Authors: Shane Mason
The Omega Children - The Return of the Marauders (A young adult fiction best seller): An Action Adventure Mystery (37 page)
‘What are you waiting for? Go down and mix,’ said Master Saurian from behind.
They turned and looked, though were unsure.
‘Afraid,’ Master Saurian asked.
‘I'm not afraid,’ Quixote said bounding off into a crowd of children. ‘There must be someone in here that will play.’
‘I'm not afraid either,’ Ari said, following Quixote.
From behind Master Saurian
,
Discipliners started appearing. Melaleuca recognized some of them as those that had visited Aunty Gertrude that morning.
‘We have to get down there,’ Melaleuca said.
Ari caught up with Quixote in time to see him talking to a group of older teenagers who were backing away and staring at him. Once the girls joined them, a small ring of students started to close around them, though they kept their distance and just stared. A commotion broke out and a disturbance shoved its way forward through the crowd. Suddenly a male student ejected himself from amidst the crowd and approached them. He looked like a smaller version of Master Saurian, but without the scales on his face.
‘So you are the outsiders,’ he said with a brash, cocky manner.
‘I am Ari and these are my cousins Melaleuca, Lexington and Quixote.’ Ari said.
‘I am Jerkin Bod’armor. I hail from the oldest house here, the House of Steel.’
The crowd cheered him.
Unsure what to say in return, the cousins offered a moments silence.
Jerkin drew in a deep breath.
‘WELLL!’
‘Oh great another person who yells,’ Quixote said.
‘WHAT?’
‘You’re yelling,’ Quixote said. ‘That's all anyone ever does here. Not very intelligent.’.
‘Troublemakers. We know how to take care of your sort,’ Jerkin yelled to the crowd.
‘Take care!’ Lexington said. ‘Take care,’ and trying to use her gentleness on him, added, ‘No one is taking care of us.’
The lilt of her sweet voice puzzled Jerkin, unsure how to respond. But then like the man ripping out flowers, he snarled back and said, ‘We’ll take care of you all right.’
Ari and Quixote tried to form a cordon around Lexington and Melaleuca.
‘Save your breath,’ Melaleuca said. ‘They want our blood.’
Jerkin muscled up to them, folding his scarred and gnarled arms.
‘How did you do in your tests? What was your score in Bramble Spread? Tell me how you mastered Disciples Park, and please tell the whole crowd how well you did in the Unforbidden Forest.’
Jerkin grabbed Quixote’s hands.
‘Look,’ he yelled to the crowd, ‘The hands of a child, white and without blemish.’
A horde of boys rushed forward, knocking the cousins off their feet. Within seconds they lay on the ground with yards of rope wrapped so tight around them they could not move.
‘What shall we do?’ Ari yelled to Melaleuca.
‘Think.’
‘Of what? All the possibilities. A little late isn't it,’ Lexington said.
Ari pushed with all his might against the ropes to no avail, while Quixote rolled over and over and over, bashing in to the legs of some of the onlookers. Melaleuca and Ari started rolling into the crowd as well.
‘Stop them or I will crack skulls,’ Jerkin shouted.
The vast array of boys and girls overwhelmed their valiant effort to escape. The crowd carried them back to Jerkin. Jerkin led them behind the old, run-down building to an area that looked like gallows from an ancient culture. Posts stood erect out of black concrete like decaying crucifixes that had lost their crossbars.
‘Strap them in!’
Still bound tight, they were pushed onto the posts, and strapped against them with large leather belts.
‘Stay calm,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Just relax. Say nothing.’
Jerkin strode up to her, stared her in the eye and said, ‘After the Discipliners, I am in charge. This area all around here is mine. I am in control.’
In her coldest tone Melaleuca spoke back.
‘We know little of these animosities. Let us go now and all will be well with you. I may even spare you future embarrassment.’
The cheering crowd fell silent. No one had spoken to Jerkin like that before; no one ever spoke back to any one older than them. No one dared threaten Jerkin. It was just the rules.
At first Jerkin did not reply; he seemed disturbed by Melaleuca’s words, and then with his rough hand he seized her chin, squeezing it.
‘We shall see how defiant you are after this.’
He snapped his fingers and stood back.
More children came running carrying buckets of water. Carefully they poured the water over the ropes, soaking them fully until they were waterlogged. Large teenage boys with low foreheads and squinty unintelligent eyes stepped forward and yanked hard on the ropes, forcing air out of them.
‘As the sun rises and the ropes dry they will tighten even more,’ Jerkin said. ‘I have seen arms drop off, legs wither away to purple, and even heads explode with this exquisite form of discipline. Pass this, and I shall hate you still of course, but will allow you to step foot on my territory.’
The crowd cheered and hurled abuse after abuse at the cousins before dissipating.
In bleak desolation the ropes hugged them to the poles.
