literature

Within the Mission Part Thirty-Five

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The sound of sobbing bounced up the stairway, Cassandra's father had discovered his wife. Every fibre in the girl's body urged her to go comfort him, but Cassandra doubted she could look him in the eyes again. She'd never see love for her in those eyes, instead he'd look at her like she was; a monster. All along, her grandmother had been right; she should have been left out in the cold to die. Cassie had to move, she had to get as far away from her family, or what was left of it, as she could. She returned to her room as silently as she could, depositing the pass card on the bench, she'd never return after this. Lying on the floor was the remains of Tilly, her yarn hair lying flat and her stuffing flowing over her pink dress. Cassie took the white ribbon from her old friend's hair and wrapped it around her new friend's handle, the knife looked happy with its new accessory. Her wardrobe was filled with cheerful dresses and bright cardigans, none of which would suit her well outside. She rummaged through until she found a long shirt, pants and a sweater. After changing she pulled her curly blonde hair out of its pigtails and bunched her bloody clothes underneath her bed. It was time to go but Cassie had one more thing she wanted to do, she climbed onto her bed and backed as far as she could into her headboard, she hugged a teddy bear to herself and she cried. She sniffled and hiccupped until her eyes stung, unable to bring forth anymore tears, she buried her face in her plush toy and let everything go. Cassie was empty now, she had decided that this would be the last time she let herself be sad and the last time she let herself be vulnerable. As she walked down the stairs for the last time she felt nothing, her father and her mother were no longer in the stairway, instead there were strange people taking photos of the bloody step. With a large hat on her head, they shouldn't be able to tell she wasn't human. Nevertheless, it would be easier to take the elevator and avoid any interaction anyway. She stood at the metallic doors and waited for them to open; they didn't have handles so how was she supposed to get in?  Finally she spotted the button, she pressed it three times to be sure, and from behind the doors came mechanical whirring. The doors slid open with a ping and Cassie stepped into the metal box, one wall was coated in buttons. She'd never known the apartment block to have so many floors, even when she'd been outside as a young girl the travel down to the ground floor had seemed short. Cassie poked the button with the glowing G on it and stumbled as the elevator began to move, Cassandra's heart raced as she watched the progress bar on the side, she hadn't imagined the elevator to be so scary. A ping rang out as the elevator reached the ground level and the little girl jumped. She walked out as fast as she could with her head down; she reached the doors to the outside world. They remained closed, without handles and without a button, then Cassie remembered the need for a pass-key, she stomped her foot in frustration.
"What's the matter L'il Squirt?" A stocky man towered over her, his moustache like a furry caterpillar resting above his lips. Cassie made sure the knife was still hidden well beneath her shirt.
"I was out with my mommy and daddy, but I ran back to grab my sweater. Now I can't get back out!" These sobs were different from her previous cries, they were exaggerated and fake. The moustache-man looked deeply concerned, he crouched down next to her and patted her on the back.
"I know what'll cheer you up."
"What?" Cassie lifted her face from her hands and tried to look curious, in reality; she was getting bored of this man's condescending looks.
"This." He scanned his own key-card theatrically and the doors slid open, he smiled at her. She returned her biggest grin.
"Gee, thanks mister!" She turned and ran before he could get another word out. The streets were crowded; Cassie's mother had told her that it used to be a lot worse when humans were allowed to drive cars in the city. By taking out roads, the humans could make better use of space. Now, transport was underneath the city. With buildings reaching up and touching the clouds, and tunnels, trams and trains beneath them; the city was all about efficiency and beauty. What drew so many people to the city was the rainbow-life; windows were stained one way so that the light leaving the buildings was multi-coloured and people in the city wore assorted colourful garments. Everybody tried to stand out by adding more colours to their outfits, everything from shoelaces to watches were dyed and patterned. Near the edges of the city, one could find the homeless population that had been cleared from the heart of the area, colours didn't matter to them, all they wanted were warm clothes. Cassie had never understood why some humans were just left to starve and shiver whilst other stuffed themselves in heated rooms. These thoughts were coming together and Cassie was beginning to see the humans differently, but the little girl tried to cling to her faith as she wandered the streets looking for options. Surely there would be a human willing to take her in. She squeezed out of the crowded streets and into an alleyway, the smell from the rubbish bins berating her nostrils. Fatigue had set in and Cassie's mind was filled with thoughts of her warm bed, with the layer of plush toys on the top. Hot chocolate with mummy, while they watched the news and discussed current topics. Daddy reading books to her until he fell asleep on her bed with her, and mummy had to come wake him up. What was the point of remembering these things though? Cassie shoved all memories to the back of her mind. The sun was setting and the edges of the streets were beginning to glow, a couple of portions of pavement flickering from lack of maintenance. They looked like they should be warm but they were the opposite, the pavement was always cold no matter how long it'd been 'on' for. Cassie shivered, the sweater hadn't been a good choice but it was better than nothing. As the little girl fell asleep, Cassandra woke from her memories.
