Through Glass - Episode Five by Rebecca Ethington

Author:Rebecca Ethington [Ethington, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dystopian
Amazon: B00JGIGCFO
Publisher: Imdalind Press
Published: 2014-04-03T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look away from the children at the top of the stairs. My eyes

widened as theirs did. The shock at seeing other humans facing each other was as much of a

surprise to me as it was to them.

They stood at the top of the stairs as they looked down at us, the light falling over their

tattered and filthy clothes; jeans and shirts so holey they barely clung to their bodies. Skin so

dirty that the tears they shed, the water they had been working with, streaked down their faces

and arms in stripes of brown.

They were young, so much younger than I would have expected to see holed up in a house.

After all, it had been eight years and the younger child—a girl—didn’t appear to be more than

that age. The older boy she clung to, however, seemed to be about twelve. Then again, I wasn’t

sure that made any difference.

I had been trapped for eight years as well, trapped in a world of sleep and darkness, eating

food that caused me to age slower.

The same as they did.

I heard Travis swear softly from behind me, the exclamation followed by the gentle tap of

his gun as he armed it. The act seemed out of place given the frightened children we faced, the

obvious lack of danger evident. But, then, I couldn’t fault him for it. Azul and the people Travis

had lived with for the past decade had treated me the same.

I had heard their stories. I had been warned about what was happening to me. There was no

guarantee that these children weren’t the same.

The same as me.

I, however, un-cocked my gun as the sound of the bell came again, the distant ding echoing

into nothing as the pipes began to groan once more, the sound of running water lowering to a

trickle as the house became deathly silent.

I tried to figure out what to say as I stood facing them, their eyes wide in fear, while my own

shock and confusion slowed down my understanding. Somehow ‘we come in peace’ seemed a

little to out of place for the situation.

Luckily Travis was here, or we would have stared at each other forever.

“Hey there,” Travis said, his voice low and soft as he came around me, his back crouched as

he tried to make himself seem smaller and less frightening to the children.

Their eyes widened as my brother spoke, almost as if they didn’t believe he could. The little

girl pressed herself into what I could only assume was her older brother at the sound of Travis’s

voice, her body shaking as she pressed her filthy face into his chest, as if she could make herself

invisible.

“We didn’t know anyone was here,” He continued in the same calm voice, my own body

seeming to relax under the calm and gentle way he spoke to them. “We just needed a place to

hide from the Ulama.”

I almost jumped as the name the Tar had given themselves slipped from his tongue. My

heart reacted with the same fear that had been ingrained in me over the title.

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