The sound of our footsteps echoed through the empty house as we ran. I was tired and my legs ached but I had to keep moving. We had to keep moving.

We got to the exit of the house, and I turn the doorknob, which was unfortunately locked from the outside. 

With a sigh, I whisper/shout, “Get behind me!” before kicking the door. There was a big CRACK of the lock breaking, followed by the huge wooden door falling forward.

I continue to run out of the house, over the now broken door.

The cool breeze of the autumn night blew against my face, strands of my red and blonde hair blowing in my face.

“Atty! Hurry!” I yell, stopping to look behind me.

Atticus, my twin brother, races out of the door frame. His shaggy blonde hair blew in his face, but his lively hazel eyes still showed.

He runs past me and I quickly follow. 

We were now in what looked like an abandoned street. Torn up houses stood at both sides of the road we ran down, which had cracks all over it, which would’ve made us trip, had we not been careful.

We made it to the front of a forest of densely wooded trees, lined with bushes.

The blood moon shone over us, and the stars dimly lit up the night sky. We stop and catch our breaths.

I glance up at Atticus, and ask, breathing heavily, “You okay?”

He took a few deep breaths before looking at me and making direct eye contact. He had a smile on his face, which kinda shocked me, seeing how we were practically just running for our lives.

Well, in his case, he always smiles at weird times. Atticus is really just a plain out weirdo, whose abnormally happy most of the time, yet can be insanely powerful when he wants to.

“That,” he pants. “Was awesome.”

I slapped his shoulder. “NO! That was not awesome! We nearly got caught! Or worse: killed. All because you had to be the most clumsy living being in the universe and knock a stack of books over.”

“I said it before and I will say it again. It wasn’t my fault!” he argues.

“You stupid idiot!” I yell. “Of course it was your-”

I was cut off by a female voice in the distance.

“This way!” I hear her yell. “I heard something over there!”

I give Atticus a terrified look, ready to run again, but he simply whispers, “Hide!” and pushes me back behind a bush, making me land on my side. He quickly dives in the bush behind me, basically doing a faceplant.

And just in time.

A woman, who was a human-feline, with cat ears, purple eyes and dark hair, and a cat-tail, along with an annoyed looking man with dark black hair. They walked to where we were previously standing.

“Just over here!” the girl says.

The man looks around, to see nothing. They were so close to us, I had to hold my breath, afraid they would hear me if I didn’t.

“There’s nothing here,” the man says. “You must’ve heard stuff again.”

The girl looks at him annoyed. “I did hear stuff! And it was talking from over here! They must’ve ran. We have to follow the-”

“What we have to do is head back. Now,” the man cuts her off. “I’m not going on any more of your stupid make-believe quests, feline…”

He then walks away.

I shift to a sitting position, due to how my side started throbbing, but accidentally, I had my knee jab into my brother’s face.

“Ow!”

I quickly cover his mouth with my hand to shut him up, praying that those two people didn’t just hear him and his big mouth. 

We waited in silence, to see, nor hear any sign that they heard us and are coming back to get us.

I counted in my head for five minutes, when I knew they were most likely gone.

“You sir are an idiot,” I tell him and he rolls his eyes.

He stands up, offering his hand to me, which I grab. He helps me up and I glare at him.

“What?”

“I don’t understand why exactly you had to push me,” I say annoyed. “You could’ve easily said ‘People are coming! Get behind the bush!’”

He smirks. “Even if I did do that, would you ever listen to your older brother?”

“You are older than me by a minute, you idiot!” I yell at him as he cracks up laughing.

I cross my arms and turn the other way, upset.

Right about now, my ripped black jeans were covered in dirt, and my black tank top was torn at the bottom of it.

The gray backpack that I’ve had since we started being on the run was heavy, and made my shoulders and back start hurting. But I knew we couldn’t stop. We couldn’t rest. 

At least not now.

“Okay, okay. I’ll stop,” Atty says as he forced himself to stop laughing. “Let’s just go now…”

I look back at him, a smug look on my face. He immediately gets the same expression and at the same time, we both say, “Race ya!” and then race off North.

Alright, I think it’s about time that I should actually explain what’s happening right about now. 

My name is Ashera, and the person I was with is my twin brother Atticus, or Atty, as I call him. He calls me Ash. We’re constantly on the run, usually running from soldiers from the government or knights of the royals.

Sure, we’re thieves. Sure we break into places we shouldn't be. Sure we’ve knocked a few guards unconscious. But it’s to survive.

