What do you Think So far?

[SECRET ROSE]

Hey, I just wanted some review on all the books I've been attempting lately. It'll be very scrambled, so I'll label all of them.

WONDERLAND
Chapter One

The End of the Rabbit Hole

Set the stage.
A girl sits in a hammock by the bank of a river.
Her sister sat with her until very recently.
She cracks open a book, and tries to read about her idols.
The book fails to amuse her.
She drifts off to sleep.
A rabbit watches with the tiniest, maniacal smile
The rabbit too is waiting for fate to snatch him up in its claws.
And the story begins.
Another story of Wonderland, and of Alice.
A story not so unfamiliar to all you readers, and yet one very strange.
A story in which Wonderland needs the help of an outsider more than ever.
And a story, in which the hero does not lead the play, but directs it.
ACT ONE, SCENE ONE, COMENCE.

White checked his watch, his black rabbit ears twitched. So they weren’t all white (his left ear had a white spot at the tip), he still claimed to be the ‘White Rabbit.’ Most of the time. It was displeasure that made his ears twitch. Stupid field. Stupid place called ‘Earth.’ Whatever, he’d do it for his queen. Wonderful, beautiful, Red Queen, Mia. Ack, he was getting lost in daydream again, he had a mission to fulfill… He glanced at his clock again.
“ACK!! I’M LATE, HOW IN THE HISTORY OF CARROTCAKE AM I LATE?! I’M LATE!!!TEN MINUTES LATE. ” The rabbit screamed. He sunk to his knees, sobbing. After just a moment, he wiped his tears on a white sleeve and stood, gently lifting his large pocket watch from the ground. A prized possession. His nose twitched. White was humanoid, just a boy with strange ears… but his nose still was a bit more flexible than humans. And he had a stronger sense of smell as well. Of course, he could smell his target. Good, she was still sleeping.
Alice was not what White had expected. She was more…normal. She had hair obviously dyed, black. Her eyes were closed, a magazine lay draped over her small form. Alice lay in a hammock hanging from the only two trees in the meadow, she wore black with a blue scarf around her neck. Shade dripped coolly over her tiny features. She was younger than White, perhaps by nine or ten years, and not anything pretty to look at. Aw… too bad, what a shame thought White. Still, it was on his mistress’s orders. And he would obey the mistress. There was nothing (literally nothing) that White wouldn’t do for his mistress.
The rabbit approached Alice with a certain air of caution. She was special and she might be dangerous. He looked at her for a moment, then did the only sensible thing. He picked her up easily, she was tiny. Then he thought better and set her down again. She let out a tiny snore. The rabbit danced backward and held out his watch. A small orb emerged from the one on the clock face. The little brass orb had but one thing to break its round surface; a face that read like a digital clock. In red letters it held the message; 00:39. It counted down, ticking quietly. A small smile crossed the rabbit’s lips as his soft ears turned entirely black except a white spot where the black one had been moments ago. And the happy little bunny White had been pretending to be disappeared, he was not playing Mr. Niceguy with a stupid miniature wanna-be-goth chick. He tossed the sphere, and as it hit the ground twenty feet from the girl it exploded. A few more followed it, four more to be exact. Of course, Alice woke. That was White’s purpose, after all, and White always reached his purpose.
“What the hell?! I was trying to take a nap.” Alice rubbed sleep from her sea-blue eyes.
“You’re coming with me, Miss Alice Liddell,” White growled.
“No, I’m not comin’ with you. And how do you know my name. You creepy rabbit eared kid.”
The darker side of White didn’t like that. “Did you just call me a kid?”
“Yes, you creep, I called you a kid with bunny ears.” Alice stood and brushed her dress off. She looked pretty ticked off about him burning her Star Magazine to a crisp. She held up the black bits remaining.
