Exiled to Lunar Lakes - Chapter 3 - Shattering Light

Following the man to gods know where, Zoraida found herself lagging behind as she tried to keep up. The lights from the crystal lamp posts allowed Zoraida to see two feet ahead of herself. The city itself lit up in pitch black darkness as she tried to stand taller.

She didn’t belong here. The was thought stuck in her head as it slowly twisted and unraveled itself.

The man in front of her signaled for her to stop as Zoraida's hands clenched into fists on reflex.

She looked at everything with distrust in her eyes.

His eyes became wary as a man and woman with crazed eyes stepped out of the shadows. The man walked towards her with his hands clenched into fists. Zoraida stepped away from him as the woman came behind her.
This again? What was with this damn society and trying to kidnap everyone?
She looked around wildly for the man she had been following as the woman grabbed her from behind and placed a rag over her mouth. Zoraida struggled against her as she tried to release herself from her grip.
Zoraida was a caged bird with her wings clipped off still trying to fly. Her vision began to blur as she fought against the woman. In that moment, she realized just exactly how small she was in the grand scheme of things.
The realization was daunting.

She swung her arms impulsively as she lost any control she had before. The woman grunted in pain as Zoraida stopped being able to move, yet it was still her small victory.
Maybe she had broken her nose too.
Her vision slowly turned black as she closed her eyes.

---

Zoraida's eyes slowly open as she looked around at where she was. Her head was pounding and the bruise she had received earlier that day didn’t help the matter. She tried to move her hands just as she found that they were tied to the back of a chair with what she assumed was...rope.

Yes, rope.

She rested her head against the rickety wooden chair as the pounding in her head continued to drum. Zoraida tried to move her legs with little success.

It seemed likely they weren’t taking any chances this time. She briefly wondered if she had been kidnapped again because of her reaction to the woman dying at the bar as everyone watched and complained.

If that was the case, she would simply have to tell them all to go to hell and flip them off once her hands were untied.
Screw ten years.
If she couldn’t even last a day without watching somebody die and two kidnappings, what was the point of ten years?

She rocked back and forth in the chair as the only lightbulb in the room began to flicker.

She ignored it.
Back.
The ground had began to tremble.
Forth.
She was imagining it.

Back.
The only thing that mattered was escaping.
Forth.
A large crack formed in the ceiling above her.
The light’s flickering had become more and more frequent.

Back.
Pieces of the ceiling began to fall as Zoraida shut her eyes close.
Her doubts about this being her imagination started to sink in.
Forth.
The eerie silence that followed was more startling than the chaos.
Snap.

---

  

With his hands tied tightly to a chair, Petre Stewart wasn’t exactly sure how he had managed to get himself in this situation.

He had gone to the bar for a few drinks and had stepped outside to smoke a cigarette when he had met her.
The one person who didn’t have any clue about what she was getting into.
She was reactive. She was impulsive. Most of all, she was confused.

He planned on explaining to her what she had most likely left out. How Lunar Lakes functioned, why everyone reacted the way they did. Most were given ten year to live, but death came at any moment. It was just a rough estimate of time collected by those who had come first.
Death was meant to be treated as a normal event.

There was a specific team created for the disposal of bodies in Lunar Lakes, as they quickly built up. The bodies were all burned. If everyone had been buried underground, there would be too many graves and not enough time to bury them. Burning them had proven to be more efficient in recent years. Reactions to the death of somebody just made the whole ordeal worse when it was generally accepted that everyone could drop dead at any moment.
The fact somebody had reacted so strongly to it after everything had been...odd.
There was two truths in Lunar Lakes; Death and crime. If they didn’t fall into that category, they were lies.

There had been rumors that depending on the type of crime associated with the number, the citizen was immediately executed. Other rumors said they had been left to live depending on how she felt about it at the time being. Most of the time if they were allowed to live, they were placed at the end of the social ladder and watched to see when they would screw up.

Luckily for him, that hadn’t happened.
Petre sighed as he turned his head to look at his hands.
Really? They thought a little rope would him? Petre rolled his eyes.
For gods’s sake. Had they not seen him?
The chair creaked against his weight. It was cheap; something that wasn’t durable enough. Sierra’s people wouldn’t have made such a dumb mistake meaning this kidnapping was likely against protocol.
Petre sighed.
That would mean another hanging.
The rules were simple, yet a society filled with citizens that had been known to challenge the rules in what seemed to be another time made everything complicated.
Not that he was a saint himself.
The light above him flickered as he started working on getting out of the chair. The rope came off easily. Petre worked on untying his legs as the ground began to tremble.

He looked up cautiously at the ceiling.
Lunar Lakes didn’t have earthquakes.
Petre worked faster and untied his legs as the trembling began to increase.
The light swung back and forth as the ceiling began to crack.

His eyes widened as he covered his head. Bits and pieces of the ceiling began to fall as Petre dodged them.
The light flicked for the last time as it shattered into pieces and the room went dark.

Chapter 4, Part 1 - Broken Memories --->

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