Welcome! *Bows* I hope you enjoy this original story!



She stood still, still as death, only the rhythmic beat of the blood through her ears disturbed the perfect silence.  She took a deep breath, gunpowder and the slightly steely, almost unplaceable scent of blood rushed into her head.  Her eyes slowly opened, she knew the scene that would assault her eyes before she uncovered her pupils.  Through her short lashes she could just make out the forms of people.  Bodies strewn across the grassy bed of earth.  Children’s blood congealed on their parents quickly cooling hands.  The girls eyes filled with silent tears that streamed down her pale cheeks.  She didn’t even notice them.  She had awoken to it too many times to that scene, she was numb.  She never looked back for fear of facing what she had done.  No, not her, the other one.  She didn’t do it.  The gun in her hand was warm.  She quickly shoved it in her coat, if she didn’t turn around, if she didn’t look, if she couldn’t feel the warmth of the gun, if she forgot, then it will have never have happened and she could live in fleeting bliss.  Denial.  Then she would wake up to the same scene.  Her foot steps were even and calm, she walked like she was in a dream.  Her eyes were blank her face the face of oblivion.  

“Hey kid, what do you want?”   She turned, her gray eyes glittered like ice.  A smile formed on her face.
“Just a glass of water please.”  she said.  The man behind the counter grunted and filled a tall glass with ice. The ice popped and cracked as he poured water over it.  He gruffly handed her the free beverage.  She took it and sipped a little water.  The restaurant was full of green upholstered booths and tablecloth adorned glass tables of happy little families enjoying their lunch outing.  She looked through the tinted glass windows at a street vendor creating small glass animals for children.  She finished her water and crunched on an icecube as she walked outside.  The cities in this area were made almost completely out of super-hardened glass.  The tall buildings were reinforced with steel beams. Wood was rare because trees were only found in a couple of remote places.  Concrete was obsolete; the tough green grass that covered the streets would take root in it and quickly weaken it.  The grass grew everywhere even the hundreds of feet on busy streets couldn’t trample it.  It slowly destroyed the concrete cities of the past as they rotted underground.  Even steel wasn’t completely impervious to the grass and was usually encased in the only building material that was unaffected by the intrusive grass: glass.  Glass had evolved a lot in the past hundred or so years. It was unshatterable, insulated, sound proofed, and for a price it could be intricately designed in all colors of the rainbow.
The glass city shinning in the afternoon sun, the green grass covering the streets, it all was too perfect, to beautiful.  It made her head hurt.  Something tried to free itself from the deep recess of her mind.  She shook her head and pushed it back, barely noticing the cold metal that hit her leg as she walked.  She sat on the rim of a glass fountain and closed her eyes.  She knew she couldn’t completely oppress the memories like she used to, perhaps it was because so many of her memories were the same.  Like a reoccurring dream, it was etched into her mind too deep from its cruel repetition.  A woman walked by her smiling face beamed with happiness.  The girl smiled back and her head pounded slightly.  After the woman went on her way the girl turned to the fountain, the cool water rushing down in glassy sheets.  She stared into the shining sheet of water.

She’ll never even realized what she’s doing.

