The Sky Drifter

THE SKY DRIFTER

PARIS SINGER

Booktrope Editions

Seattle, WA 2015

COPYRIGHT 2015 DAVID PARIS SINGER-CARTER

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Cover Design by Yosbe Design

Edited by Marisa Chenery

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

PRINT ISBN 978-1-5137-0085-4

EPUB ISBN
978-1-5137-0106-6

It is with deepest gratitude I thank everyone who so arduously worked on this novel to make it what it is today.

“There was a door to which I found no key;

There was the veil through which I could not see…”

~Omar Khayyam

SHE GRABBED SEVEN’S
hand and pulled him hard in her direction. “
This way
!” she exclaimed to both of them as the persistent shrill of the alarm sounded about the dark steel corridors.

Seven’s mind was still spinning. He disbelievingly looked back at his double to make sure he was still there. How far away the academy now seemed.

The mysterious bright yellow-skinned girl who held his hand had opened his eyes to a world that seemed too cruel to be real. Yet there he was, and there she was, her long, dark green hair swaying behind her. Part of him still clung to the hope it was all nothing more than a dream. That any second now he would awake to the sound of Pi or Iris banging on the door to his dormitory room, urging him to wake up lest they be late for class. Yet, the feel of her warm hand, the clanging of his boots on the cold metal underfoot, the stifling thin air he breathed, the sting of the cuts on his body and face, all felt real. A reality the likes of which he had never tasted before. This was the reality he had always been denied. A reality they had kept from him. A reality that wanted him dead.

The urgency of the situation still eluded him, for he had yet to see any attackers, and had only her word to cling to. The fact was, this new existence began and ended with her words, convincing as they were. His other self really
was
running behind him, and the mysterious girl’s desperation to escape seemed genuine. He trusted her, or wanted to. She could just as easily have left him there at the academy, and he would have been none the wiser, but she hadn’t. She had freed him. The truth had to be better than the perpetual lie he had inhabited.

They ran, weaving through flickering corridors, snaking past oily archways and doors. All of a sudden, any doubts he had vanished in a cry that sounded behind him. He turned as they stopped running to see his other self jerking violently, electric blue forks of light enveloping him. The horror of what Seven witnessed rocked him to his very core.

“We have to keep going!” shouted the mysterious girl, pulling at his arm once more. “
Come on
!”

Breath catching in his throat, Seven locked gazes with his duplicate, whose eyes shone as tears rolled down his cheeks, just before his body crashed limply to the ground beneath.

“
Come on
!” Like a rising echo, the mysterious girl’s voice shattered the veil that fogged his devastated mind, and he ran with her faster than he had before.

Seven now ran slightly ahead of the girl as she directed him toward a large doorway ahead. Upon crossing its threshold, he stopped, awed by the enormity of what was before him. He found himself standing on a long, narrow metallic bridge. Surrounding him was a tremendous, cylindrical area that extended up and down into pitch darkness as far as the eye could see. At the other end stood another doorway.

As he made to dash toward it, the bridge retracted into the dusty stone wall on the other side. Seven turned with haste, to make certain the mysterious, green-haired girl was behind him, ready to jump. Emerging from the depths beyond the doorway, she dragged herself to its threshold, clinging to her deeply slashed leg, dark blue blood gushing as she held it.

Panic coursed through Seven’s body. She looked at him, defeat and regret saturating her eyes. He was not going to lose her. She had released him from his prison. She had been his guide and saviour. She was his world.

“
Jump
!” he shouted, stretching out his hand, imploring her to take it.

He looked into her eyes, his mind ablaze with words he wanted to tell her. The girl whose name he didn’t even know had saved his life, had revealed the reasons and secrets behind his very existence, and he knew nothing about her. And now time was running out. With every beat of his heart, the bridge retracted a little more, and it would soon be too late for her to reach him.

“
Jump
!” he repeated so loudly his throat burned. Seven reached out as far as he could, tears streaming from his eyes, as the mysterious girl remained where she lay, gazing silently at him
.

BANG. BANG.
“SEVEN!
Get up! You’re going to make us late!”
Bang. Bang.

I stirred, grumbling to myself, as Iris continued to bang on the door. With her around, I didn’t need an alarm clock to wake me up. I wish the tune were nicer, though.

“Seven!”
Bang
.

“I’m up, I’m up!” I replied in a raised voice as I dragged myself from under the thick covers and onto the edge of the bed where I drowsily scratched my head.

“She’s losing it, man. You’d better hurry.” Pi was my other best friend. I could see his wide grinning face in my mind as he spoke those words, hoping Iris really
would
lose it for his own entertainment.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.”

I pulled on the first combats and jumper I saw as I scoured the piles of clothes, pizza boxes, books, and random objects scattered around my room for my boots. Once I finally found them, I quickly packed my black satchel bag with the textbooks I’d need that day, threw it around myself so it hung by my hip, grabbed a Dagon fruit from the table in the corner, and opened the door to my dormitory.

“Hi,” I casually said and then took a bite out of the round pink fruit.

“
Next
time I’m coming in there to get you!” seethed Iris, walking up to me, pointing her index finger in my face. “If I’m late again, I’ll get detention, which means I’ll have to help clean the school after hours. And if
that
happens,” she threatened, leaning in closer so we were face-to-face, “I’ll show you the
true
meaning of pain.”

Iris was as beautiful as she was fiery. She was an Arcus, a race who looked very akin to mine, but for their shimmering skins, which consisted of micro scales that shone every color of the rainbow. Despite her evident anger, looking into her large violet, almond-shaped eyes never failed to bring a smile to my face, which often annoyed her.

“Stop smiling,” she griped, her own lips curling into a reluctant smile as she tapped my shaggy hair-covered forehead with her palm, “This is serious.” As short tempered as she was, Iris couldn’t stay angry with me when I smiled at her, which also annoyed her.

“Could you guys carry on flirting as we walk? Because we really are about to be late,” noted Pi through a yawn, stretching his long, hairy arms as he ambled up the path.

Pi was an Acedian. A very placid, content race who, despite their rotund appearances, were tremendously strong, but too lazy to do anything about it. It was seldom that anyone attacked or viciously teased an Acedian, for not only did they possess enormous strength, they had relatively long claws at the end of their fingertips. Having said that, Pi would tell you that any one of his kind would choose lazing around eating over fighting any day. As I’d already mentioned, the Acedians were a naturally rotund, portly race, something they didn’t give a second thought to. Not Pi, though. Despite his perpetual lazy, laid-back attitude, he had a slight complex about his weight, wishing instead to be trimmer. As such, he despised the nickname “Pi.”

I should probably mention at this point that Pi and Iris were nicknames. At the academy, every student was assigned a number, not a name, for the purposes of “efficiency.” So, Iris’ “name” was really 11, Pi’s was 314. Mine was 7. Iris and Pi agreed it suited me, so I remained Seven.