Lunar Rising

Voices swim around me in a haze. My eyes… they feel so heavy. My body and even my mind, feels numb.

Slowly, I open my eyes, just barely half a centimeter. The floor beneath me is moving. Why is it moving???

No, I correct myself. I’m the one who is moving across the floor.

My senses gradually come into focus, starting with hearing. I can hear footsteps on either side of me. Dark, menacing footsteps that send a shiver up my spine. Then I make out the sound of two things being dragged across the metal floor. It must be Charlotte and me.

Charlotte! I blink and turn my head to the side. A pair of security guards drag her limp body along. Her eyes are closed, and her breathing is peaceful. There are a few scratches on her face, crisscrossing lines of red. Someone had hit her. Likely one of the men holding us. Anger boils in my veins and almost instantly is quenched by my fatigue.

I close my eyes again. I’m so tired…

Then I hear the voices above me. “What a fighter. I’m glad we were given permission to tranquilize her a second time.”

“I know, right? She nearly kicked that guy’s eye out!”

I hear someone running towards us. “Hey, we can’t find it. All these darned rooms look the same!”

“We still don’t know what room it is?”

“Nope. Can’t we just use these two kids to tell us where?”

“No orders from Mr. Lancrux. We’re not allowed to do anything to them without his orders.”

A new voice speaks up. “Whose orders?” This voice is lower and more commanding.

“Mr. Lancrux! Sir, we request permission to wake the two kids and interrogate them to tell us where that invention is.”

“Request denied,” Lancrux snarls. “If you two torture the kids, I’ll have nothing to send back to the mainland. Charlotte Blacksand here is a wanted government criminal, and the last member of the White-Eyes. This other kid is—…”

“My son.”

I gasp and look up. One of the men holding me, the one who hasn’t said a word, now speaks up. He is my father.

At the sight of my movement, Mr. Lancrux’s hand flies to his belt, where a slick and shiny blaster, folded into a cube, hangs.

“Mr. Emios! This is your son?” he exclaims.

My eyes dart to my dad’s. He’s not what I remember him to be. They aren’t the same eyes that I caught in the crowd when I received my science award at school back on Earth. They are not the same smiling eyes that greeted me when he came home from work. No. These eyes are cold and hard, bleak and friendless, tired and overburdened from his work. I see no hope in them.

His next words break my heart.

“My son?” He turns to Lancrux. “Not anymore.”

I can’t see. I flinch away from him and squeeze my eyes shut. My dad didn’t just disown me. This is all a very, very bad dream. I pry my eyes open again and see Charlotte, still blissfully under a spell of unconsciousness. I can’t look at her right now. This is just a dream. When you wake up, you’ll be in your apartment, and you’ll go to class and see Charlotte. Everything is going to be fine.

But it’s not. I know it’s not, because if this were a dream, it wouldn’t hurt this much.

Mr. Lancrux bends down to look at me. “Raven,” he draws out in a frightfully calm voice, “Can you tell us where your little invention is?”

I don’t respond. Instead, I look away.

“Let me give you some incentive.” He pulls out his blaster and points it at Charlotte’s head. “Does this help?”

I grit my teeth and look at Charlotte. Still unconscious, she doesn’t even know that her life is in my hands. I swallow at how vulnerable she looks and growl, “Down this hallway.”

“Hmm, see?” Mr. Lancrux straightens up and smirks. “A little persuading was all he needed.”

He walks next to Charlotte, keeping the cold barrel of his blaster pressed against her neck. “Keep talking, boy,” he says.

I don’t want to know what I’m doing. I can’t even understand my actions. My entire being feels numb. I shiver from the cold in the air-conditioned hallway.

“The third door on the right after you turn the corner. Number two-forty-five.”

Following my directions, our little parade reaches the door. Mr. Lancrux tries the handle, and then reaches into his pocket to pull out a master key. He fits the rectangle over the handle. A soft series of clicks, and the door opens a crack.

