Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Fantasy

Chapter 1: LibbyIt was a typical day in Gebbiesburg. Libby walked outside to get some water from the nearest well, ready to make dinner but still lacking the water for her soup. Soup was what was most eaten in Gebbiesburg since it was cheap and easy to make with the small amount of ingredients that were easily accessible in this poverty stricken part of Gebbiesburg. The country was divided into two main areas: the lower, dirty area where Libby lived, and the clean, rich area, near the bottom of the hill upon which King Gebbie lived. In the richer area of Gebbiesburg lived King Gebbie's advisors and closest friends and family. There was also an arena there, used to hold executions of those who didn't do exactly as the king commanded or follow his rules exactly. There was currently an execution happening, though Libby didn't care and did not have time to watch such terrible things, even if it was the execution of a Rebellion member accused of theft, and the Rebellion members always had dramatic executions. Libby turned her focus back to the task at hand and walked further towards the well, almost tripping over a few stray rocks that had come loose from their place in the makeshift road in the dirt, since the king only funded roads in The Prosperous Lands, as the lower class citizens called it. Picking herself back up, Libby continued walking to the well. After a few minutes, she finally made it and after a few minutes of pulling on the handle to get it unstuck, since it was old and oil was uncommon in the area Libby currently lived in.    When she finally got the handle to turn, she lowered the bucket into the well. The bucket got stuck about half of the way down. Libby sighed and looked around. She saw no one and thought it odd, since most others were done with work by now, since it was late evening. Libby was the oldest in her family, but still too young to get a job. She had finished the school day and came home to find her family had already left to see the execution, wanting any opportunity to see The Prosperous Lands. After another minute of tugging the handle, Libby gave up and tried to see if she could pull the ropes in the well, unsticking them and getting the well going again. She leaned over the edge of the well and tugged the ropes. Nothing happened. After another tug, Libby felt the ground under her shift. She almost fell in, but steadied herself and looked around. No one was there, and all she could see was smoke in the distance. This was reassuring, because it meant that someone had lit a fire in their house and that she wasn't alone in the town. Shrugging, Libby bent back over and tugged the ropes again. She was about the give up and try the handle again, when the ground shook again. This time, it sent Libby tumbling into the well, falling further and further, with no time to think. Prepared for death, Libby used what strength she had to reach out, trying to grab any stone or ridge she could to stop herself from crashing into the water that still seemed far below. Somehow, Libby managed to grab something. She didn't have time to comprehend what it was before she heard a sharp crack. It was the bucket. It couldn't support her. Crying out, Libby tried to pull herself up but the bucket swung and snapped again, this time a piece of wood falling into the water below, causing a distant splash to echo throughout the large well. Catching her breath, Libby, instead, grabbed the ropes supporting the bucket. She managed to pull herself up and swing her leg over the top of the bucket. Her arms ached from lifting her weight up the rope and she wondered if it might be better if she fell, since her family could barely support her two brothers, Jack and Carter. She realized that she was contemplating death when two minutes ago she had been getting water for dinner for her family, Libby tried to assess her situation. She was about ten feet from the bottom of the water and fifteen from the top. She had one leg wrapped around the bucket, one hanging down towards the water and both hand on the ropes that held the bucket aloft. If she lowered herself down, she'd still be about six or seven feet from the water, and while that probably not kill her, it might seriously injure her and Libby had never really learned how to swim, since such a picture wasn't available in the part of Gebbiesburg she lived in. If she stood on the bucket, she might be able to climb up if she pulled herself up the stone wall that now surrounded her, maybe snapping one of the ropes and using it like a harness by wrapping it around her waist, though the ropes we're old and it might snap if she slipped, and then she wouldn't have anything to grab if she fell, since the bucket would be dangling from one rope. She decided that her best option was to pull herself all the way up and sit on the bucket. Her family would be back soon and the village would make dinner, so someone had to come eventually to get water. Right?About an hour passed and Libby was about to doze off. She had managed to pull herself up and was now sitting in the bucket. Suddenly, the well shook again. A few small stones fell and made small splashes, snapping Libby back to reality. She hadn't even thought about the trembles when she was trying to save herself from dying. Now that she thought about it, it was odd, since Gebbiesburg never had earthquakes, let alone multiple. What was going on?Suddenly, Libby