“Oly, y’know you can take time off. I can light the street lamps on my own,” My colleague, Dert, said as he climbed the ladder resting against the marble street lamp. Our job was to combat the nighttime shadow that was beginning to cover the streets of downtown Yowa.
I had only worked with Dert for about six months. He was a little bit older than me, and of a somewhat stout build with a round face and curly brown hair. His work clothes, like mine, were composed of a white long-sleeve, black overalls and boots. He was an eccentric guy that always butted his nose into other people’s business. He also gave nicknames to everyone he met. Like how he called me Oly, instead of O’Leenarus. When I first met him, he annoyed me to hell, but over time I grew to enjoy his company. Although somewhat overbearing, he seemed to genuinely care about people. Knowing that, I didn’t take offense to his brushing me off, and instead saw it as his way of looking out for me.
“I know, but I need the money,” I responded, in kind.
Dert lifted the lampshade—a translucent, dome-shaped glass—atop the street post and leaned down to hand me it to free his hands for the rest of the process. It was not particularly heavy but definitely made it more difficult and dangerous to perform the job. Once he leaned back upright, he removed the remains of yesterday’s candle and replaced it with a fresh one.
“How long have you been working today?” he asked as his thumb and pointer finger rubbed the wick. Dert’s blood ran warmer than most, so he never used a lighter to start the candles. His fingers sufficed. Though using a lighter would have been quicker.
“I took about a two-hour nap twenty hours ago, and before that, I worked for twenty-six hours straight.”
“How you still have energy and look half-decent is crazy to me,” Dert responded. He let go of the candle wick and softly blew on it. A small orange flame sprung into existence in the next instant. With a satisfied smirk, Dert leaned down and smugly grabbed the lampshade from my hands. “You aren’t still thinking of trying to travel to Aqueden, are you? Y’know that’s basically suicide, right?” He placed the lampshade back over the dancing flame.
“Well, the Misfits did it.”
“They were lucky. And not that I am into conspiracies, but—”
“You love conspiracies,” I cut him off as his boots scraped the ground again. “Last week you told me that the secret to the Therta clan’s enhancement techniques was by making a deal with the Serpent. And the week before that, you told me water is a virus that will eventually destroy everything.”
“Okay, okay… You made your point. And I’ll admit the first one is out there, but there’s tons of evidence for water destroying this world. I’ve heard that the stems of water-plants are interfering with cwine-plants growth, and—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I waved, looking away from him, before grabbing the container with fresh candles and walking to the next street lamp. My neck felt an intensely warm glare on my way there. Choosing to ignore the feeling, I instead watched a young boy and his mother cross the gravel street. There were no horses or water-powered vehicles in sight, so the boy dashed across the road ahead of his mother.
This part of Yoma was near its outskirts so the roads and buildings were quietly neglected. The road was made cheaply with gravel, while the sidewalk was a mixture of sand and dirt. A few shops of varying services and goods cloaked the shoulder of the road, adding to its forgotten atmosphere. It was as if the street was an orphan that had yet to be adopted by the city.
The boy’s shoes splashed the gravel with each of his steps. I slowed down, realizing he was not paying attention and would end up running in front of me.
“Charx, stop!” The mother called, realizing the same thing.
The young boy, Charx apparently, stopped just ahead of me, right before the sidewalk. He looked back at his mother, and then at me as I passed him. I offered a slight smirk as a greeting. His eyes widened and chin drooped upon looking up. The typical response of a kid his age when they see me. Although, it was a bit more comical this time due to his shabby, blonde hair and a missing tooth.
I am pretty normal looking, with shabby, dark auburn hair, and green irises. The other aspect of my eyes are what causes all the fuss. Behind me, I heard Charx say to his mother, “Momma, Momma. He had blue eyes.”
“Many people have blue eyes,” the mother responded.
“No, but it was blue in the white part.”
“The white part? What do…”
My ears lost the rest of the conversation as they entered the closest shop. Its creaky door was only a few strides away from the next street lamp we had to refill. Dert was not too far behind me, carrying the ladder.
While I waited, my thoughts lingered on how Charx’s mother would respond to his description of my eyes. It’s not entirely uncommon for the normal white part of people’s eyes to be a different color. In my case, it’s blue, but I have also seen red, green, yellow, and there are probably more I don’t know about. However, this condition is kind of like a label, as it can only be inherited and typically has some sort of accompanying ability. Families with the most wealth, power, and influence on Xerra all have this condition. Though, as an orphan, I don’t have a family and have been unable to find anyone else with the blue version of this condition. Or the same ability as me.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Alright, whatever. You can be ignorant of what’s happening in the world,” Dert scoffed as he arrived with the ladder, and positioned it against the street lamp. “But just hear me out on this new one. What if Aqueden, the Misfits of Xerra, and everything related were made up? What if the Thirteen Elders created their story as a way to motivate us to find new land? Which would mean they technically caused the horrific event four years ago, and so that is why they have not fessed up to it.”
I handed him a fresh candle from the container after he finished the explanation.
“Where do you even hear this stuff?”
“Unlike you, who is always in his head while working, I actually listen to the people around me,” Dert said, looking somewhat proud, as he climbed the ladder.
