Page 12 of The General's Captive
And he was…utterly breathtaking.
Handsome in a majestic but deadly way. Everything about him was dark and dangerous. Starting with his raven black hair that was tied back from his striking face. The shadow of stubble against his regal cheekbones, the perfect cut of his jawline… and those dark eyes made me question if he even had a soul. The high, stiff collar to the cloak he wore, hid the rest of his side profile and what I could well imagine was a corded neck. Perhaps the hint of muscle, because the guy seemed huge.
A larger-than-life predator.
He was the epitome of sin and death.
One who seemed to unknowingly hold my life in his hands.
I waited with bated breath to see what he would do next, because it was like he was trying to seek me out. As if he knew, somehow, I was in here hiding. Waiting to see if I would cave first and burst from the cupboard. Spring out of here and beg him for mercy in the face of being left here to be burnt alive.
But then he turned his head to face the others I couldn’t see.
“No, leave it…” He paused, looking directly at where I was hiding and said, “Leave it for…”
“…The Forsaken.”
The General.
True name unknown.
Appearance – Very Tall. Well built. Black hair. Dark, soulless eyes. Chiseled jaw. Looks like sin incarnate. Annoyingly handsome… seriously annoying.
Kill rate – Class One
Strengths – Commands an army of monsters (so yeah, not great).
Weaknesses – Unknown.
Notes: Could be the Devil?
As I looked down at my journal, and all the changes I had made over the years, a sigh followed. It felt like a lifetime ago that I skipped those first five pages of my old life and started a new one. I don’t remember when it was that I ripped them out in anger an unwanted reminder of my past life. A life that, at this point, I knew I would never get back.
It was simply all about survival now. Making it from one day to the next being the twenty-four-hour end game. That hope I once had was long gone. I wasn’t sure exactly when it happened… Could have been after the first six months, the first year… sometime in the next two after that. Most likely, it was when they had finished…
The Wall.
This was the American government’s solution to the outbreak of those now known as ‘The Myths’. No longer monsters, creatures, or beasts, and,thank fuck,people had stopped calling them aliens. They were the Myths and we were The Forsaken. That had been the line drawn in the sand by the rest of the world.
I hadn’t thought much about it the day I first heard the word coming from The General, and I had no idea how the term for us had made it out to the rest of the world. It was something the media had latched onto pretty quickly, though. Especially as more and more blockades, barricades, and any other fucking ‘cades’ popped up to stop us from making it to safety. They called it too much of a risk. Even going so far as trying to make the world believe we might be infected by the Rift or some shit.
We called it bullshit.
While we were here, left barely trying to survive, they were building a fucking wall to ensure that they would remain safe. Because wouldn’t you know it, the whole of America had come together to ensure the safety of its boarders. The whole country’s resources poured into it, to ensure it would get built… to eliminate the threat to the outside world completely.
It was the biggest undertaking the US had ever taken, with funds coming in to help from the rest of the world. Their own governments having been convinced that, if they didn’t, then the potential was the Myths branching out further. In the beginning, the biggest concern with this was centered around the winged creatures. However, for some reason, they never ventured too far from the actual Rift itself.
The conclusion was that they gained some sort of power source they needed to feed on. The land Myths, however, were a different story and no one knew why. In fact, there wasn’t much we did know about the Myths, only that those stuck trying to survive life inside the wall knew how to kill them.
Myself included.
Because I had gathered all the information I could on them. My journal had become much more than just a field guide by this point, but more like a bible on survival. And I had become pretty good at it. Then again, a lot had happened in the last three years. In fact, when I thought back to my earlier days I wondered how the hell I had survived at all. Long gone was the girl who kept her weapons in a bag or thought waving around a knife and hoping for the best was a good idea. To be honest, most of those first six months had felt more like dumb fucking luck.
Especially after thousands had died… Half of them, most likely, by our own kind, whether it had been the government issued ‘shoot on sight’ order when trying to climb the fences, or by people willing to kill for a can of gas or a gun and six bullets. I saw one guy kill another just over a fucking candy bar once.
The term survival of the fittest became a fucking joke for some people, because it was more like survival of the evilest. Human decency was a thing of the past for most. People tossed away their moral compasses for as little as a can of soup.
But then there were those of us who had managed to keep our humanity and form groups, where strength in numbers became a thing. A place where we could live a semblance of a life. And when the nights were at their darkest and we were picking ourselves up after a friend’s death, or a bad attack, there were those of us who were grateful to have survived. And then there were those of us who wondered why they didn’t just fucking bomb us by now.
