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Leon_the_ Devil_ Hunter on 12/17/2009

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This Terrible Story
Chapter One

Thirteen years ago, my life was formed of school lessons of mathematics and history that I barely remember, of games played with my friends, and of unwanted chores pressed on me by adults. The years were marked by the harvest each year and the resulting harvest festival. I was growing up, and it was a time where children begin to examine, but not shoulder, the responsibility of adulthood. I still quite clearly remember the shallow emotions and ideas of my adolescence- the games of war, the dreams of leaving my small hometown behind to find adventure.

I wasn’t quite eight when he died. He was one of the older boys, already apprenticed, so he wasn’t one of my friends, but in a countryside town like out all lives are firmly connected. Everyone knows everyone and gossip is synonymous to friendship. When something happens, the whole town knows in a matter of hours, at most.

This boy, who lived just down the street and worked for my cousin, who smiled everyday at my mother the widow when he passed us on the street, seems so unimportant now. A single unimportant suicide on the threshold of so many other deaths and sorrows that followed so shortly afterward. I don’t even remember his name, but the creaking rope that he hung himself on still haunts my thoughts thirteen years later. He, who was just a nameless tiny link on the growing chain of tragedy wrapped around us all, leaving oozing bruises on our skin, is my constant focus now.

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Already the building was beginning to smell like dust and dried ink, Matteus noted as he climbed the small staircase that lead from the printing floor to the second story offices, much like it had the first time he’d set foot inside, several years before. The wood under his feet creaked and, outside, the wind battered at the dirty windows demanding entrance, but other than that the old printing shop was silent. Everyone else had departed earlier that day, like rats from a sinking ship, carrying bags and boxes and erasing all signs of life from the old building.

Matt shivered as he passed a cracked window. The glass was yellowed and darkened with dirt, warping the light that came through into a smudgy blur, but he still felt like he could feel the eyes outside through it, watching him with the intensity of a predator.

“Aaron?” He called, his feet hitting the second floor. The hallway, lined with doors, some open and some closed, stretched out before him, empty. But a crash of papers hitting the floor answered him.

A paper fluttered out of one of the makeshift bedrooms, a naked mattress crammed haphazardly in the corner, and so Matt pushed open the door, pausing in the doorway. At the desk, hunched over with his nose almost to the paper, was a young blond man oblivious to the world and all in it.

“Are you going to wait until the Amir’s men knock on the door?” Matt said sternly, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Yes,” The man at the desk said instantaneously, though his hand didn’t waver in its furious writing. “And I plan to invite them all in for lunch, too. Then we will gossip about which shop has the best soap or thread and who’s with child and who’s not.”

Silence fell after his words, since Matt didn’t smile at the joke, and Aaron continued to scribble. A minute passed and then two, until Matt felt the hair on his neck rise from the delay. He shuffled his feet nervously and glanced at the nearest window, but the shades were drawn. It had been two hours since the alarm had been raised, that their location was no longer safe, but Aaron did not appear to be in any rush nor did he seem to feel any of the apprehension Matt did.

“It’s-” Matt finally spoke out, his eyes on the shuttered window.

“Is everyone out?” The blond man at the desk spoke over him.

“We’re the last ones,” Mat’s voice was quiet. “The truck’s waiting on us.” Aaron stood in acknowledgement and stuffed the papers into the bag on his shoulder before turning to face his friend with a crooked grin.

“Shall we depart, Mr. Ants-in-your-pants?” He asked cheerfully.

The wind had died down as they crept down the stairs and the sudden silence made them doubly wary. “What were you working on?” Matt whispered, once more glancing at to the windows.

Aaron shrugged. “A story.”

“A story?” Matt’s usually bland voice was tinted with skepticism, the only emotion he really expressed in his careful words. For the past several years, the responsibility of writing their news papers had fallen to Matt, so this news of Aaron willing picking up a pen was surprising. “About what?”

The blond flushed. “Me.”

“Huh…”

“We’re living history, Matt!” Aaron argued, as they ghosted past the silent and frozen printing presses, though Matt had said nothing challenging him. “Think about it! When we’re dead and gone, how’s anyone going to know what we did? Like the letters from soldiers in the Second War, that documented the civil uprising in Mjahai!” He looked so serious and passionate that Matt had to cover his amused snort with a cough as he bent to flip open the almost seamless trapdoor hidden in the floor of the printing room.

Aaron exhaled, annoyed. “Scoff if you want, but we’re living future historic events here. We could be remembered as heroes in the future! Aaron Osric and Matteus Devlin, saviors of Delta!”

Matteus shot him a look, and then dropped into the revealed hole in the floor. “Save the heroics for when we don’t have soldiers breathing down our necks, okay?”

The blond grumbled, dropping into the crawl space behind him, careful to flip the door shut behind him, the heavy wood slamming shut with a crash that made both young men flinch.

They fumbled about in the darkness, crouched down to protect their head from the low ceiling. The silence and blackness pressed in, eating away at any sound they made, muting it.