“Yea, ‘cus I miss so much wisdom from the drunkards and Pleasurers roaming the streets.”
“Say what you will, but do you even know the names of the Misfits?”
“Hmmm…” I thought for a moment while he handed me the lampshade. I tried to visualize their names but only got blurry scribbles. “Not off the top of my head, but I know I have heard them before.”
“Isn’t that weird, though? They’re the most famous people in Xerra, but we don’t know their names.”
“Sure, but it doesn’t really matter to me.”
For a guy like Dert, my indifference toward what was true or false was not easily understood.
“Oh?” He mustered. This was one of the first times he did not have an immediate response or follow-up question to a comment of mine. Thankfully, the faint voices of a few passersby lightened the pressured silence as he rubbed the wick with his fingers.
“So tell me, why do you even want to go out to sea?” he added after many dry seconds.
“Why? Well, partially because this world is uncharted. I don’t care if no one else cares, but we’ve been secluded here for over a thousand years and have succeeded only one time in breaking out,” Dert grabbed the lampshade from my hand. “But that one time is enough to prove it is possible. And even if it was fake, why not make it a reality?” The locking click of the lampshade to the post reverberated. I picked up the candle container. “And the bigger reason is because—”
The world turned sideways.
Before I knew what happened, I was on the ground with a guy sprawled on top of me. He had flown into me with no warning. The impact had been centralized in my upper left arm, but my entire right body had crashed and slid across the unforgiving dirt. I had tougher skin than most, so the pain was bearable, but how I ended up in that state was the only thing on my mind.
This guy, from what I could tell, was pretty tall and muscular. His shoulder was touching my chin, but I could feel his feet with my own. Thankfully, most of his body blanketed the ground and not me. My ribs probably would have turned to dust if he had landed with his full weight on them. There is no way this guy could have sneaked up on me in a full sprint without me realizing it.
“What the heck?” I said with a mouth full of dirt. He was breathing heavily and smelt like the locker room at headquarters.
“Oly, you good?” Dert asked.
“Where’d you come from?” the guy mumbled, his voice like a howl in the wind. “I didn’t feel you.”
“What do you mean? I should be the one asking where you come from. And can you get off of me?”
“Oh… Yeah, sorry about that,” He shuffled off my body and stood up. His movements were strained and exhausted.
To my side now, Dert helped me up. Which revealed, with discomforting grunts, that I could already feel the bruises forming. Still, I got back on my feet, and upon being upright, I immediately spat dust out of my mouth. Crumbs of dirt were taking residence between my teeth and a colony of dirt had formed on my clothes.
Without taking much time to clean myself, I asked the guy, “Who are you?”
Now that I could see him fully, I had even more questions. He looked to be in his early twenties with unusually muted red skin. He wore clothing that barely fit, and if it wasn’t for how torn, tattered, and of poor quality it looked, I would assume he was trying to show off his defined muscles. It was tough to even tell what the clothing had originally been. The colors of both his shirt and pants had faded to a brownish-grey. That wasn’t even the part that stood out about him though. Partially hidden behind the bangs of his jet-black, shoulder-length hair, was a blindfold of a similar style to his clothing.
He hunched over while I was examining him, clearly worn out. Through deep breaths, he muttered what sounded like a random jumble of nonsense, “Away… move… or… find… again…” I choose to ignore it and ask him some questions.
“Wait, are you blind? What are you doing running on this street by yourself?”
His face shot up towards my own.
I could spot the more minor details on his face now. He had a sharp chin and nose, and a scar that went from the edge of his lip to his left ear. As well as a few new bloody scratches that looked to have been caused by something more serious than a fall on dirt. It was a creepy sight that made my skin crawl.
“I’m sorry, I’ve gotta go.” He took a final deep breath before straightening up and beginning to walk away.
“Wait,” I instinctively grabbed his wrist, which my hand barely wrapped around. “The least you can do is help us pick up these candles.”
Candles from the container I had been holding when I got hit by him were littered around us. Even though this guy was starting to frighten me, I wasn’t going to just let him leave without fixing the mess he created. The fact that he might be blind didn’t change my thoughts about it either.
“Look. Please just forget you ever saw me,” he said.
“Hey, buddy,” Dert approached us. His face wrinkled with concern. “Is everything alri—”
“Stop resisting!” A uniformed duo armed with swords shouted on either side of Dert. I jumped and he fell on his butt from the surprise. Just like the blindfolded guy, there had been no warning or sounds before they appeared.
“Come with us quietly,” they added.
One was an athletic man in late adulthood. The other was a well-endowed woman that looked about the same age as me. They both shared the same jet-black hair as the blindfolded guy, but their skin color was a mute grey instead. Before I even looked at their eyes, I could already tell who they were based on their uniforms. Whatever I was just pulled into was not something I wanted to be part of.
“Crap. Sorry about this,” the blindfolded guy apologized.
Before I could piece together the situation, he switched the wrist hold on me and pulled my arm behind my back. The tense pain instantly registered but I couldn’t react. Within the same instance he had me held, a sharp object was pressed against my neck. I didn’t have to see it to know that he had a knife that was ready to end my life.
There was only one word that came to my mind.
“F—”