was torture!”

                “It was progress!”

                Silence fell momentarily.

                “And they’re still doing that to people?” asked Danin.

                “As we speak. But people are better off for it! I heard they actually artificially created a human being that was stronger, faster and even immortal! They called it a Wyvern, after the company. Imagine an army of enhanced human beings!”

                “No. It’s not natural. We’ll be swimming in freaks soon enough.”

                “We are not freaks!”

                “We are and you know it! Our family is cursed, Heartlib. In more ways than one. Our duty is to protect the Shamar. We are Descendents. That is a curse in itself. Yet now...after what they did to us! You realise our descendents will be cursed also!”

                Heartlib sighed. “You heard what they said, right? As long as it remains dormant, no one will know. And it will remain dormant.”

                Danin paused. “We are freaks. And people should see what Wyvern Industries has done to us. It may surprise you, but I know a thing or two about the magic they perform there.”

                “Science. Not magic.”

                “No matter what it is, no one can stop my plans. So you can take your letter back to Wyvern Industries and I can sit and relax.”

                Heartlib’s heart sank. “So you’re going to give up and die? You’re going to sit here and make me watch as my brother is killed?”

                Danin shot him a flat look. “Yes.”

                Heartlib sighed. He left the letter on the end table and left, slowly. He couldn’t do anything to save him now. Both Danin and his precious legends were done for. There were no more Descendents, there were no Shamar, and if there was going to be anyone to set them free from fiction, there certainly wasn’t now.

                                4 generations later...

                The Mayor shouted orders down the phone. Whoever he was shouting at wasn’t doing his job fast enough! The lights were moving down The Wynde. They were coming. And he was going to die! They were coming for him!

                But it was ok, because he had the armed forces to protect Boundary, right? They’d keep Boundary safe? Wouldn’t they?

                “Guards!” he yelled to the door. A guard appeared in the threshold. “I want five armed guards to protect me!”

                “But sir...” the guard mumbled. “You sent them all to the border. The rest are trying to evacuate Boundary. There’s just two of us left.”

                “Then get in here and protect me!”

                “Yes sir.” The other guard appeared and joined the Mayor in the room. One of the guards was young, barely in his 20s with a fresh face that looked as though he’d never seen action. His pistol was holstered and to his back was strapped a rifle. How could he look so relaxed? The other guard was much older, maybe in his 40s, middle-aged at least. Yet he still looked old. Was he fit for duty? Could he still fight? Maybe he was too old? Maybe he was too old to fight!

                Oh god!

                “Get Wyvern Industries and tell them to send that weapon that I gave them the go-ahead for. Say it is an emergency and I need immediate protection!”

                “But, sir, that’s...top secret! It was scheduled to be finished several years from now!”

                The Mayor sat in silence, praying to the God of Death. May he not be thrown into Oblivion and may he rest in peace forever!

                The realisation was slowly sinking in, that Boundary was doomed. The night was almost at First moon. 18 more hours to go and they’d see sunrise. But would he still be alive?

                He hoped to make it to midnight at least, maybe even Last moon.

                What ever mistake was made all those centuries ago, how the Mayor wished he could resolve it! Oh, how he wished!

                                                                                                *

                “What happened to Cynthia? What happened to her, answer me Goddammit!” yelled Gus, following Zeke down The Wynde. Sam and The Wyverns were hot on their heels.

                There was something about Zeke that made Sam uneasy. He wasn’t the calm, cool Zeke they’d known just hours ago. His dark eyes had lightened to an iridescent yellow and glowed. Something about his face had changed.

                “She’s gone.”

                “Gone? Fuck, man, we needed her!” Gus yelled.

                “It doesn’t matter. What matters is getting rid of these mother fuckers once and for all!”

                “We can’t do this without Cynthia!”

                “Don’t you see?” yelled Zeke, stopping, people continuing to run past him. “She is the only reason we are running down this hill right now! She is now an idea, an idea that will bring us out of this alive! Do not let her sacrifice be in vein! Now, turn around and lets go kill some faggots!”

                Gus stood defiantly for a moment, before turning tail. Sam and the Wyverns followed them. Despite what Zeke had said, Sam thought it didn't feel as though Cynthia had truly gone. And the more he looked round at the newcomers, the more he started to remember things...

                His thoughts were muffled by the yells and cried of the crowds. It soon became to packed, that turning back was no longer an option. Everywhere, people pressed against him, all moving in one direction.

                I know that war paint...

                Above him, he saw a woman running along a catwalk with two kids in tow, all three were carrying guns. Sam had had years of watching children grow up learning how to shoot guns, and yet, somehow to see a child with heavy equipment like that seemed...wrong.