Mr. Lancrux places a hand on the door and gently pushes forward. I still can’t feel anything. Fear? Despair? Nothing. Instead, I watch with my breath uneven as the door slowly reveals what lies hidden inside.

Softly motioning for the men to bring me and Charlotte in, Mr. Lancrux goes straight to the center of the room where Riaddne is.

The big men dump Charlotte and me in the corner. She groans while shifting around, and I help her sit up against the wall. She’s waking.

“Raven… what? Where are we?”

Charlotte’s murmurs are slurred, and her eyes are out of focus. The sight of her hurt face brings frustration rolling in waves. So, I come forward, ignoring the senses that tell me not to. I embrace Charlotte and feel as she relinquishes some of her weight onto me. I hate how I can’t do anything about this. I hate how right now, both of us are powerless in a world full of people who were born and raised to think against the truth. The real truth. I breathe heavily through my nose to calm myself. I release her, but I stay facing her and the wall.

“Don’t move, Charlotte.”

Her eyes start to clear up. She looks past me and at the men. “What are they doing now?”

I don’t want to look, but I can hear.

Someone yanks off the tarp. I can imagine it now, a blue cape fluttering in the air, taking flight. I close my eyes and refuse to open them.

There’s a slight pause. Charlotte gasps in a quiet voice, “They have clubs.”

Medieval, but clubs still fit the purpose of brutally destroying a makeshift, budget invention. Against my own will, I spin around just as Mr. Lancrux gives a stern nod. The first man swings hard, his titanium club slamming into Riaddne, punching into her side. Then the next man strikes just as the first prepares to strike again.

The sound of crashing metal is deafening. I cry out in horror. My work, and Neil’s, topples to the side, where the men once again take turns with their clubs and mallets to smash into it. Bolts and sparks fly like a firework show. I scream. With each swing, more of my self-confidence diminishes. Neil and I spent so much time on it! So much time planning, so many nights spent staying up past four or five in the morning, just so we could finish the design! We didn’t even give up when we moved to the new planet. Then, Neil had entrusted our work to me. And I had let it fall into the government’s hands, the same hands clutching the heavy devices that dealt blow after blow to Riaddne.

My dreams fell at the same time that Riaddne did.

It feels agonizingly long, but finally, Mr. Lancrux puts up his hand. The men stop and step back from the pile of crippled circuits and iron, admiring their work.

I fumble to find my voice, but Mr. Lancrux doesn’t even glance at our direction. He speaks to the men in a low voice. I can only make sense of a few words: “Come back for them soon…” Then they all walk out the door, closing it behind them and locking it from the outside, disabling the inside lock panel.

Cursing and swearing under my breath, I shake my head repeatedly as if to make all this go away. It has to be a dream. Outside the door, I hear marching and the silhouette of two people guarding our only escape.

Fists clench and relax, clench and relax. Anger sears through my entire body, letting my weariness slide away. I want to get up and punch them! I’m gonna punch them so hard, they’ll know never to mess with me again!

After a long silence of staring at the ruins of Riaddne, I sigh and lean back against the wall. I can feel Charlotte’s gaze wander across my slumped and weakened self. Can she guess how much this hurt? I feel as if a dark and empty wound had been torn open from deep inside me. What could an appropriate name for it be? It was not sadness, although it felt close to it. It was not anger, but it if was, it didn’t seem directed at anything in particular, but rather, an entire web of events and people. It was not disappointment. I wasn’t disappointed at myself, or at my father who abandoned me. No. The feeling inside of me was just a black and lonely emptiness. A void.

It was a lack of something.

A lack of hope?

“I’m so sorry, Raven. This is all my fault.”

I can’t answer her at first, because in a way, as my inner voice quietly conceives, it is her fault. Before I can tie it down, my frustration lunges out at her.