was pelted with splintering chips of wood, raining down from the small roof of the well. Libby looked up to see a hole in the roof, with a large claw sticking through it. Libby screamed and then covered her mouth, realizing she might have had a mistake. Her fears were confirmed when the claw pulled back and suddenly, the whole roof was shredded to pieces, the wood crashing down on her, cutting her face and then falling to the water below. Libby let go of the ropes to cover her face, but immediately grabbed them again after the bucket started to swing. When she looked up again, Libby saw a large white cloud? Was it a cloud? No, it was an eye. The eye, if you could call it that, was large, closer to an oval then a circle, and had a large, gold Iris, almost yellow, with small red and silver flakes. It was easy to see them, as the details seemed magnified by the largeness of the eye. Libby realized that she had been staring at the eye and not the thing it was connected too. When she looked around, she saw that there was not only a large eye, but a large lizard. With wings?Suddenly, Libby screamed again. It was a large silver dragon with claws bigger than her. The dragon blinked the way a lizard would, it's eyelids closing from the left and right towards the middle. Suddenly, it roared, a loud, awful sound, almost the sound of a train whistle mixed with a sound that resembled thunder, terrible and piercingly loud. Libby covered her ears and looked down, remembering where she was. She grabbed the ropes again but looked up when she felt stones hit her head. The dragon was sticking it's head in the well, trying to get to her, tossing stones and drool every which way. Libby screamed again and, suddenly, Libby heard another scream, outside the well. The dragon turned and, not before giving her one last tempted glance, pulled it's head out of the well and flew (Yes flew) away, towards where Libby could only picture a terrified citizen returning home early from the execution. Libby felt dizzy, unable to comprehend the situation. She felt like she was going to collapse and after a minute, she did, letting go of the swimming bucket and falling out, towards the awaiting water that had seemed so far below. Chapter 2: JackieJackie had awoken to find that she was on the floor. She wasn't surprised. The bunks in the Rebellion stronghold we're only about two inches thick and sat flat on the ground. They weren't comfortable, but they were hers, and they were all she had. Jackie lifted herself off of the floor, rubbing her eyes groggily. She didn't know what time it was, since clocks were hard to come by, there was no radio reception in the base, and they were underground, so there were no windows. After a minute, Jackie had fully woken herself up and she changed into her Rebellion uniform. It was dirty and wrinkled from not being washed, but she put it on quickly and walked out of her room, Room B, which she shared with four others, the four other top members. They were clustered into groups based on their performance on missions and trainings and Jackie was currently the best performer in the Rebellion, seconded by Victoria Santana, a friend of hers that had been in the Rebellion since birth. Room A went to Blake Sanders, the chief and head of operations in the Rebellion. Blake was one of the original founders of the Rebellion, and the only one left alive. The others had risked their lives for the Rebellion in hopes it would help even one person, and that had been their ultimate strength, but also their ultimate downfalls. When Jackie peered out of her room, she saw it was deserted. No one had been asleep still so she had assumed she would see the hallway bustling, as usual, since it connected all of the rooms and you needed to cross it to get in or out of any of them. Jackie thought for a second and then gasped. There was a meeting today. It was in the conference room and she had missed it. She bolted to the conference room, where all strategy planning was done and everything was laid out for missions. Now, it was packed with people but dead silent as Jackie walked in. She was absolutely silent, as she was still the best Rebellion soldier, but nothing got past Blake.He turned his head and looked at Jackie as soon as she put her foot to the floor. “Planning on skipping the meeting, Jacqueline? Do you think you could do this yourself? That you don't need anyone else?” Jackie shook her head and took her seat next to Blake, looking at the whiteboard he stood in front of and filling herself in. They were planning a mass jailbreak. This was normal, except this one appeared to be in the personal prison of King Egotistical Himself - King Scott Gebbie III, though he preferred King Gebbie. Some of the Rebellion members called him King Skit Gebber behind his back, since that was a name he particular despised. “So, Jackie?” Blake was back to using her nickname, showing the brief period of annoyance was over. “I can see you've seen the board. I'm assuming our best agent would be able to decipher it. What's the plan?”Jackie quickly reviewed everything on the board and what she thought was best and tried to recite what might have been said before she walked in. “We are going to have two of our members, me and Victoria,” She could tell from the numbers one and two written above two swo squares with small circles in them, their sign for members in disguise, “Disguise ourselves as guards, infiltrate the prison through the tunnel we