The Broken Destiny (3 page)

“I have no choice, Ava. You should have listened,” she said as she made her way back to the dresser.

Sam pushed past me.

“You know what it will do to her, don’t you?” she spat.

“Yes,” Kim answered, picking up her dark blue purse from the dresser.

She placed her arms firmly against her sides and looking past Sam, stared at me hard and cold. “What do you want me to do? Lie? Again?”

I looked down at my hands and felt a great sadness wash over me. I was mostly feeling sorry for myself; always managing to ruin everything with my unyielding will.

“Yes,” I pleaded, as my eyes started to well up with tears.

“I don’t know if I can lie for you anymore. I push and push, and try to help you as much as I can, but Ava, I fear you don’t
want
any help. So now I must force my hand for your own good.”

I walked to my bed, crossing over the thick, woven rug in front of Sage’s empty bed. Her bed had been unmade for nearly four weeks by that stage.

“I’m sorry,” I said, sitting down on my bed, my hands in my lap.

Kim made her way toward the door.

“I have no other choice.”

Sam rushed over to her.

“Please, Kim, one last chance,” she begged.

“She had her last chance, six chances ago. The Council is unsettled.”

“Why? Because of who I am?” I raised my voice in anger, immediately regretting it.

“Yes, it’s precisely because of who you are, Ava – you know that.”

Kim’s lips pulled into tight thin lines, her eyes lowering to the floor. I saw her shoulders drop, and I felt guilt boil up inside me.

“I know it’s unfair, but the Council feels that you…” she started.

Someone on the other side of the door cleared their throat. It was clearly a man.

“I have to go. I’m sorry, Ava. I’ll make an excuse for your late arrival.”

“I’m not going,” I spat out.

“As you wish.” Kim spoke with a sorrow that made me feel hollow and cold from within, like I had just lost something special. She turned her back on us, and I heard two pairs of footsteps making their way toward the dark wooden stairs. The door slammed shut behind them, their voices echoing through the garden. It was definitely a male voice. The gate creaked open and I swore I heard him say “you’re doing the right thing”, before the gate shut and their footsteps clattered away into the distance. Sam sighed loudly, sitting down beside me, her hand gently rubbing the small of my back in hope of comforting me in some way. I think it was comforting to her, to comfort me.

“She’s given up on me,” I said softly, my eyes lingering on my fingers.

“On us,” Sam said quietly.

Later that evening, we had decided, much to my dismay, to attend the prize-giving ceremony after all and hoped that our cooperation would bring us less punishment. It was an academic evening and Sam received four neatly carved, wooden trophies. Two were for languages – Afrikaans and English, one for science and one for history. I only received one trophy and that was for art. It had been at least four years since I had been rewarded with more than one trophy, but quite frankly, I didn’t care anymore. I felt that everything about us was false. We were the first human settlers to arrive from Earth. The Minoans lived in a village near the seashore, but the two cultures hardly interacted despite the fact that they also held high positions on the Council. The Minoans’ village was humble. Their white cottages nestled up against the base of Mount Inja. A primitive village, it supplied us with raw materials and most of our herbal remedies. The Minoans also made good jewelry, only using semi-precious stones, the reason unclear to me then.

Kim didn’t look at us once that night, but she did applaud when we received our prizes. I was somewhat on edge because of it. Late that night, Sam and I lay quietly in our beds. The moons beamed a pale light through our window, but the stars seemed cold and distant. We were worried about how they would split us up, hoping that it was just a threat, but we knew that threats eventually lead to action.

“Do you think they’ll get someone to replace Sage?” I asked resignedly.

“I don’t know,” Sam said softly.

I could tell she was tired by the way she dragged out her words. Sage had disappeared almost four weeks earlier – with no witnesses to her disappearance. It was as if someone, or something, had just appeared out of thin air, picked her up and taken her to another world altogether. The nature of her disappearance pointed to a great plan. I had read enough detective novels to know what planning a successful kidnapping, and leaving no forensic evidence behind entailed. If it had been the Zulu people, they would have left their victim behind either barely alive or dead – with body parts missing, such as their eyes, tongue, or mouth. They were well known for their muti attacks, taking those various parts which were used to produce muti (medicine), or potions. We knew very little about their black magic, but we did know that the body parts were taken when the victim was fully awake and aware of what was happening. The organ, or body part, had to be full of adrenaline for the ancestors’ magic to work. The whole case was strange.

“Who was that guy with Kim tonight? Her date?” I asked Sam.

“Maybe,” Sam said through a yawn.

“He’s from the English School, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Oh, Sam, wake up!” I yelled and threw a pillow at her.

She turned her face into her own pillow.

“Don’t want to. Got a game tomorrow, remember?” she replied, her muffled voice tired and emotionless.

“Fine, good night then!” I said heatedly.