“You rabbit kid, why the hell did you burn my magazine. My idols were in that magazine. Why’d you go off and do that?”
“You need to chill, chika.” The black eared rabbit gave a thumbs down sign.
“No, I do not need to chill. I’m a completely innocent ten year old girl with a normal life. So back off you strange rabbit.” Alice threw the charred remnants of her magazine in his face.
“Shut up or I’ll shut you up.” The threat was not frivolous, not fake. She saw it in his eyes, glimmering with hateful fire. She shut her mouth.
“Good, now you’re coming with me.”
“Yes, I’m comin’ with you,” Alice pouted. White grabbed her and dragged her into the forest at the other side of the field. He took her into the darkest shadows of the woodland, to the edge of a cliff littered with bones. Human bones, or at least humanoid bones.
“What the hell are those?”
“Bones, of the girls who weren’t smart enough to humor me.” White laughed maniacally. Alice didn’t respond, just trembled.
“Oh, do you want to jump, or shall I push you?” Another peel of insane laughter. White took her annoyed silence as an answer, he pushed her, hard. She fell with a scream, down the cliff and out of sight. White followed with a whoop and a cackle. The rabbit plummeted, parallel to the cliff. He fell through a giant ribcage that would probably be worth a fortune if sold to a museum, and that would have explained why humans didn’t stay in the sea in their earlier forms. White had seen it a hundred times before, and paid it no mind. Then darkness came as he penetrated the earth. For a moment, White couldn’t see anything while his icy eyes adjusted. His white-blonde bangs continued whipping in and out of his eyesight, still an evil grin spread to his lips as the adrenaline of falling pulsed through his veins. So he was a thrill-seeker bunny. He was just like that. The rabbit tucked into a ball and plunged faster, catching up with the panicking Alice Liddell. She was breathing fast and shallow and trying to see in the darkness. He put his hands on her shoulders as he slowed falling. She calmed slightly, but still she was silent. Surprise, surprise.
“How do you like falling, chica?”
“I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!” It was the first time he’d heard a sentence from the little black haired girl that wasn’t entirely aimed at pissing him off, perhaps this girl wasn’t all that bad inside. They kept on falling. The rabbit pressed his ears against his skull as he flipped downward. Alice screamed. White cackled. Then they hit. The landing was soft. They’d landed on a roof of some sort. Except it was too large and too dark to be a roof, like the back of a velvet cloth that was the sky of a strange world.
“Why didn’t it break?! It breaks for one person falling on it but not for two?! This. Is. Messed. Up.!” White stamped a foot on the soft standing they’d been given. The sky backing fell through, splintering and dropping away onto the world below. It was a world thick with silence and forests and castles, mysteries and lakes, animals and music and peculiarity. And most of all, thick with magic. Wonderland. And there descent slowed and brightened, as they were falling the sun was rising on this world. A deceptively sweet poison. A flower, that like nightshade, will only bloom in darkness and shrivel before any recognition is given. The world was an enticing secret, an escape from the world that every human thought of as ‘real.’ And it was an escape that couldn’t be escaped.
The rabbit had once been an ‘outsider,’ so many years before. He barely remembered now, just kept turning the clock in his heart back further and further. Still, he once had been an outsider. Wonderland had sucked him in, so many years ago. Him and his sister. His poor, poor sister. d*mn, he shouldn’t have been thinking about that. He was stopped quite suddenly anyway, by hitting the roof. And abruptly falling through the roof. Pain hurt, but White knew that years ago. Still, it shocked him whenever he felt pain. And pain hurt. And oww, stupid splintery ceiling was supposed to have held, unlike the sky. The rabbit growled low in his throat as he picked himself up and brushed off his coat. Alice had fallen close, and seemed unharmed as she got up and looked around the small entryway.