Our parents were killed eight years ago when we were seven years old. 

So for a while now, all we have is each other. And we’re perfectly fine that way. There’s only one other person we really trust, yet we hardly ever see him.

But I now know, with everything that has happened lately, that we should go and see him pretty soon.

Anyway, it’s only been us two in the crazy world we live in, which was given the title, Ageolan. Everyone has a different power or some magical ability. Almost everyone has their own power, other than a few exceptions, such as Atticus and I. Due to how we’re twins, we have the same ability, just different details to it, which I’ll explain later on.

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Ageolan has its three main rulers, all ruling different countries of our land. We have the royal family of Toniri, which consists of King Robert and his daughter, Princess Jaylen, the royal family of Quilera, which consists of King Jeremy, Queen Ellan, Prince Caspian, and Princess Cayleen, and then Queen Hira and Prince Levi of Barlan. Each of these royals have the rest of the rulers that go along with them: dukes, marquesses, etc.

With this, there are also rulers of towns, villages, and cities.

But the ones who keep track of Ageolan itself is The Government, who are the ones who make the main rules, decide the rulers, and go after fugitives. Unfortunately, Atticus and I are considered fugitives.

We never stay in one country long, always living on the run. But we were born in Quilera, and raised there for seven years by our parents, before being transferred to an orphanage in Toniri for a year. 

Since then, we’ve stolen supplies so we could survive, snuck into government offices of information about our parents, and have basically been running from our past.

We continued running until we eventually got to a village in Barlan. About now, it was around midnight or 1 AM, so all the lights were out and everyone was asleep, minus a few stragglers.

My back and shoulders ached, my head throbbed, and my feet felt as if they were about to fall off. I felt terrible, not even counting the fact that I was purely exhausted. I was going off of pure adrenaline, and I was even running out of that.

Thinking about this stuff made me not watch where I was going, and I tripped over a porch step, falling onto my knees and hands.

I couldn’t stop myself as tears poured out of my eyes, and ran down my cheeks, some dripping to the gravel path below me.

Why did our life have to be so terrible?

I hear Atticus’ footsteps run up to me, as he says quietly yet worriedly, “Ashera, you okay?”

I sniffle and take one of my hands - which now was covered in dirt, and were somewhat bloody from scars I got from falling - and quickly wipe my tears away, but he already saw.

“I-I’m fine,” I say quietly, trying to get to my feet.

But my feet felt like jelly. My limbs felt numb, and I fall back down.

“You should get some sleep…,” he says quietly, and I could tell he was worried for me by the tone of his voice. “We’ve been going for now 48 hours and the last time we rested, you kept watch while I slept.”

“But-”

“No,” he says sternly. “You are going to rest and sleep. You were going until you dropped, and now it’s time for you to drop. Sleep, now.”

I smile weakly.

Sure Atticus was goofy most of the time. But when it came to times like this, he could become the most directing and worried person I know. 

He takes the backpack off of me and puts it to the side.

“Okay. Thanks,” I say, closing my eyes. I almost immediately drifted off to sleep.

***

“Ashera…” I hear Atticus says quietly.

As I opened my eyes a little, the sunrise of early dawn made me want to curl up in a ball and go back to sleep.

I groan as I cover my eyes with my wrist.

“C’mon, you have to get up,” he says.

With a sigh, I sit up and yawn. After a few seconds to take in the warm light coming from the rising sun and the early morning breeze, I turn to Atticus.

“What time is it?”

“About six A.M, but the sun is now barely rising,” he says, grabbing my arm and helping me stand up. “Thought we should get a head start before all of the townspeople started waking up. I didn’t exactly want them seeing fugitives sleeping on their front porch.”

I grab my backpack, tossing it onto my shoulder. “Smart thinking.”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. It was pretty chilly right now, about fifty or sixty degrees, with a small breeze blowing from the west. The air smelled of freshly baked bread, telling me the bakery down the road had its day already begun.

My stomach grumbled at the thought of food.

The next stop we’d be taking is miles away, and we’d be there by sundown. I knew we couldn’t go on much longer without food or water.

“How much cash do we have in the bag from the previous town?” Atticus asks me, snapping me back to reality. “Y’know, from the nice mother with the six-year-old.”

I smile, remembering the lady from the previous town. Hannah, I think her name was. 

Two days ago, we stopped at a place called Greenhart Village for the night due to exhaustion. We settled down next to a tree around the evening there, and a few minutes later, Hannah came to us.