She thrust her hand through the water, spraying it out of the fountain and onto the grass.  She stood up and kept walking.  She wanted to do something, maybe she would get another temp. job.  She walked by some stores and went in to ask for work in a couple.  Finally an elderly man running a grocery store hired her to carry boxes of produce from a large wagon, and set them up in the isles.  She swiped her bangs of her forehead and left them spiking up.  Her short mahogany hair and makeup-less face often led people to mistake her for a boy.  She hardly ever corrected them; it didn’t matter she never stayed one place long.  She would either become increasingly nervous and restless and be forced to leave or. . .   She hated sunny days.  Even though it was opaque in some places,the glass of the grocery store was letting too much light in, it was giving her a head ache.  After a couple hours she left the store with 20 kin in her pocket the man had wanted to pay her 30, but she had convinced him that 20 kin was plenty.  All she wanted was a 3rd class room on a ferry to somewhere else.  
The ferry pulled up to the station in the dark it’s lights dancing merrily on the black river.  She handed the man her ticket and adjusted her small messenger bag on her shoulder.   She walked down the rusty old stairs to 3rd class.  The musty smell and stuffy air greeted her as she came to her bunk.  The harsh, unnatural, yet thankfully dull light of a single white neon tube lighted the room from the ceiling. She threw the bag to the foot of her pad and climbed into the cubby hole.  She relaxed with her hands tucked under her head and looked around the room.  As usual it was mostly drunks and other financially impaired drifters.  Her eyes then fell on the exception, a girl who looked about her age was sitting across the way.  The other girl looked nervous, her draped gray dress was made of the expensive gauzy material people from rich families wore.  What she was doing in third class was a complete mystery.  
“Hey, you want you could come sit on my bunk.”  The girl in gray smiled and walked over swaying slightly as the ship rocked gently on the water.
“Thank you.  I was rather lonely by myself.”  Her voice was sweet and sultry, with the customary upper-class accent.  She sat down, her dress’s light fabric falling gracefully over her legs as she crossed them in ladylike fashion.  “My name is Isabelle Whitestone, and yours is?”
“Sahara.  So what are you doing in third class?” She asked then hastily added “If you don’t mind my asking.” Isabelle brushed the perfect blond ringlets, that were not confined to her loose bun, out of her face.    
“I’m going to live with my uncle, my father has fallen on bad times and my uncle has kindly offered to take me.” Her eyes were blue flames, but the rest of her face maintained its ladylike placidness.  Sahara watched her carefully as she smoothed her layered dress over a lump on her thigh.
“So your father paying for the trip or is your uncle being cheap?”  Sahara asked, smiling in her half assed sort of way.  It was the kind of smile that looked nice but had nothing really behind it.  
“I’m paying for it myself.  I don’t want my father to have to pay for me.” She said in a pained tone.  “And I don’t want my uncle’s money.”  She spat the last words out, as if they tasted like bile.  
“How did you get the money, if it wasn’t from your father or uncle?”  High class women weren’t expected to work, and if they did aquire money themselves it wasn’t usually through legitimate means. Sahara’s gray eyes fell on the lump on Isabelle’s thigh and she readjusted the contents of her coat pocket.  Isabelle noticed where Sahara’s gaze was falling and fluffed the misty gray folds of her dress so the lump wasn’t visible.
“I have an amazingly sharp mind for math, so people sometimes pay a couple kin for me to look over some numbers and tell them what they want to know.  sometimes it’s ‘are these calculations correct?’.  Other times its ‘with this interest rate and these expenses can I afford a electric powered boat?’.  I can do almost all of it in my head.”  She sighed.  Then she closed her eyes and let a smile dance across her face. “My mother always said I should start a bank.  Father would like that too. . . “ Her words trailed off and she opened her eyes.  The smile disintegrated and her voice quavered dangerously close to loosing its sweetness.  “My uncle wouldn’t hear of it.  The thought of a girl working in such a position seems to offend him.  Perhaps he’s worried I’ll prove to be a better banker than him.”  She laughed.  It was a sarcastic painful laugh.  Sahara leaned against the wall, the dirty gray bunk above hers was too low to sit up all the way.  Isabelle remained where she was, perched on the edge of the bunk leaning forward slightly to keep her head out from under the upper bunk, she was quite a bit taller than Sahara.
“Why don’t you just say no to this uncle?” Sahara stared at the dull gray bottom of the bunk above hers.  Dozens of gratified names, and less polite things were carved with  drunken precision and dull knives.
Isabelle stiffened. “I need to rest.  Good night Sahara.  It was a pleasure speaking with you.” She said as she stood up.  Her gray dress rustled as she walked away.  It was form fitting, staying fairly tight around her legs, making her hips swing as she walked.  But it was draped with blue-gray strips of gauze around her thighs in the style of the time.  Isabelle sat on her bed tucked her legs up and pulled the curtain closed.
Sahara stuck her hands in the pockets of her long coat.  She felt the cold metal and puled her right hand out.   She looked at her hand with her steel gray eyes for a moment, then reached out and pulled the curtain shut.  She swung her legs onto the padding on the bunk.  She took off her jacket and boots, throwing them with her bag, at the end of the bunk, and closed her eyes.  