Within a few moments, they both slipped out through a small door into a much wider tunnel, very dimly lit. Aaron scowled and covered his mouth with his sleeve as they set off down the small walkway beside the sluggishly flowing water beside them. “How long do you think until they realize we’re using the sewers to get around underneath their feet?” He asked.

“Today, we should assume. We’re lucky they haven’t noticed before- I thought it would be obvious.” Matt wrinkled his own nose.

“Good. I never want to come down here again.” Aaron growled. “How far until we reach the truck.

Matt didn’t answer as he counted the passing ladders attached to the brick walls. He was a young man, just barely past twenty, but his painfully serious expression made him look much older. He was average in looks, in no way remarkable. His hair was brown and kept short, his eyes were brown. He wasn’t tall, he wasn’t short, he wasn’t large, he wasn’t skinny. He looked reliable, but not handsome- he was just too plain. His stride was purposeful, but there was no display of power or strength. That was Matteus in one word; average. Boring, even.

He stopped at the seventh ladder and climbed up it, shouldering open the cover over the hole in the ceiling, revealing the suddenly blinding afternoon sunlight. Climbing out onto the street above, he reached a hand down to Aaron and pulled the blond man up as well.

Aaron, quite the opposite of his friend, was handsome, if you liked the starved artist. His face was well-shaped, but angular with high cheek bones, his blond hair was unruly and kinky though he’d tried to tame it into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He was slender, but well defined, and his hands were bony with long fingers. And most admirable were his eyes, fiery and the color of ash. From them radiated his whole personality and he stood out where Matteus blended in.

At the corner of the block, inconspicuous as the people passed around it on the street to get to stores and go about their day, sat the truck, rumbling quietly in the busy street. Keeping an eye out for unusual activity or soldiers, Matt and Aaron struck out for the vehicle.

“Can I read it?” Matt asked as they walked.

“What?” Aaron had already forgotten.

“Your story. Will you let me read it?” He reached the back of the truck first and swung up into the covered bed, holding open the leather drape that shielded the truck bed from outside eyes.

Aaron made a face, swinging himself up. “No!” The drape dropped back into place and the truck rumbled away.

Blocks behind them, the front doors to the printing house blew opened and soldiers, silent and efficient, poured in, filtering through the house in search of occupants. They wore dark uniforms, with high collared jackets and military caps, and each held their gun, ready to fire.

Their leader, a pristine looking young man no older than eighteen, swore and kicked over a table in frustration. His uniform was spotless and painfully pressed, and he carried his cap under one arm, his straight, glossy black hair flowing loose to his shoulders. His face, peculiarly androgynously handsome, was crumpled in a scowl.

So close, he wanted to scream. His hand itched to grab his gun, to shoot someone in the face with it. No, not just someone. A rebel. Especially one of their leaders.

And here he thought he’d had them, after so many months of trying to pinpoint the location of their underground newspapers, trying to catch just one of them, to get them to talk. But someone had spilled the beans of his plan and now the group of radicals, as he had not yet deemed them treacherous enough to be a rebellion, had slipped past him once again.

Anger about his failure would do him nothing, though, so he took a deep breath, placed his hat back on his head, and focused on what they could do. “Search for anything that might give us a clue where they went or who they are. When you’re done, burn this place to the ground. It’s an eyesore to me now.”

The Csar Amir, Alexis Rouvin, watched with bitter satisfaction as his soldiers snapped a smart salute in response to his words and went to work. Then he turned on his heel and left to report to his superior generals. Hopefully news of his failure would not reach the ears of Csarsa, the homeland, or of its emperor. The Amir, the God Prince, did not fail, Alexis knew all too well, and so it was his duty to turn this failure into a plan for success in the name of the magnificent country of Csarsa and its god, Csar.

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Senryoske 12/13/2009 9:04 am: That would be awesome!
Esoteric Order of Dagon 12/07/2009 10:26 pm: Your signature is amazing.

Just had to say it. Bravo.
Senryoske 12/07/2009 5:55 pm: I really like your story. I don't think it sounds forced at all. Sometime I'd like to read more of it, if you wanted. Also like your avatar and sig. And pretty much everything else lol
Orange Chus 12/07/2009 5:44 pm: Who is the person in your signature?
iiU K E R U 11/26/2009 3:13 pm: ^o^ Your welcome~
iiU K E R U 11/26/2009 10:40 am: ^o^ Your very welcome. I really like your hair color too. >: And the camera. Okay. SO the whole picture is pretty much amazing. ^o^;
iiU K E R U 11/26/2009 10:01 am: Random comment but I saw your siggy picture and I really like the outfit~ ^ ^;
bobbubbles 10/22/2009 1:14 pm: Hey you what about the rp you started? There is a guy waiting to be accepeted.
AznDomo 09/29/2009 12:23 pm: sorry for asking but may i have your luck key please?
turtlegirl100 08/29/2009 8:04 pm: Thanks for the purchase. 3nodding I really appreciate it!