                I know that deep black, those boots...

                All around him he saw flashes of pale faces. Angry eyes. Lips held in animalistic snarls.

                It can’t be!

                Staring straight ahead, Sam thought he caught a glimpse of Pain, smiling a toothy grin at him.

                It’s them! The magic!

                In sudden realisation, Sam gasped and gripped his weapons hard. In truth, these warriors whom The Wynde thought were their allies could, in fact, be the exact opposite!

                The truth was that no one really knew who they were running into battle with.

                                                                                                *

                Nicki gripped Ricks hand as they hid in the bushes. Blood dripped into her eye from the march down. Nicki had been carried along with the tide, scooped up by the crush of bodies and swept away. If it wasn’t for Rick, she would probably have been trampled to death! She could have sworn she’d seen a bloody face pressed into the stone with its entrails ripped out.

                The killing had already started...

                And they hadn’t even stepped out of The Wynde yet.

                And then Rick was there, plucking her from the violence, hauling her up to a catwalk above. Since then, they’d followed the procession, staying out of its way. And now, as the people lined up on the border to the City Centre, the two of the crouched in a nearby bush, staying safe.

                “When they run, stay close.” Mumbled Rick.

                “Okay.” Breathed Nicki. She watched them, fidgeting, itching to destroy something. A man in bike leathers turned a base ball bat that had nails hammered into the end in his hands. A tall woman with pink dreadlocks couldn’t help but click the safety on and off her gun. One man even had a flame thrower strapped to his front. This man was one of the Shamar. You could tell by the war paint.

                It still amazed Nicki how they’d appeared from nowhere, coming from above to join the battle. They’d marched straight out of the mansion and down the hill, and everyone from The Wynde had followed automatically, as if it was their programming!

                She looked at the empty City Centre, the only form of life were the small figures of authorities. Yet as The Wynde waited, the more of the Boundary police Nicki could see. The wore the same, black uniform and carried regulation guns; a pistol and a single shot gun. She guessed they carried knives too.

                She waited.

                A figure emerged from the crowd and Nicki recognised him as Zeke, the man who’d dealt with the spies.

                He stood a moment, his eyes glowing in the light from the street lamps, his hands open in a claw like position, ready to strike.

                She heard the sound of a radio crackle in the distance. Why weren’t the police doing anything? Where were they all? She’s have thought there would have been more than this! An army to fight an army! Without two sides a battle wasn’t a battle. It was a slaughter.

                There was a yell from the crowd. In the second, that one yell turned into a million yells for freedom.

                People ran, shot guns, glass shattered through the streets. People were awoken from their beds as chaos erupted in the streets below! Rick pulled Nicki from the bush and the two ran through the violence.

                “Where are we going?” shouted Nicki.

                “If we stay still, we’ll get caught in the fray!”

                He pulled Nicki through the streets. Everywhere she looked, people shot at shop fronts, kicking out goods that were seen as valuable to those on Boundary. Warriors gathered around hiding police who’d tried to flee or fight and showered them with bullets and punches and stabs. Some who lived in the City Centre were emerging from their homes to find trees and shrubs on fire, buildings destroyed in the fiery anger of the sea of black that swept up the hill, gradually getting to the border. Nicki looked back in horror at groups of warriors kicking the shit into helpless shop owners.

                And the border was where she found herself next, gazing up the streets dotted with black figures. A flurry of soldiers jogged past, followed by people from The Wynde, and Rick pulled Nicki to the side. They waited for a second, before they started to hear screams amid the war cries and gun fire.

                “Come on! We’ll be safe at the top!” breathed Rick, pulling Nicki along.

                Yet the farther they ran, the more Nicki saw, and the more she saw, the more she hated The Wynde and Boundary and...

                Everything.

                Kids helping warriors throw buckets of black paint onto houses, women pulled from their beds and taken onto the streets, lined up and shot in the head from behind, piles of bodies being burned along with books and statues of the old and new gods. She saw a group of men wearing denim jackets with the sleeves ripped off gathered around a street lamp where they were raising a body hung from rope. She heard the crazed laughing of teens who’d barely survived for years finally getting to blow up the fancy vehicles by shooting at the petrol tank. House fires. More bodies. Dead children and babies, still holding teddy bears with bloody hands, faces frozen in eternal anguish and confusion.

                Finally, Nicki closed her eyes, drowned out the laughter and the cries for help and sorrowful lamentations. She just let the current take her.

                                                                                                *

                She was face down. Cold pressed against her body on all sides. So cold, it felt wet against her face. Wait...

                Her face?

                My face?

                There was something on her chest...wait...my chest.

                Yes, my chest.