Genre/Age Group- 16+
By- D.D. Chant
A girl with no future
A man with no past
A little lost boy
And those who seek to find him....
....Welcome to Deeta's world.
Deeta Richards has never seen the outside world. Before she was born a banking crisis brought civilization to an end and now no one leaves the safety of the compounds unless they need to, but Deeta still dreams of seeing more than the building she was born in.
Tom is in the guard, this group are the only people that the tribal elders allow to leave the compound and Tom knows only too well that Deeta could never survive the harshness that exists outside. Then tragedy strikes and Deeta and her Sister Jan find themselves captured by a hostile tribe. Why does Tom know so much about these people? And why do they know so much about him? As this mystery draws to a climax, they discover that their friend Tom is not quite what he seems...
I’m
not sure how it happens, but the next thing I’m aware of is the
faintly groggy feeling you get when you’ve been woken from sleep
quickly. A glance at the clock tells me that forty minutes have gone
by, yet the room is still silent, with no noise to rouse me from what
had obviously been a deep sleep. I stand up and meet my own eyes in
the mirror above the fire place. I’m staring at myself in a dazed
kind of way, when I realise that mine is not the only figure
reflected in its polished surface.
I
suppose it must have been the second time he walked through this room
and the first time he didn’t notice me curled up in the depths of
the large arm chair. He seems quite as shocked as I am to find he’s
not alone.
A
full second elapses before I utter a strangled scream and leg it
through the door and into the passage way. The first thing I come
across is another camouflaged figure and my panic ratchets up a
notch. I think of the children, who in about fifteen minute’s time,
will joyfully be free of the shackles of their lessons.
The
two soldiers are behind me, so only way to go is up the stairs. The
knowledge that I am leading the intruders towards the children, rings
in my head. With the sound of pursuit hideously loud in the
stairwell, coherent thought is proving difficult. I’m half way up
the forth flight when I hear Dec’s jubilant voice proclaiming
himself the winner of some unseen race.
“Dec,
run!” My voice cracks and my throat, already sore, tightens.
Dec’s
voice exclaiming above my head is cut short as he sees my pursuers. I
hear the door onto the stairwell open and close above me and a moment
later something hit the floor behind me with a dull thud. A cheer
reverberates around the walls.
Dec,
bless him, hadn’t run away when I told him to, instead he’d
brought a large book from the school room above and hurled it at one
of my attackers. As that soldier was at this very moment out cold on
the steps, I guess his aim must have been pretty accurate.
The
last of the men is felled by some sort of encyclopaedia, this time
lobbed by Roydon. I reach the landing they are standing on,
completely out of breath. Roydon and Dec seize a hand each and drag
me after Ricky who is holding Tarri in his arms and has Carris’s
hand tucked in his.
From
the direction in which they are going, I think their destination is
Ralph’s house. But we keep running into the strangers that have
breached the building and our efforts bring us almost full circle. We
come to a standstill in one of the rooms with a connecting door and
pause breathlessly.
“Who
are they?” whispers Roydon.
“I
don’t know, but they have some pretty neat kit,” answers Ricky.
He relinquishes Tarri into Carris’s arms and places an ear to the
door. “Ssh — someone’s coming!”
Ricky
steps back a little from the door and we all wait expectantly. Sure
enough it begins to open, Ricky waits until it is almost half way
before he kicks it shut with all his might. We turn and run though
the connecting door in to the room on the other side and out on to
the corridor beyond. We are tantalisingly close to Ralph’s house.
How
it happens I hardly know, but as Dec passes the open door of the
school room, he is dragged kicking and screaming through the door by
unseen hands. I scream and pull as hard as I can on the handle, but
it won’t move. I realise they must have locked it behind them.
Ralph’s door is just a little further on and I grab Ricky’s arm.
“Ricky,
take the children to Ralph and stay there.”
“But…”
I
don’t know what he had been going to say, but he stops abruptly and
nods.
As
I turn and run down the hallway I hear them banging on the Clark’s
door.
There
is no sign of Dec when I enter the school room, but from the knocked
over chairs it is obvious that there has been some struggling. I run
through the next two rooms desperately and hear, in the distance,
Dec’s voice raised in protest. I burst into the corridor to find
him struggling madly with one of the camouflaged soldiers. Picking up
a stool from the room I have just come through, I use it to hit the
man around the head. He sinks to the floor moaning and I taking Dec’s
hand. We run down the passage, around the corner and up the steps,
slap bang into more of the soldiers.
Instinctively
I push Dec behind me, below their visors I see derision in the
soldier’s faces and when they step forwards, they pull us apart
easily. Trying to tear away from the vice like grip on my arm, I pull
my knee up into the soldier’s stomach. His smirk changes quickly to
a snarl of pain and my struggles become more desperate. I manage to
free an arm long enough to punch him in the face. I must admit to a
feeling of gratification as blood begins to trickle from his nose.
There
is blinding pain as his fist connects with my face, slapping it
sharply sideways and causing me to lurch backwards. I fall to the
floor and it’s only Dec screaming my name that brings me groggily
to my feet. I am rewarded by a merciless grip on my arm, forcing it
behind me and well up my back as the soldier drives me heavily into
the wall. I slip to the floor weakly, again hearing Dec’s voice
calling to me. The sound grows gradually fainter, until my eyes close
and I hear nothing.
**Broken City is FREE right now! **