“It gets bigger,” White reassured.
“Alright… and we have to go through the big door, I take it.”
“Yeah. Big door, big room. So glad you’ve discovered the physics behind the world.”
“So… we go on?” White didn’t answer; he just licked the orange marmalade off his fingers. How he’d gotten marmalade? Simple, the walls of the rabbit hole were covered in jars of the stuff, the trick was finding the full one. Alice got impatient she shoved open the door and found herself looking at a large hallway lined with doors.
“What now?” she asked, turning those pretty eyes back to White.
“Figure it out.” And with that, he vanished to watch her in the shadows.
“O-okay.” Alice set off down the hallway, trying each one and failing each time. Finally, she came to the three legged table in the room at the end of the hall. It was entirely glass, and shone darkly. White cast a glance to the object on the table. A tiny golden key lay in the center, beautiful and sparkling. Looked like it was glass too, but full of something that was gold and shimmery. The girl grabbed the tiny key and ran back to the beginning with the slightest smile. White rolled his eyes. Honestly? If she did that he would be here all day. White slipped out one of the doors, the only one that was unlocked, and the one Alice hadn’t noticed, the one that was just next to the three legged table. White sat, yawning in the heat that beat down into the garden. He smiled, let his cream hair brush into his eyes again and licked a lollipop he’d pulled out of his pocket. A tiny fairy drifted around his head, one with wings made of folded cards—two of hearts, White suspected. So his mistress wanted something.
“Yes, dear sprite?” White put on his best Shakespearean accent.
“I come from your mistress in lands far to the east. She requests you take care of the Blue Princess.” The fairy grinned, baring shark’s teeth. White blinked for a moment.
“She doesn’t want me to return to her?” White’s voice was disappointed. He hadn’t seen his queen all day and he was getting pouty.
“No, mister White, she wants you to watch and assist the Blue Princess.”
“But she’s a brat, why am I supposed to care about her?”
“Because, your queen wants her. Now get.” The fairy nipped White’s ear and the rabbit boy jumped away. That was when the cat door in the door to the garden window changed light to show a tiny bit of Alice’s face. The idiot had found the key to the cat door and taken it at face value. Idiot. White sighed and climbed up into a tree to watch the girl through the window.
On the table appeared a ridiculously large label attached to a beer bottle-shaped container. From White’s perch, he could read the label of DRINK ME!, way too obvious in his opinion, but to each their own. Alice looked suspiciously at the bottle, and took off the cork with a finger nail. White was still wondering about how she did that when she tossed her head back and drank a great sum of the liquid. And the girl in the blue scarf shrunk out of view. White sighed exasperatedly and moved closer to the window to see the little girl struggling to reach the key she’d left on the table. White sighed and rolled his eyes at her once more. Idiot. He was half tempted to go over there and hand it to her, but he really wanted to see her struggle. He let out a tiny laugh, seeing her sit down and immediately get caught in the next trap he and his queen had set. There was the pastry, a little scone about as big as Alice herself, and all around the perimeter of the plate was written ‘EAT ME!’ And Alice once more began doing as labels told her. She opened up like some strange, large telescope, and spent a few minutes watching her feet. White gave up, he didn’t particularly want to watch any more. Alice was just going to cry.

