Savior in the Dark:
Chapter 2: Shattered
By: Varyn
It had been 3 weeks since Varyn had first seen that blade glittering at her in the blackness, yet she still got up every morning and went to her stupid job, came back every evening and went to sleep. She was beginning to think her musings about fate had been no more than the idle speculation of an overactive mind mixed with the mysterious night. The only thing that had changed at all was that she now carried her old sword with her whenever she could, and displayed it proudly on her wall when she could not.
In another 3 weeks she would be fervently wishing that this, and no more than this, had been all that was altered in her life.
****
What an odd sort of day.
She’d been very much on edge and she could not know why. There simply seemed to be an oppressive heaviness in the air, an intangible rising in pressure.
When Varyn reached the entrance to her little apartment and that eve and found the door broken ajar, something more than the fear of a break-and-entry pulled at the back of her mind.
Upon entering, she found everything turned utterly upside-down. This was to be expected. What unsettled her further, however, was that not a single thing, even her highly valuable stores of weaponry, had been stolen.
She sat down on her beat-up old couch, trying to sort out what she thought of all this. Outside, darkness was falling quickly.
The fact that nothing was taken is a good thing…After all, it is not like I could afford to replace any of it, so it would have been lost forever.
Suddenly it struck her that the whole apartment complex seemed to have gone very quiet—usually there were endless noises of people coming and going in the halls, voices, even music. Perhaps it was only her mind’s fearful state altering her perception, but she really could have sworn that everything had just gone a little too quiet.
Just when she really began to strain to hear some noise, any little noise that there might be, the phone rang loud and clear, and she nearly jumped clean out of her shiny metal skin.
It rang once, and she sat frozen on the couch, her knees drawn up to her chest, her breath ragged. She stared at it as if it had no right to disturb the silence she had just been wishing something would indeed disturb.
It rang twice, and slowly, she moved to answer. She had no idea what was making her tremble so fiercely as she lifted it to her ear, but tremble she did. She could not make herself say ‘Hello’ even though some logical part of her brain was trying to tell her this was ridiculous, and it was probably something like a utility calling to remind her about a bill, or some other mundane subject.
A clear, calm, female voice made one simple statement without preamble:
"In about 2 cycles a team of security ‘bots are going to come to take you to a mental hospital. Do not fight them. Do not resist…You HAVE to trust me. This is going to save your life."
With that, they hung up.
Varyn slowly made herself do the same.
Why? Why is this happening? What could I have done?
She made sure her sword was concealed within a secret back compartment, even though she remembered full well that she had placed it there—she just needed the comfort of knowing she had it. She wandered around the little room bemusedly, wondering what she should take, if she would need to take anything, if she would even be allowed to take anything, and just as she began to think this must all be some horrible prank, 6 well-armed ‘bots burst through the door. They didn’t even struggle with her.
They shot her instead.