Gunpowder
Chapter Thirty Six

Axis couldn’t move. Her body felt like stone.

And, then, as if a weight had been lifted from her chest, she could move once more. It was only then when she realized where she was.

The twenty three year seemed to be sitting in some sort of movie theater. The seats were a deep scarlet, with a few patches of dirt or spilled soda here or there. She cocked her head to the side in confusion, staring at the large, blank movie screen ahead of her.

It scared her. Not because of the location, but because of the clear lack of anything. The only noise was a strange electrical buzzing noise, presumably coming from the screen ahead. It smelled like the blandest mix of bland things, like a mix of flour, potatoes, and bread.

Then, something quite strange occurred. The velvet seats around her disappeared, leaving behind a simple void in their wake.

The screen seemed to shake for a moment, before, miraculously, stretching out across all walls of the room. Next, the empty screen spread to the ceiling and floor, leaving Axis sitting in her singular chair in the middle of a black void.

And then she heard the loudest noise she had ever heard in her life. It was a gunshot of some sort, but much, much, louder. The screen burst into all sorts of random colors and shapes for a split second before changing into a slightly more normal scene.

The scene depicted a dark room with gray stone walls on all sides. There was a girl there, small, maybe around ten years old. Her clothes were ragged, and were barely more than rags. There was something familiar about the child: The birthmark.

Axis had a birthmark on her neck. It was hardly noticeable, no more than a tiny mole, but it always stood out to her. The girl, the girl on the screen, had the exact same little mole.

Next came sound. Though she had not noticed it before, the little girl was crying. Her hands covered her face, and she was sitting against the wall. What little parts of her face she could see were completely red. Now that Axis had a closer look, she recognized the room to be some sort of primitive jail cell. It was only around four feet by four feet, all stone, with a large metal door on one wall.

It wasn’t the first time she had seen a situation such as this. As a police officer, it was not uncommon for her to see children crying, whether it be after a shooting, or a parent going to jail. Every single time, it tugged at her heartstrings.

“Shhh, shh, it’s okay, it’s alright,” the policewoman called out on instinct. She had comforted many kids in her time, as she was expected to do as a female officer. The little girl did not respond, only continuing to cry.

The screen changed yet again, this time to a picture perfect little home. It looked like something from a pretty little oil painting: A tiny house with birch wood walls and rose bushes on either side of the oak door.

A medium-sized dog raced round the corner of the home, its long tongue hanging out of its jaws and its tail wagging. The canine, which seemed to be a young Akita, was soon followed by two children, a boy and a girl, whom were both probably around nine years old.

“Gracey! Gracey!” the little girl called, waving her arms at the animal ahead of her. It turned to look at her for a moment, turned the corners of its mouth up, and raced off.

“Gracey! Come here, Gracey!” the boy called,clapping as her darted after his pet. This command seemed to catch the dogs attention, and it turned around and ran at the boy. The canine, being much bigger than the boy, knocked him over, showering his face with a barrage of licks.

The scene was enough to make Axis smile, so much that she was disappointed when the screen changed back to the little girl, crying in her cell.

But, this time, something was different. The girl had a wide grin on her face, and her eyes were locked on the door, her hands balled into fists. Axis’s heart skipped a beat as the metal door to the room slowly slid back into the wall. A single man stepped through, dressed in a white lab coat which covered everything except for his shiny bald head. His expression was cold, uncaring, as he reached out to pick up the little girl whom inhabited the cell.

The girl, with dried tear tracts covering her face, dodged his reaching hands and dashed behind him. Before he had a chance to turn around, she flung her arms around his neck and pulled backwards. He lost his balance and crashed to the ground.

The camera, or whatever was recording the event, did not move from the room, where it was focused. And, soon, the whole scene faded.

Axis felt like cheering for the girl, but found that she could no longer speak. Something cold washed over her, though nothing was coming from the sky or any of the walls. Suddenly, she couldn’t breath, and she began to gasp. Everything faded until she was simply sitting in the middle of an endless void.

She knew it was a dream now. But the scene, the scene she had seen on the screen, had been very, very, real, years ago in her past. She had been captured, along with her parents, during a raid on the then tiny city of Kawden. After that, she had never seen her parents again. She had managed to escape, however, and get back to her home.

The little boy and the little girl were her younger siblings Finch and Anthony. She had cared for them, with the help of their pet Akita, Gracey, after her parents had disappeared. She had been cared for by her two older brothers and older sister: Dave, Paul, and Lema. Those had been the years she had learned to fight. The little family had lived near gang territory, and she would sometimes have to beat back the occasional raiding gang member looking to steal something from the home. She had even taught Finch and Anthony a few moves, though she had hated doing it. She knew that they were too young to worry about such a thing, too young to be being taught how to break a noise or temporarily lame someone in order to get away from them. It was a rough life, but they had lived, evident by the fact that she was still alive.

Axis fell to the ground with a thump as the slighty-sticky velvet seat beneath her faded into thin air. With a sharp poke to her side, she was forced back into reality.

She was sat in the back of the semi trailer, leaning against one of the metal walls with her helmet flopping over her face. She pushed it up and jumped to her feet, seeing Abbet in front of her, basiclly losing herself with laughter.

“Oh, shut up.” she grunted, but she was truly laughing herself. The woman, whom she had formelly seen as a murderer, and she wasnt convinced that she wasnt, was acting like some child. It was strange, but also comforting in some way. Then again, it could be an act, trying to gain her trust or something. It seemed real, but she could never put trust into an enemy.