Sleep was not a guarantee in third class, and Sahara was roused from a light sleep many times through the night.  So when people started yelling and shuffling around, Sahara almost rolled over and fell back asleep, but her sleep clouded mind finally realized that the rocking of the boat had ceased.  The dull light of the neon drifted between the ends of the curtain and various small holes Sahara thought were probably cigarette burns.  From all the shadows crossing the light source she figured it must be morning and the ferry was unloading.  She couldn’t be completely sure though since there were no windows in the long 3rd class rooms because they were under the surface of the water.  Sahara rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and ran her tongue over her teeth and wondered if any of the bathrooms were working and vacant.  She pulled back her stained curtain and swung her legs out and stood up.  She stretched her back and it cracked satisfyingly.  The bunk across from hers was empty Isabelle must have already taken off.  Sahara pulled on her coat and boots and slung her bag over her shoulder.  She headed for the bathrooms but the smell as she approached convinced her that risking sneaking into the 2nd class ones was well worth it.  She went up the stairs and flattened her hair to make it look nicer and wondered if she smelled like she had been in 3rd class.  The door to 2nd class was closed on her first pass but as she came back down to it a family with about 4 young kids started to tumble out. Sahara opted to hold the door for them and slipped in after they had gotten out.  She straitened her coat as a worker walked by carrying an armful of sheets which are one of the perks of ridding second class.  The bathrooms weren’t anything special they were still communal and fairly basic but at least they smelled like they had probably been cleaned before.  After she had washed her hands she dug through her bag for her toothbrush.  One of the stalls behind her opened and Isabelle came over to wash her hands in the sink next to Sahara.  
“I guess I wasn’t the only one who had this idea.”  She said as she pulled a handkerchief from her briefcase sized suitcase and dried her hands.  Sahara smiled with the toothbrush still in her mouth.  
“I dun fink. . .”  She spit and tried again. “I don’t think we had a choice the smell from the lower ones would’ve probably killed us.”  She stuck out her tongue and put her hand around her throat.  Isabelle laughed, she had a clear soft laugh that reminded Sahara of a songbird.  Isabelle rinsed her face off with a faintly sweet smelling soap, carefully drying it with her handkerchief.  Sahara shoved her toothbrush back in her bag and leaned over the sink to drink from the faucet. She was truly grateful for clean running water, the water in the lower bathrooms was questionable at best.  Isabelle replaced the folded handkerchief to her case pulled the brass buckle shut and headed for the door.
“Good bye Sahara, I’m glad to have made your acquaintance.  This trip would have been unbearable without someone to talk to.” Sahara leaned against the counter.
“No problem, it was my pleasure.  See ya later.”  Sahara called as Isabelle closed the door behind her.  Sahara went back to the sink and put her head under the faucet and rubbed her hair and face with cold water.  A few young girls wandered in all giggly and still in their pajama’s.  Sahara quickly finished sliding her gappy comb through her hair and headed out.  Just as she was about to reach the door to the stairs a man wearing a sailor uniform put his hand on her shoulder.  She thought about bolting but another man in uniform had just opened the door and was striding casually down the hall toward them.  
“Excuse me young man.” he said as Sahara turned to look at him. “Oh, I’m sorry lady it’s just from behind. . .  Well in any case, can I see your ticket?  I’m pretty sure I saw you down in 3rd.”  Sahara’s mind was racing.  Should she say she’d lost it?  perhaps that this was her first tim ridding and she wasn’t aware of the rule or maybe that he had seen her down there but only because she was lost earlier.  All she knew for sure was that she couldn’t pay the 175 kin fee for sneaking into a higher class and that she’d be stuck on the ship working it off, something she definitely didn’t want to do.  Perhaps she should pretend to not speak Engaloian.  Maybe if she ran the other way down the hall there would be another exit.  As the second man noticed what was going on full panic was beginning to hit her.  
“I don’t have a ticket.”  Sahara blurted out.  
“So you’re a stowaway?!”  The first man exclaimed accusingly.  Sahara took a step away.
“No I mean I don’t have it with me.”  The second man grabbed her left arm.
“Where is it then?  You little liar?”  Sahara tried to pull away and felt the thump of the contents of her coat pocket.  
“It’s in my room.”  Sahara growled and twisted her arm to try and break his grip.  The first man pushed her to the wall and Sahara wondered dully if there was anyone in the room behind her hearing the commotion.  Her head was throbbing, did she hit it on the wall?  Or maybe. . .
She pulled her right hand away from her side and grabbed the man’s arm who was pushing her to the wall.  The room was beginning to seem too bright the overhead lights were glaring into the back of her head.  Just then a staticy woman’s voice came over the intercom.
“All capable hands to deck please, all capable hands to deck immediately.”  She didn’t sound frantic or desperate but something made it seem like an emergency.  The two men looked at Sahara then at each other then hit the stairs at a run.  Sahara collapsed to the floor and closed her eyes for a second before standing back up.  With the help of the wall she wobbled to the stairs the last thing she wanted was to stay in the 2nd class hallway.  Once she was on the stairs she was about to sit down when about a dozen uniformed men ran past her up the stairs she had to flatten herself against the wall to avoid being trampled.
Her head was still throbbing but she couldn’t help feeling terribly lucky that there was some crisis on deck.  She headed up the stairs jumping out of the way of people rushing to the surface.  Her head was clearing and she realized that even though she was saved for the moment the prospect of whatever new danger was calling the entire crew to deck was waiting at the top of the stairs, and since her luck was un likely to hold it seemed she was out of the frying pan but heading for the fire.

