Tenebrous

Chapter 1 (K)

I lounged on a tree branch high up in a tree, deep in a daydream. From where I was I could see the whole town yet I saw nothing, I was too far into my dream to care. It was an adventure; I always craved adventure…most people do. It wasn’t until the large clock, peaking over the treetops on its high tower, rang out that I was aware of the world around me. I looked to the clock, it was already noon, I was late for my lesson. I leapt from the tree landing silently on my feet and tore out of the woods. We were a quite species nothing but our speech was audible to any other creature lurking on Tenebrous. We were fast too, nothing could outrun us. We were practically unstoppable, only we weren’t very strong and our eyes weren’t as keen as some of the creatures on the planet. It was a compromise I guess. Tenebrous was our planet alive and well, our star however is dying. Before our species existed the star became a red dwarf. It was running out of fuel, but we strived in the dark and evolved. Now, with only constant night, we rule the planet in peace. Due to the constant darkness my species is very pale with eyes that are permanently adjusted to the blackness around us, most of our hunting game have acquired bright radiant stripes on their skin that help them locate each other, it also helps us hunt them. The clock rang again, louder than the first time. I broke through the tree line into the town and quickened my pace. Within seconds I reached the bus stop. The driver, Azulian, greeted me with a smile. He was a close family friend in his late 40s. He almost always wore a teal hat with writing so faded no one could read it, a beige shirt, and dark brown pants.

“Good morning Kaye!” Azulian said, his hazel eyes twinkling, “Late for lessons again?”

“As usual,” I answered boarding the bus.

“How about a transport?” he offered. Azulian owned the one and only bus in the brown town; it had the ability to transport itself and all its passengers anywhere once every hour.

“Really?”

“Sure! Anything for you Kaye,”

“Thanks Azulian,” the driver boarded the bus, we both took a seat and he pulled a lever. Instantly the bus was parked on the hunting path, a large forest separated in half by a long dirt path. Most of the big game was in this forest so we use it for hunting. I thanked Azulian and exited the bus, it drove off as I began racing down the path. It was nearly three miles before I ran into Losal. She was my teacher, every child at the age of three is assigned to a teacher who stays with them until they turn seventeen, then they cycle back and get a new three year old. In a month I was turning seventeen, I was excited but I would miss Losal. I walked over to her, her ebony eyes glaring down at me.

“You’re late.”

“I’m sorry Losal, I was daydreaming again.”

“Sixteen years and only on time twice,” Losal sighed, “Oh well, no time to waste, come on Kaye.” Losal headed off into the woods. I took the dagger from the sheath around my thigh and followed after her. Together we stalked past the trees searching for any lights, then I spotted it, a deep blue line in the distance. Beef. The cows were one of the largest mammals on Tenebrous, all black fur with a thick blue stripe running from the tip of its nose to the end of its spiked tail. While they were quite dangerous and killed a few people before, they had enough meet for the entire brown town, so we risked the danger to hunt them. I looked to Losal who nodded at me. I moved forward, the cow was oblivious to my presence until it was on its side bleeding. Losal joined my side while I killed the cow.

“Let’s try to get one more, then we can bring them to the butcher, get the meat and that will finish your lessons for today,” I nodded and glanced up from the corpse, my chocolate brown eyes widened in shock. Ahead of us four soldiers were making their way through the woods. Each town had a group of soldiers that usually stayed away from civilians, when you found them away from the base then something was wrong. We weren’t supposed to even talk to them, they didn’t want us to know anything about them but plenty of stories are passed around. Maybe Ronan was mad at us. He was our god, our almighty, the king of Tenebrous. He ruled us with fear and tolerated nothing. He used the towns to organize us by eye color. Brown being the lowest and most common color, grey being the noblest and rarest. Green and blue were in the middle, but blue eyed acted like they were the highest class, snobby and bratty. No one retaliated Ronan and his organizing though, we were allowed to visit other towns as long we didn’t befriend or marry any one. He wanted to keep eye colors separate and wouldn’t tolerate mixed colors. That and his army was much too powerful and far too loyal for a rebellion to build. They were his slaves, every one of them. They kidnapped boys from each town and brought them to Ronan to be turned into more soldiers. I watched the soldiers walk by and I instantly recognized one of them. It was Mayr, we grew up together but he was taken to join Ronan when we were ten. It was a stormy day, but we wanted to play in the woods, a simple game of hide and go seek. But Mayr never found me, I saw him being dragged off by a soldier and that’s the last I saw him. He seemed so different now, I knew he was older but he looked altered, gloomier. I looked at Losal, she was staring in terror at the soldiers, she didn’t seem to recognize Mayr.

“We should go,” she whispered, “If we get caught, we’ll be killed.”

“I want to see what’s going on,”

“No Kaye, it’s too dangerous,” Losal had already begun to walk away.

“Fine…” I moved forward, closer to the soldiers. Losal growled angrily and sighed before following after me. For almost an hour we trailed silently behind the soldiers. We came to a clearing and an old shack falling apart in the middle of the field. The oldest looking soldier, a blue eyed man, stood before the other three and began barking orders. Two green eyed soldiers, who looked related, nodded and circled the shack twice before rejoining Mayr’s side. Losal looked nervously at them; we were hidden behind a few bushes near the edge of the clearing. She touched my shoulder but I shrugged her away. The blue eyed man said something and they headed into the shack.

(So this is the first draft, just a preview of the story. If it's interesting enough I'll edit this then post the rest of it. I have most of it handwritten, so I just have to type and edit it.)