The ropes tightened, millimetre by millimetre squeezing their body at a snail’s pace.
Melaleuca pushed against the ropes and gasped.
‘Don’t give up. Imagine, play, pretend.’
Ari grunted and pushed with all his might, though he ran out of strength for the first time ever.
Lexington let out a desolate cry.
‘Should have gathered facts….run away….searched for parents…fine mess Mel.’
Doubt gnawed at Melaleuca. How could they pretend now? In mild shock, she cast her eyes around, searching for ideas. An empty field of wild grasses lay behind them, leading to the hills of the southern wasteland. Uninviting, eroded and yellowed, and possessing great grey patches of rock, it offered little hope. Even the run down building before them gave off an air of defeat; its empty, broken windows appearing like hollowed out eyes on a skull. And, of course, rearing up behind it stood the Vahn.
Quixote strained his head as far forward as possible, craning to look toward Melaleuca.
‘Hey… Lex, Mel…..guess what I am.’
‘What?’ Lexington asked.
He craned further.
‘Look.’
Melaleuca pushed her head forward, catching sight of his scrawny head jutting out past Ari and Lexington’s head.
Quixote put his head to one side and hung his tongue out.
‘I don't get it,’ Lexington said.
‘A mummy. Get it. A mummy. These ropes are my bandages.’
Lexington broke a weak smile, and Quixote laughed but then gurgled in pain as the ropes tightened more.
‘Hey Lex,’ he said, straining in pain.
‘Oh what!’
‘It's too much, too much, they are stopping me breathing, ahhhhh.’
Quixote screamed.
‘Quixote. Quixote. Mel, Ari, Quixote can't breathe.’ She struggled with her ropes, and they tightened more.
Quixote contorted his face in great pain.
‘Got to…..let some……air out.’
He screamed again. A loud “whoooooommmpping” noise erupted, followed by the sound of air squeezing through a narrow gap. Quixote roared with laughter, gasping for breath, yelling out, ‘We...should....call ....these...fart....machines....’
‘You bloody rotter. I thought you were gone for.’
What an idiot.
Yet felt gladdened by his stupidity and for his happiness in the face of adversity.
The ropes tightened more, creaking against the post they were tied too. They tightened across Lexington’s bladder creating a desperate urge to pee. The pressure increased until she could no longer hold it. Instead of running down her legs it spread throughout the ropes, loosening them slightly.
‘Pee...on...the...ropes,’ Lexington shouted. ‘It will...loosen them!’
Melaleuca, Ari and Quixote concentrated on peeing as much as they could. Quixote went first.
‘Push against the wet ropes, Qui!’ Ari said. ‘See if you can prize a hand loose.’
Quixote tried, but he laughed so hard, he could not control himself.
Ari managed to soak the ropes from his waist down and started kicking and struggling, using his immense strength to loosen the ropes. Soon a considerable gap opened between his legs and the ropes. Enraged, he kicked and kicked, starting to break through the ropes. His leg ropes loosened, though the ones binding his torso tightened suddenly, squeezing more air out of him.
‘It’s...no...good...differ...rent...ropes.’
The minutes raced by, and the sun circled in front of them drying the ropes out, tightening its grip on them even more. The ropes across their chest hampered their breathing, so much they could only take little gulps of air. Lexington’s lips turned blue and Melaleuca started to feel faint-headed, while Quixote, lacking of oxygen, started to see flashing lights about his head.
The minutes soon turned to an hour, and then another hour and then another. The black concrete gathered heat, radiating it at them. Their lips dried out and cracked, and their vision blurred, and their throats parched.
By the time students had spilt out again onto the fields for another break, the cousins felt too faint and light-headed to care. Even Quixote failed to respond to the few students that came to jeer and taunt them.
The fields emptied again.
Continued in book 2 -
The Omega Children: The Vahn & The Bold Extraction.
See over for details………
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The Vahn and the Bold Extraction
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The adventure and mystery continue in book 2, "The Vahn & The Bold Extraction," as the Omega Children carry on trying to solve what they are embroiled in, despite no one telling them anything.
The Cousins endure more extremities of the Vahn in book 2 yet have to find a way to survive and stay true to their great instructions. The unknown fate of their parents starts to pale away as they are thrust even deeper into the workings of the hidden land of "New Wakefield."
Their Aunt continues to try and get rid of them, finally flipping and against the wishes of their Uncle commits them to a course of action they cannot turn back from, no matter how powerful they think they have become. She has one desire, and that is to destroy them.
Lord Daquan discovers that they have the bracelets and stops at nothing to retrieve them, while the Vahn puts intense pressure on them to conform to the Vahn’s ways – even to the point of entering them into a life and death struggle.
The cousins must pit their cultured "innocence" against the Vahn’s dark, foreboding presence, and once again remain unchanged.
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