[Izzy]

Wow, you really have tallent! This was great!!

[SECRET ROSE]

XENOLALIA

----------{-1-}----------
Xenta
Most heroines in stories are strong. They don’t want sympathy, and they’re strong unless it’s convenient for the romantic plot progression and ending of ‘happily ever after.’ They have their faults, but those are greatly outweighed. They are beautiful, most with long flowing blonde hair. Most have blue eyes that shine like the ocean, and most have a prince charming to sweep them off their feet. They’ve got magic, or some thrilling, crime fighting job. They’re normal at the beginning of the story, but then discover they’re the princess of some distant land. I guess that beginning of the story bit first started me on believing I could be the heroine of some action movie or a fantasy novel.
Everyone wonders at one point if life is a play. Everyone wonders, at least subconsciously, if it is at all real. All this is based off the fact that the party puzzling over the life-play is the main character. I was ten when I began asking myself if it was real. I started playing life like it was my game then. Like it was one of those dreams in which you are aware you are dreaming and thus can wish for and gain anything you want. I remember thinking that I could play a lead role. And that’s all I remember. My memory just falls away before I started thinking that. It is through the following events that I found out who I really was, and who I needed to be.
It was just one of those days, sitting alone and watching some big sporting event on a big screen that stood out against the murky black city. Deep black hair tinged red hung over my right eye, and the bandage that lay loosely over it.
That’s the thing, people in my world have strange hair, and eye colors. My world is the same as yours, but I suppose it’s very distantly in the future. Something like… 3019. Updates on our world are as follows: a Purgatory-like state in pollution(it’s not getting better or worse), extreme pigmentation mutation in humanity, and technological development. Although we still are without hover cars, we have all sorts of amazing things that were only dreams a thousand years ago. That is, if you have the money to buy them.
Me, I was a nameless kid, a thirteen year old on the streets who stole instead of worked(not as easy as it sounds in my day) and a girl who so often passed for a boy. I lost my family, and my memory somewhere between my tenth and eleventh birthdays. I don’t remember how, but then, I guess that goes hand in hand with the fact I lost all remembrance of that time period.
It’s a lot like being the only person who’s blind in a crowd of observers. I never had the opportunities those with memory had, but I guess it was my fault. I don’t know how, but I had this feeling that it really was my fault.
It was one of those days, where I couldn’t do anything right and I just kept blaming myself. So I lounged, mind not really taking in the contents of the screen above my head and forward. That was when the hand rested lightly on my left shoulder. Reverting to instinct, I spun and sunk. Defensive, entirely, as the hand’s owner had come at me from my right side.
Turning my head, I was lightly surprised that I didn’t see some punk or theif. Instead, to my right stood a human with the lightest pastel blue hair that bushed out shaggily over its shoulders and the most androgynous face I’d ever seen. On its face was a hinted smile, but that was lost deep in big brown eyes.
“Hello, miss. Would you by any chance be able to tell me your name?” it asked.
I paused before straightening from my defensive crouch and narrowed my left eye. “What does it matter?” I questioned.
“Because, I want to give you a meaning.” That threw me for a loop enough that I answered his first question.
“I don’t have a name. Or… I don’t remember it.” It was a truthful answer.
“Then… I’ll name you.” Its eyes were wide, hopeful. With my nod, it continued, “I’ll give you a purpose, a name, and a story. Let you from now on be called Xenta.” Something flickered inside me, but it was gone with the unconsciousness that raged through me.
***
The dark haired boy sat in front of his computer, eyes fixated intently on the screen. His hand dashed over the thin panel of glass hanging in the air before the wall, pulling windows up and switching tabs. Pictures and tables and moving graphs flicked to and fro ahead of one another.
“You have her information up yet?” the androgynous figure behind him asked. The dark haired boy blew his hair out of his face and moved his hands to the invisible keyboard in front of the computer.
“Too much. What do you want about her?”
“Previous name?”
“None on document.”
“Age?”
“About fourteen.”
“Role?”
“She appears in a crowd scene, that’s it,” The boy’s frosty brown eyes went sad, and the red-amber ring next to the pupil became just a bit more intense. The androgynous thing scowled.
“Any weirdness? Please tell me there’s weirdness,” it asked.
“Uh… sorry, bloke, the only thing weird about her is her eye.” The dark haired boy cowered closer to his screen.
“Her… oh! The bandage? What about it?” Something flickered in its face.
“There’s an eye underneath, but it’s made of glass. And not the fancy stuff either.”
“Okay… so she’s poor. That doesn’t help at all, you useless lump!” It thumped its hand on the dark haired boy’s desk and stamped off, slamming the metal door behind him. The dark haired boy winced, and went back to typing.
A message icon popped into his screen, flashing red. The boy’s hand went up to it and pulled it open. He shook his head at the face that popped up as a request for video chat. He accepted, knowing who it would be.
“Axtero!” the blonde girl grinned.
“Yeah, hey,” the boy returned.
“I’m still out in the field, but I wanted to say I got the okay to come home this morning. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow.”
“Wonderful,” Axtero matched a smile to hers.
“So… Royal picked up a new girl yesterday, is what he said.” The girl’s eyes held a bit of hope.
“Yeah, she’s real nice, still in the Sleep State, though. Younger than you by… a year maybe? He’s named her Xenta.”
“Oh… I like it.”
“I bet you’ll love her, after all, she’ll be the only other female member.”
“I can’t wait. Love you, bro, see you soon!” The screen went black, and the boy turned away from it. He needed some sleep; he hated it when his sister came home. It was so much calmer when she wasn’t there. Axtero shook his head and went back to his keyboard just as a notice went off that there were things to be done for a group tech geek.

[Izzy]

Wow I realllllly like that one! Are you going to continue it?!? (I want to know who the guy is!..(((the guy who names Xenta)))

[SECRET ROSE]

Oh right... one sec. I have lots more. uhh.....