“You said that you could trust your family,” I blurt out coldly. “Because of that, everything is destroyed, and our lives are gone. You know what? They resemble you a lot. Just like you, they’re untrustworthy and manipulative. No wonder they’re related to you.”

Charlotte is speechless. Her pale eyes wide and wet at my words, she turns away.

I heave a deep breath, fighting myself to stay calm, but I can’t. “Was I wrong, Charlotte? Your little government family cherishes lying just as much as you do, right?”

“Raven…”

I shake my head. “Stop this, Charlotte. I don’t want to hear any more. You and your family and the government are not in my control. What’s done is done. I don’t care anymore.”

“Raven… they were not my family. They never were.”

Silence. I pause and stare at her.

“Wait, what did you just say?”

“Aiden and Grandfather were never family,” says Charlotte, through a veil of trickling tears. “They were just random people from the government, hired to trick me and use me. My family’s been dead ever since I was small.”

Remorse stabs me like a knife, gauging deep into my existing wounds. “Dead?”

Charlotte wipes her face using the sleeve of her sweater and chokes, “Killed by the government… they were a part of the White-Eyes Cult, so they were hunted down. I remember a bit about them, but it’s all very fuzzy.”

My mouth is dry. Unsure of what to say, I look down in shame and whisper, “I’m sorry, Charlotte.”

She doesn’t respond, but instead only turns away from me, drawing her knees to her chest and curling up into a tight ball.

We sink into a morose and unbearable quietude.

Out of the blue, Charlotte says, “You’ve made a strong point about what I’ve been keeping from you. I’ve thought about it for a while, and I think you’re right.” She looks at me and sits up. “The truth will get you much farther than lies. Lies are just temporary planks laid out across stones in a stream, but the truth is like a bridge, safer and more reliable. Its effects last much longer and it helps so many more people.”

Unable to contemplate her current emotions, I reply cautiously, “I guess it just depends on where you want to go, which stream to cross, and whether or not you want to risk it.”

“I know which stream I want to cross,” she says. “The other side looks beautiful, and it’s something I’d like to be a part of. But lies won’t get me there. Raven…” Charlotte shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t know how to put this to words, but... when I’m with you, I feel something. I don’t understand it.”

My heart beats a thousand times faster, as if set on fire. “What do you mean?”

She sighs and looks at me, like a knife smoothening out the frosting on a cake. Admiring. But underneath it, she’s confused, knowing that she has intruded upon new territory. I see her before me, trying to search for an answer to a question she doesn’t truly understand.

“Riaddne may be broken, but you haven’t lost everything. You have me. Your… friend.” Charlotte moves closer. “The other side of that stream is you. Raven, I--”

I put a finger to her lips. Astonished, she draws a breath, indignantly preparing to say something to me, when I gather the courage to do what I had dreamed to do for many nights. Charlotte’s words have answered the hopes I have had since the very first day I met her.

A powerful urge overwhelms me and draws me even closer to Charlotte. Our lips brush each other’s and I lean in, meeting the fire head on. The cold walls of this room melt away from the light that radiates from us, and in these precious few seconds, stretched into millennium, everything seems okay. The flames of the kiss engulf my cheeks and warm them into a deep red. Both of our eyes have closed simultaneously, but then we open them again together. My eyes clash with Charlotte’s, a pair of dark night skies meeting opalescent moons, and she stares back at me with awe shining in her beautiful eyes.

Her eyelids flutter before closing again. My hands are through her hair, soft waves of brown, and my thumbs gently caress her cheeks, which are about as red as mine. We pause to take a breath, and then we kiss again. This is like a dream. I feel as light as breathing Tylius air for the first time, clean and full of opportunity. The timeless fire consuming me is so warm. I’m careful that I don’t squeeze her too tightly when, after what seems like ages, I pull away.

I speak, slowly, softly, as the delicate energy from our kiss seeps into me. “You’re right, Charlotte. We have each other. And we also have hope.”