She breathed out deeply and noted that she'd been sitting there for about an hour, she wondered why her memories had stopped there, usually they went a lot further, reminding her of every pain she'd faced. Cassie, looking back, could make a list of every event that added to her eventual hatred of humans, underneath her scarf was the tally. Why was it that they always went for the neck? She tightened the scarf around her neck, just so she could feel the material rub against her skin. With the relief of no longer feeling the pain the memories brought with them, all that remained in Cassandra was anger, it was about time she cleared out another apartment of its occupants.

"Just stay there for a second." Aiden whispered. He'd promised to show her something really cool, so they'd left Poppy in Galen's care, much to his annoyance. Aiden crept behind a rather large bearded man; he was so silent that Sky doubted a cat would make less noise. The man was walking by himself; Sky had to stifle a giggle at how ridiculous he looked in his neon bright clothes. Aiden reached for the man's bright yellow shoelaces and pulled on the end of one of the strings. All while walking, unnoticed, behind the large man. Aiden tugged on the end of the lace and the man stumbled, Aiden swerved to the right as the man looked over his left shoulder. Satisfied that nothing had caused his trip other than his shoelaces the man knelt down to retie them. Aiden plucked the wallet from the back pocket of the man's pants and walked back to Sky cockily.
"That's stealing." She whispered, but she was already waiting for his rebuttal.
"Relax" he grinned. "I won't spend too much of his money, what I really wanted was this." Aiden held up a flat plastic sword about the size of his palm, in the poor lighting; Sky couldn't make out the words on it.
"How did you know he had it? It was in his wallet." Sky queried, knowing that she'd been distracted from her original argument. He shrugged.
"He looked the type."
"Type for what?"
"Just wait, you'll see." Aiden grabbed her hand and Sky's heart fluttered, she scolded herself. They'd held hands before, why was she reacting this way? He wasn't a threat, so what was it? Aiden pulled her along in the street, occasionally they'd pass a group of teenagers coming home from parties. As long as Sky kept Poppy's beanie over her head, and Aiden kept his hoodie up, they took no notice of the two. Sky skipped to keep up with Aiden, his face was alight with anticipation. Finally he stopped outside of a familiar building.
"The arcade?" Sky looked at him in confusion.
"Come on, it'll be fun." He dragged her to the door where a short man with spiked hair sat on a chair.
"Woah, Jim!" The short man stood up and opened his mouth in fake astonishment. "Long time no see!" He laughed. Aiden passed him the sword card he'd stolen earlier; the man took it with raised eyebrows.
"Yeah, I lost my card man. I had to borrow a friend's. Ya mind issuing me a new one?"
"Of course, dude, I had no idea you were friends with Toby." He scanned the sword at a tiny box near the door and the doors whooshed open, revealing a fantastical room filled with humans clicking buttons and swinging plastic swords. The sword-card was handed back to Aiden. Aiden and Sky went to walk inside but the short man held up his hand. "Who's this?" He gestured to Sky.  Aiden smiled and winked obviously.
"My plus one."  The man waved them in, chuckling.
"Alright, have a good one, Jim. Don't let me interrupt your date." Once they were inside and away from the door, Sky burst out laughing until her sides hurt.
"Jim?!" She cackled, unable to catch her breath. "Of all the names!"
"Hey." Aiden rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Come on, I'll show you my favourite game here."
"Okay...Jim!" Aiden had to stop to wait for Sky to be able to walk again. She wiped the tears away from her eyes and breathed out heavily. "I'm alright. I'm okay now." Sky resisted the urge to say the name again, but smiled widely so that Aiden knew she was thinking it. He pulled her along, shaking his head, and showed her to a strange console with music ringing from it. "What is it?" She asked, inspecting the wide screen and patterned floor connected to it. He beamed at her question; he'd been waiting for it. He held up a finger, telling her to wait. Aiden walked up to the screen and held up a hand until the machine beeped, he sorted through assorted options with a flick of his hand.