With her left hand, she held her daughter, Janice’s, hand and her right hand was in her pocket.

She couldn’t believe children were out on the streets like this and offered to give us a place to stay for the night.

We told her that we were good and declined her offer, not wanting to put her in harm's way due to the bounty on us. So she gave us some change, still wanting to help us with how she could.

She sat down with us, and made conversation, trying to raise our morale. Janice even went over and sat by me. Her eyes were sky blue and her hair strawberry blonde. Freckles dotted her nose and she wore overalls and a pink shirt.

She was really sweet, telling me her mother taught her well.

And as we spoke, I could see my younger self in this little girl, and it made me happy, thinking back to the old times.

I’ve always loved kids and have wanted a younger sibling, but never really got to have one, having my parents died when I was six. After that, for a year we stayed in an adoption center, before running away once we were seven and living on the run ever since.

I remember I ended up taking Janice over to a flower field in the park and we went and picked daisies. Afterward, I made them into a flower crown, which my mom had taught me to do when I was five. I ran off of muscle memory, attaching each flower to the next.

Once I was finished, I placed it on Janice’s head, and she hugged me, making me feel like an older sister. I mean sure I had Atty as my brother and even though he’s my twin, he acts like a three-year-old sometimes, we’re still the same age.

They ended up going home, and Atticus and I left the next morning.

“Hello?” Atticus waves his hand in front of my face and I realized that I zoned off.

I blink and shake my head. “Sorry, yeah?”

He chuckles, crossing his arms. “You went to dreamland again. You need to stop doing that. What if you do that while we’re running from people?”

“I know, I know… I’m working on it,” I take my backpack off and look inside the front pocket, pulling out the cash I had inside. “Seven dollars and fifty cents. It should be enough for two water bottles and a loaf of bread.

“Alrighty then,” he takes the money into his right hand and puts it in his pockets, followed by him putting his hood on. “I’ll go get it.”

My eyes widen at him saying he was going without me. “But I-”

“You were the one who got seen on the surveillance system.”

I remain silent and he smirks. “Thought so."

He walks off and I should my backpack once more, leaning up against a tree, and closing my eyes.

As I stood there, I just took a few moments to relax, knowing that the next hours would be full of stress. 

That’s when I heard a voice that wasn’t mine, nor Atticus’s. My eyes pop open and I see a middle-aged man and woman walking out of the house that the tree I was leaning on was in their lawn.

I quickly jump behind the sidewall of the house, so they couldn’t see me.

“Did you read the paper?” I hear the man ask, followed by the crinkling of paper moving, which I assumed was the sound of him showing the woman the newspaper. “Fugitives that are barely fifteen, what has our world become?”

My breath cuts short, and I freeze. Please tell me it’s not us. Please.

“What are their names?” The woman’s voice asks, and I hold my breath as I wait for the answer.

“Ashera and Atticus Riola.”

Us. I stumble back, attempting to catch my balance due to me nearly falling in shock. 

Great now towns cross-country know of us. 

I grab onto something to stop my fall, but unfortunately, that thing - a trash can - fell over, creating a CRASH when it collided with the floor.

Crap.

I quickly get to my feet, praying that they didn’t hear me, but fully knowing they did. I was assured that when I heard the man ask, “What in the name of Ageolan was that?!”

I make a break for it in the direction of the bakery, which is unfortunately as well the direction of the conversing people.

I run blindly past them, crashing into one of them, as they shout at me. I panicked as I got to my feet once more and saw the man on the floor, the newspaper knocked out of his hand.

I don’t know why, but I had a feeling I needed a paper. One of those gut feelings. I quickly grab it and continue running, hearing their shouts behind me.

“Hey, you! Stop!”

“Isn’t that Ashera Riola? Where’s Atticus?”

“Why is she here?”

“We need to contact the Empress!”

I continue running, ignoring the shouts and gasps of the pedestrians standing to the sides of the street I ran down, a newspaper in most of their hands.

Great. This is just great.

As I run, in the distance I see Atticus walking out of the bakery, a bag in his hands, and a confused look on his face.

“What happened? Why are you running?”

I panted, as I try to explain. “Newspaper… People… Us… Read… Fugitives… Empress Hira…”

As I spoke, I quickly stashed the newspaper into my backpack for safekeeping, while waiting for Atticus’ slow brain to catch up to what I was saying.

His confused expression soon turns shocked. 

“Let’s go then! Hurry!” he shouts and we run off through the town, East, to the only place that we could call safe.

The only place that we could call close to home.