----------{-2-}----------
Xanthippe
It was without any rest received and a sneaking suspicion I was forgetting a dream, that I woke. I woke to a metal walled room, on a metal bed with only the thinnest of mattresses to cushion my back. Soft wind whispered through my holding area, but there was no window and the only door I could see was sealed. The only explanation I found was the black air vent above the bed. I was dazed as I stood up, checking my clothing and my bandage; both were in place. Shadows hung in the strangest places in that room, even with the simple light on the ceiling. I felt like an animal in some bizarre, and rather scary cage. Anything to get out… the air vent… I was small enough, right? I stood on the metal headrest of the bed, and reached up to grasp the grate over the air vent, pulling until my fingers went red. The screws weren’t coming out that easy, and I didn’t have anything with me except a nail file. Oh hey… nail file. I pulled aforementioned file out of a back pocket. It was metal, thick and pointed at the end, a thing I carried as much for self defense as for its original use. Still, though, the vent didn’t budge. I collapsed to my bed in defeat, and a glimmer of memory fell into place as just another piece in the puzzle. I’d been named before I’d fallen asleep, or unconscious. By… an it. At least, I thought it was an it. What had it named me? Xenta. Yeah. I didn’t particularly like that, but then, I never liked X’s. But I had a name. I’d never been able to name myself, but that name had really stuck. Xenta. I guessed that was me now. Filaments of that dizziness returned, each time I thought my new name; I deliberated to stop saying it mentally.
“There is a maze, hidden deep in every heart, it is difficult to see through the haze, but for some it is of life part.” I spun to see the person, maybe… eighteen, and most definitely male. His long blonde hair was tied in a black ribbon and hung to the waistline of black jeans that matched his equally dark shirt. His eyes were pale blue, with impossibly dark pupils that were emphasized like obsidian in pools of moonlit whitewater. He looked dangerous, not someone I would want to tangle with.
“Who are you and what do you want?” It was a low snarl that came from my lips as I sunk into a defensive crouch, nail file in hand. Not that it would do much good if he had a gun or anything, but still.
“I am the master poet in this world, the master has asked I bring you to his hand unfurled.” Okay… and now he wasn’t making any sense. Or was it my brain? Nah, it was him, my brain was definitely fine.
“Master?” My tone was cautious, but I had this feeling it was best to move the conversation along.
“The master of the lost, it is best he is not crossed. He will explain deeper, my only task was to wake the sleeper.” And with that, the blonde man left, and the door opened. I stepped out, fully ready to make my escape at that very moment. That was when the hand caught mine, and a grinning face presented itself to my eyes. Dark hair, it was… black? Black was a rare color at that point in history, but the boy’s hair looked too dark to be anything but shady jet.
“Hey. I was told to bring you to the master,” the boy’s voice was accented, as if he’d come from England or somewhere around there. He had stunning honey colored eyes that darkened and reddened toward the center. It was in these eyes, I found my own golden gaze trapped for a moment before I could stumble over my tongue to the point of coherence.
“A-at least you’re not rhyming,” I stuttered out. The boy barked out a soft laugh, and took the hand he’d stolen to lead me forward into the hallway and down it.
For a long while, the boy and I travelled in metal hallways, there were no stairways or elevators, but the floors often slanted at strange angles. Never once did we pass a window, but doors were here and there. Everything was the same uniform grey, and even the sparse furnishings in the rooms we passed by or through were metal with matching grey cushions. A few of said rooms were large, filled with couches or tables or chairs, while few were smaller, bathrooms or rooms the size of walk in closets with contents that backed up the theory. Some rooms were filled with cages, or were barred in every extent, even as others were simply empty with strange markings on the floor or the walls that suggested some sort of fight had taken place there and some were filled with demolished furniture that was mangled so far it was unrecognizable as much more than piles of metal rubble. Still other rooms were simply empty, round and grey. Most of this labyrinthine structure looked as if it didn’t have any source of lighting, but still the rooms glowed grimly. All of the factors of this strange place were starting to scare me when another realization touched me: we had not once experienced any life but our own. My brain was whirring, and I was starting to go jittery when the boy stopped in front of a door at the end of the hallway. It was the first time I’d seen the end of a hallway in this place, I’d seen plenty of beginnings, but those just went off into the distant reaches where my eyes couldn’t see or the halls had turned before the end was visible.
It was with a great sense of dread that I stood before the ornate metal door, it looked more silver than the rest of that place and the lighting was darker here. The whole ensemble reminded me a lot of incredibly thick fog, except for the fact I could see perfectly. Like fog, something in the air was much like moisture, just as suffocating. Or maybe it was just fear. My hand shook as I reached out fingers to grasp the handle on the door. Lightly tanned fingers beat mine to the metal lump, though, he opened the door and led me through it.
The room was a dark one, this was so far the only room I’d seen that wasn’t grey. It was entirely black, and the stone lamp in the corner spilt dark purple light over the room’s contents. To the far right was a bed, entirely swathed in black and made so fancily that it seemed as if it hadn’t been touched in hundreds of years. To the opposite wall of the bed, was a row of bookshelves, they reached the ceiling and stretched from one wall to the other. From what I glimpsed of the books filling them, all were plays; tragedies, mysteries, or ancient texts.
And perfectly centered between the bed and the books, was a desk, facing the door, and occupied by a very androgynous looking figure, dressed in the same shade of black as his room was covered in. Even the papers on his desk were the color of dead coal. The figure, much more than any other sight I’d seen in this place, was bone chillingly frightening. And I recognized it, its slightest wistful smile, as the pastel-blue haired thing that had named me Xenta. Its smile grew, its brown eyes flaring with something that I could only read as either greed or ill-intent.