I lay there for a while, staring into the subtle darkness of the night. The treetops rocked gently from side to side. I wondered when it would rain again, when I would see dark, fierce clouds gathering and bolts of lightning livening up the sky. It had been almost three years since the seasons had changed. We were stuck in the limberness of mid-autumn, just like I was stuck on that damn planet, bored out of my troubled mind without a glimmer of hope – deep in nothing but a dark abyss of hopelessness. I snuggled in deeper under my covers, fighting off the cold that had somehow crept in, trying to imagine what it must have been like on Earth. I had seen depictions of it in the dozens of movies we had downloaded from the network. I wished that I had lived in the time before the final disaster, before they tore everyone away from their parents and brought them to such a primitive place where we lived a totally restricted life, and where our science was set against an almost brand new planet. I longed to live in a place where everyone got along and no prejudice existed. I dreamed of a land full of diverse cultures where everyone was free to be themselves, not mindless sheep like at our school. We had been carefully shaped into something of their design and given the persona they wanted us to have. I felt my anxiousness turning numb as I started struggling to keep my eyes open. My chest tightened, and my head felt heavy with worry and disgust. I was deep in dreamland, in another world altogether, when something brought me back. I froze, listening carefully. I couldn’t hear anything, but I definitely felt a presence outside our window – our second story window. The window slid open and a bright orange torch shone into the room. My body stiffened as I tried to call for Sam, but the dark presence had a paralyzing effect over me. The dark figures were inside the room in a matter of seconds. They were too fast to be human. My heart pounded inside my chest, and my arms stiffened against my sides as my body sank deep into the mattress. I felt myself slip away as they neared. I tried very hard to shake my spirit free and to save it from being sucked into the unknown, but I was in some weird state of paralysis. My lips wouldn’t move. My whole body was slipping away from me. I didn’t know if I would be able to escape, if I let myself fall into the darkness of unconsciousness. The two tall, dark figures made their way past Sam’s bed. I felt my soul shake violently as I fought for consciousness. I strained to pull myself free from the darkness that threatened my soul in a desperate attempt to grab Sam. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t scream.

“Ava!” I heard Sam shriek as one of the figures held a pillow over her face.

I need to get free
, I thought, as I struggled against my invisible restraints.

“Damn it, Ava!” she yelled, and I finally felt myself snap out of it.

Sam’s thumbs burrowed into my shoulders as she shook me. She stood inches away from my face, her breath warm against my cheek. I looked around – all was calm. There were no dark figures hiding in any corner of the room, but I did notice that it was unusually dark. The glow of the three aqua moons had faded. They lay behind a blanket of clouds.

“You scared me!” Sam exclaimed.

“Thank you,” I heard myself say, as I held my fists over my heart. “Just a dream,” I said, falling back into bed.

“A nightmare is more like it.”

Sam’s tone wasn’t calm and pleasant. A pale light fell on her face and I could see how puffy her eyes were. She must have been in a deep sleep. She stumbled as she climbed in next to me, and we lay spooning each other until she fell asleep. She lay behind me, her long arms stretched over my torso. Sam was there for me every time I had a bad dream; my safety blanket. Her deep breathing turned into a soft snore. I fought, and tried awfully hard to block out her snoring, but I couldn’t fall asleep, however. I lay there terrified of the shadows. Slowly slipping from Sam’s grip, I made my way to the kitchen thinking that a cup of warm milk and some comfort food would ease my angst. My feet hit the warm wooden floor and I thanked my lucky stars for technology; the invention of what is known as under-floor heating was amazing. I made my way down the stairs silently, so as not to wake any of my flat mates. As I stared into the fridge, my bare thighs broke out in tiny goose bumps. I looked over my shoulder in the direction the slight chilly breeze was coming from, and noticed an open window above the counter that held all our blenders and replicator apparatus. The stifling smell of smoke made its way toward me.
Who would have smoked down here
? I wondered. There were six of us in the apartment, but I couldn’t recall any of them ever smoking as it was forbidden to the female species. It must have occurred only a short while before as the smell of smoke was still heavy and potent in the room. I crinkled up my nose and shook it off. I continued to peer into the fridge, pulling out a canister of milk. I searched for some grapes, rummaging through the drawers to no avail, stomping my foot in disappointment.

“Typical.” I murmured.

My grandfather, being our founder, had left me a huge inheritance so I could afford luxuries and most people took advantage of that. The shoveling of boots on the wooden floor nearby startled me – I dropped the milk and spun round. My stomach churned. Quickly, I reached for the lamp on the countertop beside the fridge. We had had a water fight in the kitchen a few days earlier and had burned out some of the circuits that lighted up the bottom floor, so we were making do with an old touch lamp that didn’t seem to be working properly just then. I hit the sensor one more time. The lamp dimly lighted up the counter but the entire bottom floor was still flooded with darkness.

“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” a smooth voice said.

It was a male voice. I slammed the refrigerator door shut in shock, let out a small yelp as my finger got caught in the door, inwardly swearing at myself.

“Who’s there?” I inquired. “What are you doing here?”

My knees trembled.
I am sure it was a dream I had earlier
, I tried to convince myself.

“Eating grapes,” the silky male voice said, slicing through the silence.

I frowned at that. I could see him moving out of the shadows toward me, but I couldn’t quite make out his features, the majority of his face still covered in darkness. He stopped just shy of the light. His slight figure leaned against the edge of the wall that led up to our room.

“I asked you a question,” I said furiously.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “And, as I said, I am eating grapes.”

He promptly swallowed.

“Oh, and staring at your sexy legs,” he added, a hint of mischievous amusement in his voice.