Gunfire.  She opened the door to the glaring morning light off the opaque blue glass of the main deck and heard the screams as another bullet left a gun.  Sahara needed to get off the boat.  Fast.  The light bounced off the water, and the white paint of the railings and walls glowed.  Her bag bumped the back of her leg and the sides of her open coat caught the wind as she headed toward the ramp.  People crowded around the ramp. The only way off the goddam ship.  Sahara closed her eyes as the blood rushed painfully through them.  Another shot.  She could hear the exact location of the gun.  The upper deck.  She opened her watering eyes.  The sun on Isabelle Whitestone’s gold hair gave her a ethereal halo, her dress was ripped savagely up one side revealing a holster where the gun in her hand had been since she left her father’s home.  Sahara whipped her head to where the shots had narrowly missed an man in a gray suit with short straw-colored hair.  Two other people had guns pointed at him standing by his sides.  They had the usual garb of mercenaries; all black except a red strip of cloth around their left arm.  Usually they were hired by towns as a sort of police force, but private use wasn’t uncommon for people with money.  It explained why Isabelle only had enough money for third class.

“So, my dear uncle I think you’ll be more inclined to listen to me now that I have your undivided attention.”  Isabelle’s voice quavered slightly as she cocked the gun.  “I think it’s about time you gave it all back to my father and I.”  a sick smile spread across her face.  It was wrong, misplaced, jarring against her delicate features.  “You didn’t think anyone would notice.  You thought everyone would overlook the small amount of money you funneled out of their account  into your own. You’ve been stealing from everyone of your clients for the past 18 years, including my father.”  A quiet collective gasp rippled through the audience.  Whitestone People’s Bank was the 4th largest company in the region and had more customers than any other bank in the region could possibly handle.  And presumably most of the onlookers had money there. “I crunched the numbers over and over again thinking I had to be making a mistake, but every time it was the same your company shouldn’t have been making hardly any profit.  It wasn’t until I looked over my fathers finances that I noticed it  small discrepancies in the transactions with your bank.  Not enough to be noticed by the untrained eye.  But if you’ve been doing that with everyone’s account then you would have brought in over 50 million kin this year alone.  Over the last 18 years I estimated you managed to take 460 thousand kin from my father alone.”

The man in the gray suit looked incredibly small even though he was almost 6 feet tall. His hair was matted with sweat.  Isabelle’s face was stone as she started to walk down the stairs to the main deck where Sahara was watching with a strengthening throbbing behind her eyes.  Everyone hurried out of the path of the girl in the ripped gray dress. She walked down the ramp to the small circle where the mercenaries were keeping Richard S. Whitestone.  She held her gun up and aimed for the space between his watery transfixed eyes.  Bang.  The gun flew from her hand.  Sahara took her finger off the trigger.  Her head pounded.  Her voice was shaky.  She could hardly form the words.  
“Don’t  shoot Isabelle, you need him,” She paused.  Closed her eyes then continued.  “To get all the money back you need him.  Have him legally give it all back.”  She was getting dizzy the ground gently rocked beneath her.  She sat down.  Crowd logic took over and everyone seconded her opinion.  They all shouted for an official document giving back all the money.  Isabelle took a steadying breath and begin to lead her uncle and entourage of mercenaries to the bank where legitimate paper work could be written up.  She wasn’t sure who had yelled but she was glad they had, he had almost lost her head back there, her usually methodic and logical mind had almost snapped.

A young looking man put a strange gun back in his pocket, he had been about to disarm the girl in the gray dress but someone had beat him to it.  The gun reflected the sun as it slid into this pocket, there were only a dozen others like it.  They needed no bullets and could only be used by whomever they were issued to.  And he had just seen one of it’s brothers shot with familiar precision.