----------{-3-}----------
Xenagogue
A guarded expression alighted to my features, showing the slightest bit of submissive caution. The boy beside me gave an encouraging nod, and I stepped forward, to the thing before me. It was human, most definitely, but something in its eyes shone older than any age its teenager face suggested. As all the other people I’d seen here, it wore black, which contrasted greatly with the shaggy hair that bushed out over its shoulders and came to mid back length. Its brown eyes were like that of a child, but held so much less innocence. That lack of innocence was what alarmed me most as I approached the figure.
Those eyes though, softened as I took the twelve steps to its desk, and became nearly… parental.
“My name is Royal,” I remembered that voice as the one who had first said my new name and a little bit of fear melted away into the shadows of that room. Perhaps that fear would stay there, and linger, and every time I returned to that place it would tantalize me but not latch on or stay with me. It didn’t matter, the fear was gone from my heart, or at least a fraction of it, and replacing it was a swelling courage; a courage to stand up to the person at the desk, the one that had called itself Royal. Capital R, I assumed. It didn’t matter much, as I assumed I’d be done with him in a few moments.
“Look, please hear me out. I don’t appreciate the kidnapping stunt, though I suppose you could say that the naming was alright. I do hope you haven’t done this in the past, because knocking someone out and dragging them to your strange castle really is quite the crime.”
Its brown eyes did not waver, and its voice was calm, “Come now, dear. I didn’t mean to anger you, I just would really enjoy explaining my business to you. It will be your choice whether or not you stay.” Its words soothed me like a mother bird nestling her brood into her breast feathers and settling down to warm the little peeping bundles of fluff. I had to be calm, had to look it in the eye and let it speak.
There were scattered magic users in this world, they were rare, though, and were often from well known bloodlines of ancient magicians. As far as I knew, there had never been a bloodline with a descendant under the name of Royal. Then this probably wasn’t magic but rather something else. I couldn’t put a finger on what, but it was powerful, as if the strings of my essence were but mere puppet strings, that figure the puppeteer. And so the master told the dog its tale.
“It started, as just a whim of mine, that this world was nothing more than a fabricated play,” Royal began, “It became, in my eyes, a dream. Until I got some sense knocked into me by my older brother. He told me, that if life was a play, then we were the side characters. I started much like the other six people you’ll find here. All of us began thinking, ‘what if life’s a trick, a play to keep the world going round?’ I began a group, as you will, of the people who had started thinking these things. I found out the most interesting things about these people who’d agreed to join my group; all of them had forgotten their entire self, including such basic frivolities as their name and family, and all had lost something incredibly important. More than half of these strange people had also gained a touch of magic in return for what was lost. And then there were the Bound. Those who had lost something, but gained no magic or ability in return. I welcomed both the Unbound and the Bound into my group, and both stayed with me. However, this group is only something to protect the innocent souls of these creatures temporarily. Everything is subject to change, but for now, any Bound or Unbound is welcome here.”
“You sure talk a lot,” I muttered between a yawn and my next question, “So these creatures who’ve forgotten, what are they, and why did they forget?”
Royal smiled, and replied in a guarded voice, “They forgot because they knew more than they should have; they learned that they were only side characters in the great play of life. These beings are human, but have been pushed to their every limit. I call them Xoanons.”
“And I’m one of these Xoa-thingies?” My visible eye widened, then narrowed.
“Yes, of the Bound variety.” Royal’s smile didn’t falter.
“Then… is it safer if I stay here or if I’m out on my own on the streets?”
“Who knows?” With that the leader turned around on its spinning chair and was silent, as if waiting for a decision.
“I’ll stay.” The fear that had constricted like a snake around me was gone. It now lingered with its brethren in the shadows of this room. The pastel blue head, just barely visible over the chair’s back, nodded as if giving the silent boy behind me a command.
“Xenta,” I shivered at the name that fell from Royal’s lips, but waited for him to go on. He did, “Life’s final play is a tragedy.” And with that, I was whisked out of the room and into another metal hallway that went on and on forever into the lives of these people the master had told of, on and on into perhaps the life I had chosen.