She smiles at me and runs her fingers along my chin. “That was the best explanation to my feelings than I could’ve imagined.”

I couldn’t agree more. I look her in the eyes, her beautiful, crystalline eyes, and whisper in a low voice.

“From now on, no matter what they’ll do to us, we won’t let them win. Charlotte,” I say, feeling stronger, “we’ll find a way to get out of this mess. To make things right. For your family, for my invention, for our home planet.”

Charlotte surveys the room and staggers to her feet. “Come on, then,” she says. “Let’s find a way out of here.”

We search the room for a way out, but to no avail. There’s nothing we can use for communication, for a weapon, and no signs of hidden exit from this room. On top of this, Charlotte and I can barely walk without becoming dizzy and seeing double.

Carefully, I lead Charlotte back to the corner, where both of us rest against the wall, battling our clouded minds. I can’t stop thinking about our kiss, even though we should be focusing on getting out. My thoughts keep replaying the touch of her lips to mine, and I can’t help but want another.

A couple minutes into my daydream, the window in the corner shatters into pieces with a loud blast. Glass tumbles to the floor. I back away, pulling Charlotte with me.

“Ow, OW! John, stop stepping on my head!”

“Sorry, Neil.”

Sliding down from a rope, the two boys jump down from the broken window. White light pours into the room now that the tinted window is broken.

Neil lands with ease, his hand holding his blaster with natural relaxation. John releases his hands from the rope and lands next to him.

I can barely contain my emotions. “Neil!” I exclaim. “John! What are you guys doing here!”

Commotion out in the hallway as the two men are frantically trying to unlock the door. “What’s going on in there?” they shout through the cracks. “Whatever it is, stop right now!”

“Come on, Raven, Charlotte. We don’t have all day.” John hastily gestures towards the rope dangling from the window. Using a piece of metal picked up from the floor, he reaches up and knocks the leftover shards of glass away from the window, clearing the edges for our use.

“Charlotte, you first.”

It’s obvious that she’s done this before. Taking a large leap, she grasps onto the rope and pulls her body up the slim window, using her feet to kick her way up the sides. Swiftly, smoothly, she ascends.

Neil flexes playfully and holds up his blaster. “You remember that day when you told me I shouldn’t have made this?” He laughs. “I bet you’re glad I did.”

“Don’t rub it in, Neil,” I say, rolling my eyes. John heaves me onto his shoulders and I grab the rope with both hands. My legs and arms are still trying to wake up from being tranquilized, and I’m surprised that Charlotte made this look so easy. She’s probably had some practice with the government’s spies.

My feet dangle and kick wildly beneath me as I pant through my nose and mouth. I feel so weak…how can I climb all the way to the top using just this rope and the sides of the walls?

Gritting my teeth, I pull myself up, inch by inch.

“Let’s go, Raven! Faster!” John jumps and begins climbing after me.

I reach the lip of the window and begin to use my feet to help my climbing along the sides of the cylindrical tunnel upward. My mind screams in frustration at my weakness. Slightly faster than before, I climb up. John is close at my heels.

At this point, the door is unlocked.

The two men come into the room and fire at me. The blast narrowly misses my knee and instead hits the wall behind it. Just as I think I’m safe and most of my body is past the lip of the window, another fiery shot makes its mark on my leg, in the middle of my calf. I scream as blinding pain shoots up my leg. It’s all I can do to hold on and keep climbing. I blink the tears, rapidly forming, out of my eyes so that I can see. I can hear Neil using his blaster on the men. The sound of machinery being blown apart tells me that Neil isn’t that great with aim. Suddenly, I hear a loud thump, the sound of a body falling. I hope it’s not Neil…

“Raven, you have to keep going!”

“Hurry, we need to get out!”

“Don’t stop!”

I cannot tell who is talking to me. The sound fills my head, replacing my conscious with a cloud of voices telling me not to give up, even when every muscle in my body pleads otherwise.