had dug a while ago but never finished, may Officers 64 and 5 rest in peace and curse the Patrol Officers that caught them in the act, and and take out any guards guarding the cells and then find any switch or button, using force if we need to, to free the prisoners.” To anyone else, the board would only resemble a few shapes and arrows, but to an experienced soldier of the Rebellion, it was a plan. A pretty crude plan, but a plan. Blake smiled and told her good job, though it wasn't much of an accomplishment, even officers in Room R could identify the basic maneuvers laid out on the board. “Why, if I may ask, are we doing this? We don't need to get anything down there and it's a large risk. I didn't hear about this yet, which means it must be a new plan. Why such a rudimentary attack in such a heavily guarded area, and why put your two best soldiers at risk?” It was Victoria. It was the first time she had spoken, and, based on the round of nods from the others, she had asked what was on everyone's mind. Jackie turned to look to her, craning her neck far to the right, since Tori, as everyone called her, sat immediately to the right of Jackie, since the table was a large rectangle and She, Tori, and Blake were crammed at the head of it, with the other top 48 sitting on the long ends, tightly packed with 24 to a side. “They…” Blake paused, unsure if he wanted to say it. “They have Marysa, Hitzel, and Ernie. They were captured after they were caught on an enemy boat, dumping their resources into the ocean. They were quiet about it and did it at night, a little a day, but I guess they slipped up and someone heard. They've got 'em in the cells and we can't let our sixth, eighth, and Calculator get captured. We didn't think this would happen. We've got to do it.” Everyone gasped and someone muttered, “Ernie was never that good anyway, can we just save the Calculator and Hitzel?” This caused a few chuckles but everyone was to somber to laugh. We always poked fun at Ernie, since it was easy to do and he didn't mind it, but it wasn't as funny when he wasn't here to hear. Marysa was our Calculator, she did all the math and anything we asked her to. She was always kind and everyone really liked her. We couldn't train another Calculator, since no one here really had an education except her, since she came from a rich family, executed by King Gebbie for exposing him for his factual errors and grammatical mistakes in almost all of his announcements or propaganda. The king hated being proven wrong, and after Marysa's family was killed, she turned to the Rebellion, who happily accepted her, in need of someone who was educated. Hitzel was our sixth best agent, and a big asset to the team. Marysa had been tutoring her and she was the best at reading and a great spy, good at memorizing and reciting. She was our backup Calculator and now she was gone too. Ernie was our eighth best agent, though not the best at his job. He was pretty annoying and sometimes made others concerned for his mental health, since he was constantly laughing at his own jokes or just at nothing. We always joked about him and he was pretty clutzy and forgetful, but he was pretty quick and good in jailbreaks and hand-to-hand combat, also making him helpful to have. Losing all three of them together was a big chunk of our brain power and strategists, which is why everyone was so upset about them being imprisoned. We had known they were on a mission to help us dwindle the king's supplies by raiding and dumping a shipment of goods, but this was the first time we had learned that they had been caught and captured. We had sent our Calculators to help them decide how much to dump each day, bring back, and keep, so that no one became suspicious. It was terrible that they were gone, and it was a priority to get them back. Now, Jackie didn't doubt the plan and wanted to go to battle immediately. “I figured, if we set one free, we set 'em all free, since they still have some of our other members and some innocents,” Blake said looking around the room. Everyone nodded in agreement. After a moment, Blake said, “Meeting adjourned,” Motioning with a flick of his hand towards the door. When I turned towards the door, too, I felt someone grab the neck of my shirt and pull me back. I turned and punched,  in reflex and heard Blake groan. He fell to the floor, clutching his stomach. “Seriously? I was just going to keep you and Tori back to review the plan since you, you know, weren't here for most of it. What'd you go an do that for?”Jackie apologized, but still laughed a little, and after a minute, Blake got up, motioning Tori, who had voluntarily stayed behind and Jackie to sit, no wherever they wanted. They both sat next to each other and, after a minute, Blake asked, “This is a big mission. Are you ready for it?” They both nodded, knowing that if they died, they would die fighting. Chapter 3: HitzelHitzel hated these handcuffs. They were tied too tight, the rope digging into her wrists. She wished she could do that thing that all the others could do, where they could just slip out of their bonds in these situations and run. She probably wouldn't escape then, even if she could find a way to get out of her restraints. She was fast, don't think that she wasn't, but these were trained Gebbie Soldiers of the Gebbie Army, and she was a Calculator in training, mediocre spy, and a low level soldier. All of her skills had helped her climb the ranks in the the Rebellion, but