'3…2…1' the console beeped. Then music blasted from the large speakers besides the screen. Sky didn't know what she was expecting, but she certainly didn't think she ever see Aiden dance. He was good. The music was boppy and the screen and floor lit up in different spots, Aiden followed these different coloured lights with his hands and feet. A crowd had begun collecting, people cheered him on and yelled advice.  The song ended and the machine stated that his accuracy was one hundred per cent, this resulted in more cheers and people stepped forward to pat him on the back.
"Come on" Aiden urged, huffing slightly. "Have a go!" He grabbed her hand and yanked her onto to dance floor. Sky had never seen him like this, his eyes were alive and bright, and his grin unhindered and genuine. She tried to get off the machine's floor but the crowd pushed her back, yelling words of encouragement. Sky pulled her beanie down further and nodded solemnly. Aiden took up a pose with his legs apart and his arms by his side, he motioned for her to copy. A bright red dot flashed in front of Sky, she noted that Aiden had flicked his hand near the spot and it had disappeared so she copied. She worked it out pretty quickly; she had to keep track of the floor as well as the screen in front of her and tap or wave the dots away. Shortly after that, Sky realised that the dots appeared in time with the music and learnt to anticipate them. Some dots moved in circles or from side to side and she had to move her hands, or feet, with them. The whole time she could hear people yelling reassuringly when she missed spots, by the end she was sweaty and exhausted. The computer announced her score at forty per cent which looked pretty bad next to Aiden's full score, but he smiled at her in a way that she was happy he'd won, happy that he was happy. "Another round?"
"Hell…no!" Sky puffed, she backed off the machine as someone stepped up to challenge Aiden. She pushed back through the group of spectators and sat down at another consoles chair to watch. Almost all of the customers that had been in there had stopped playing to watch Aiden dance. Aiden checked to see if she was watching and hit some notes with his eyes closed. She grinned at him and gave him two thumbs up. Sky lost focus, she surveyed the arcade. There were so many games and flashing lights, if she'd had the time; Sky would have wanted to play every console there. There was a boy in the corner standing on a platform similar to the dance console but the screens of this game were filled with monsters. The boy swung a plastic sword at the virtual menaces and shouted at them to 'up their game'. Sky had no clue what that meant.
"Did you see when I got the blue-hand point using my foot?" Aiden's face appeared in Sky's line of sight and she jumped. The crowd was disappointed that they weren't each able to challenge Aiden.
"Uh, yeah." Sky lied. "You were amazing."
"I was, wasn't I?" He laughed as he sat down on the adjoining consoles chair. Aiden swivelled to face her and they looked at each other. His eyes were just so grey; Sky had trouble disentangling their true emotions from the melancholy that the colour gave out.
"Aiden…" Sky wasn't sure about how to get across what she was thinking.
"Yeah?" it was as if he'd only just realised he was looking at her, he quickly looked away.
"Did I ever… Did I ever say thank you? You know? For saving me and Poppy."
"No." He leaned in, grinning cheekily. "But I'll forgive you if you become my servant for the rest of time." Sky punched his arm, pretending to be annoyed as he laughed at her. The laughter died down and they were left sitting there again.
"Well… Thank you." Sky kissed his cheek; she could feel how warm he was. He jumped up in surprise.
"Woah! Woah! Woah!" He waved his arms and shook his head at her. "Sky. I'm sorry but that can't happen."
"What can't happen?" Sky crossed her arms but remained seated; her confusion was etched into her face.
"This" Aiden pointed between them both. "It just can't-"
"Aiden." Sky interrupted. "I have no idea what you're talking about; I was just saying thank you."
"Oh." He looked a bit disappointed for a second before his smile was back. "Did you wanna try out another game?"
"Sure"
"Guys." They turned to see Galen behind them, his hood up and his face worried.
"How'd you get in?" Aiden asked.
"Oh, I just pretended to be you, said I dropped my card and had to get back in. Whatever. We have a problem." Galen rushed through his sentence as though every second spent speaking was a second wasted. At the mention of a problem Sky scanned the area for Poppy, she wasn't there.
"Galen. Where's Poppy?"
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Hagilover01's avatar
Ahh! Sky kissed Jim on the cheek! Heehee oh Aiden! My silly boy!!