“You’re laughing too, sleepy head.”

“I’m very tired, okay?”

“You just slept for, like, an hour,”

“An hour?! Dang it. How’s the ride going?”

“I mean, we were swerving at first, but not anymore. Seems like that bloody idiot is actually good for something, for once,”

“I’ll have you know that Poppy is quite capable,”

“And why would you care about defending her? She is beneath you. You are a soldier, after all,”

“She’s a friend, maybe more than that.”

“More? Pff, you mean you love her or something?”

“You could say that, but I don’t think you would understand such a thing as love. With your face, that is,”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. So, you are the famed Abbet I have heard about?”

“Yes, that would be me. Heard about from what?” Axis saw that Abbet seemed to be getting slightly tense, like a dog in the heat her skin was turning to a slightly reddish color, and she was itching at her leg quite often.

“Poppy. And, um, how is the whole eye thing going?”

This question seemed to set Abbet off in some way, and she scraped her nails across her skin, hard enough to leave little scratches.

“It’s hard. I can’t see anything. If I’m being honest, I feel vulnerable, threatened even. I used to always use my eyes in a fight, but now I must rely on sounds and what I can feel. It is truly difficult.”

“Uh-huh. Sorry about that.”

“Not your fault. Its Oak’s fault, if anyone’s to blame its him,”

“Who was Oak? I have heard the name,”

“Oak was a member of our.. team. He took on leadership duties, and he drove. He’s the one who ended up driving off that dang cliff, all because he was too scared or whatever,”

“Wait. Scared of what?”

“You were never told?”

“No. It always seemed to be touchy with Poppy, so I never asked,”

“A large group of your kind, on horseback, chased us. We werent pinned into the corner leading off the cliff or anything. Stupid Oak just decided to drive us off a cliff, or somrthing”

“Oh. Well, you do know what happened to Oak, and the other male on board?”

“No. I never heard from them.”

“Can’t hear from dead people”

“Oh. Well, I assumed that not everyone could have survived the crash. Almost glad they died, they didn’t have to go through the pain. And, about your earlier statement regarding love, yes I can love. Me and Oak were in some sort of relationship, at least I think we were,”

“You love. I did not assume you did such things in your society,”

“We have relationships. We simply do not make in official in any sense, and we do not breed.”

“Almost cute. But sad, as well. You never know when you may be torn away from the other.”

“Such is true, and such is why we value every moment together as if it were our last, as it very well might be,”

“Cuter than I thought. A relationship simply based on being with one another, and not based on legal grounds or wish for mating. It seems pure.”

“It is. I am almost sad that Oak is dead. He may have been quite rude to others, but I feel that he thought of me as I thought of him.”

“You may find another man. One who dosent just like you for looks, one who accepts you for your past.”

“I hope so. Love is what is worth living for,”

“And, then do you understand why I enjoy Poppy’s company? We are like you and Oak.”

“Two women?”

“You’ve never heard of such a thing? In rebel society homosexual relationships are completely normal. In fact, the founder of the rebellion was accomponied in his efforts by a male partner.”

“Just another strange thing I will have to get used to. If they actually let me into the city, that is. Even if they do, they will most likely not accept me into their society.”

“As I said before, they took in Poppy. But you escaped from jail and left the city with a dangerous accomplice. You may simply be sent to jail. What did you do to end up in there anyways?”

“I commited no crime. The penitentiry was eqipped with a ward for patients with... brain problems. I was quite aggressive after I woke up in a strange room, belonging to my enemy, with my vision lost.”

“An asylum. It makes sense, but I was not expecting it.”

“I was in low security, however. That is how I managed to escape. I simply used the hairspray I was given to block all the cameras in my room, and I broke the window and ran off. I mean, I think I hit the cameras? Hard to tell, I couldn’t see them. I did practically coat the walls in hairspray, thought, so I mean, chances are that I did hit them.”

“I saw it on the news.”That would just about be the dumbest thing. I’ll just be stuck back in that stupid hospital, even though nothing is even wrong with me!”

“Then I’ll advocate that you not be admitted. I don’t exactly know where you will be living, however. Poppy only came to live in a town home with me after an.. incident, that you need not know about.”

“I won’t push you then if I have no need to know, or whatever. I’m only talking to you cause you probably have a gun, you know.”

“I would tell you if I am armed or not, but clearly out of the fact that me and you would mostly be equal in a fight with me I will not. Just assume that I am armed, and ready to incapacitate or kill you if you attack either me or Poppy.”

“I don’t think it’s physiclly possible to just hurt the meek little thing. Has butterfly skin, you touch it, it falls right off.”

“I think you mean punch. Also, that’s gross. I don’t need the image of someone’s skin falling off in my head.”

“Sorry” Abbet said sarcastically, making quotes with her fingers, “Anyways, you think we’re almost there?”

“I would ask the actual dang driver of the truck, but I honestly don’t trust you to be back here alone.”

“If you trust me enough to be in your home city, then you should dang trust me enough to be in a truck alone. Really, what could happen? If I leave the truck, no harm to you.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Just stay back here, I’ll ask,” Axis responded, doing the ‘I’ve got my eyes on you’ gesture. It felt good to stretch her legs after sitting for so long, though it did ache a little.

Abbet stuck out her tongue at the woman as she walked away, into the tractor of the truck.

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