she failed almost all of the physical tests, causing her to fall to sixth place, only slightly above Alex, another soldier. Now, she was tied up, along with Marysa and Ernie, headed toward a cell that seemed miles away from where they had entered. She knew her friends would come for her. In a way, they had too, as she and Marysa were the only Calculators they had. Now, as she walked past cell after cell, she heard nothing. She peeked through the bars and saw nothing. They were so far into the dungeon that no one was even in the cells. Finally, after an eternity, they had  almost  arrived at the end if the hallway. She could see the end now, and a ladder  leading down another floor. The guard pushed his muzzle into her back, forcing her further ahead as she saw another of the guards open a cell and force Marysa in. She didn't resist, since she was the least athletic of all of them and knew that if she and Ernie hadn't run yet, they weren't going to, and they knew they were overpowered. They locked it and the guard that had forced her in fell back into their block formation, surrounding her and Ernie on all sides, giving them nowhere to go and no way to escape. The guards pushed her further, Ernie now ahead, almost guiding himself with no guards in front of him, just a few behind, their weapons aimed directly at his back. After a few more places, the guards opened another door and, now, forced her into it, not bothering to release her from the ropes. The guard lingered for a minute and she almost thought she saw them wink before they pushed her into the small, damp cell and locked the door. After a second, she regained her balance from the forceful push and ran back to the door, trying to get the best glance she could at the guards, now opening the hatch and forcing Ernie down. She saw him almost leap down the ladder, ignoring the bars. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to get ahead and save time so he could make a break for it. She hoped it would work and the guards didn't seem to notice, but after a minute, she heard one bark an inaudible command and the sound of footsteps receding into the dark. After another second of confusion, she realized she didn't have time to stay and watch. She now was sure the guard had winked at her. She hadn't looked around yet, but she saw nothing in the cell but a slab of metal with a thin sheet on it. Hitzel groaned and leaned against the door in frustration. How was she going to get out of this without being executed? When she walked away from the door, she tried to examine everything in the room, but it was so dark that she couldn't see anything. After her eyes adjusted, she realized that part of the floor seemed a different shade. When she approached it, she realized it wasn't the floor, but a piece of paper that had been slipped under the door. She grabbed it and immediately hurried over to the darkest corner of the cell, covering herself with the blanket. If anyone saw her with the letter, she may as well have asked to be executed. Though it was safest to read in the dark, she could barely make out the words, but, eventually, she thought she understood it. It read: “Hitzel, we are coming. We are finishing tunnel we started awhile ago. It will be a few days, so sit tight. It's Lennon, by the way. I don't know if you know my name, and it's an honor if you do, but I'm agent 32. I might die, but getting this message to you was important. Jackie and Victoria are on their way and will get to you soon. Get word to Marysa and Ernie somehow. There should be a pen somewhere near where I got this note to you. Take it and write back if anything important happens. Slip the note under the door when you see a guard with the number 15 on it, and we will bring it to everyone else. Be careful, and be alert. -Agent 32”Hitzel immediately got out of her bed and ran to the door after finishing reading the note. She got on all fours and searched for the pen that had been mentioned in the letter. She found it a bit further from the door than she had expected and it took her a while to find it. She must have kicked it when she was trying to read the note. She hid both under the sheet and tried to think about what to do now. She had known Lennon, but they weren't close. She was constantly changing ranks and Rooms, so they had never really talked, since she never left Room C, being the sixth agent. After a second of thinking, she decided to see if she could communicate with Marysa. Marysa had taught her Morse code, so she tried to see if she could hear her, since she had only been placed about a cell away. She grabbed the pen and paper, deciding to use it to record their conversations. She tapped, “Can you hear me?” Writing, “-.-. .- -. / -.-- --- ..- / .... . .- .-. / -- . ..--..” on the paper. After a minute or two, she heard a series of knocks and wrote them down. “-.-- . .- .... .-.-.- / .- -. -.-- / .. -.. . .- / .- ... / - --- / .... --- .-- / .-- . / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / --. . - / --- ..- - / --- ..-. / .... . .-. . ..--..” was what she ended with, meaning, “Yeah. Any idea as to how we will get out of here?” “Yeah, I got a letter from Agent 32 under the door. They have a plan and they plan to execute it soon.” From there, Hitzel tapped the contents of the note, writing what she said and what Marysa said. After a moment, Marysa replied, “Sounds good. What do we do until then?”“Wait. All we can do is wait.” And then, silence.