Shadows and Stars

by Becca Fanning

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  LYNXED

  Who can she trust when everyone is a stranger?

  Transported to another dimension, she must learn to survive in this new world.

  Making a friend, she thinks all is well, but things aren't as they seem.

  She must trust herself or risk losing her heart!

  ONE

  MY BACKPACK HUNG heavier than usual off my shoulders, but today the extra weight brought me much closer to freedom than its emptiness ever had. I was finally running away from the orphanage and starting out on my own. No one knew who my parents were or where I had come from, just that I had been at the orphanage for as long as they could recall. The fact that Annie Fae’s Orphanage had the highest turnover rate of any orphanage in the country, might have had something to do with that. The orphanage was situated in the slum of the country, Platham, a city of low lives who thrived on stealing, murdering, and anything uncouth. The orphans who inhabited Annie Fae’s took on the characteristics of Platham City and we were definitely birds of a feather, which was why so many good-hearted Orphanage employees ran at their first opportunity. One lady had worked for only one hour before hightailing it away and didn’t even bother to pick up her check.

  I was finally going to escape the pit of despair and start out on my own. I should have been kicked out a month ago, after I had turned seventeen, but for some reason Glarisa, the head of Annie Fae’s, hadn’t wanted to let me go. She tried many times to bribe me into staying and becoming one of the workers there. She even tried to appeal to my darker side and suggest that I could get back at the younger hot heads who were still there once I was their superior. Little did she know that I had never been at the bottom of the pool as they thought, but the leader from behind the scenes all along.

  The day was crisp and smelled of urine and feces as Platham always did. I had never been outside of the city, but I had heard some of the employees discussing how sweet other cities smelled in comparison and could not wait to smell them myself. A place that didn’t always smell like dung was unfathomable, but much wanted.

  “Where’s a sweet thing like you off to in such a hurry?” a deep voice asked from the alley mouth I passed by.

  “If you step in my path I might have to alter course and head to the cleaners to see how much your liver will fetch me,” I threatened him and continued on.

  He scoffed, but didn’t step out of the shadows.

  I wasn’t much of a fighter in truth, but I had learned that many bullies were actually bluffing and would back down if you didn’t. Today was the beginning of a new life for me, a life where threats and violence were commonplace and where death wasn’t simple matters to be forgotten the next moment.

  Skirting around trash piles and rats seeking out their next meal, I hurried towards the bridge that crossed the Shum River and my freedom. I stopped at the edge of the bridge and took one last look at the city I had grown up in before walking onto the metal bridge and taking the farthest step I had ever taken from the orphanage since birth. A smile slid from one corner of my mouth to the other and one step after another, I marched down that metal giant, over the brown waters of the Shum, and then stepped onto the mainland, Paradisia City. Paradisia had several high-rise buildings that seemed to defy gravity with their odd structures, sidewalks that gleamed with absolutely zero trash piles or rats, and trash cans which weren’t on fire or surrounded by the homeless.

  I never believed that a place so clean and nice could be just on the opposite side of the river, but here it was. I inhaled and was surprised to catch only a faint whiff of Platham on the wind. Here it smelled like, bread? Yes, it was fresh baked bread from a bakery just a block away from the bridge. I could see a man and woman bustling about the shop as they prepared for the day ahead. It was four in the morning, according to the giant clock on the high rise in the center of the city and within an hour commuter traffic would boom as people went to work.

  My stomach growled hungrily, but I ignored it as I headed towards the nearest city park where I could watch the city’s activity safely out of everyone’s way and start to learn all that I could from them. Everything was so clean and the park was green, flowers growing instead of just thorny vines and brown leaves. I inhaled and could smell the flowers, which I had assumed were fake due to their bright colors. I had no idea that real flowers were so vibrant and different looking. There was a bench near a trash can and I sat down on it in anticipation. None of the other kids understood why I wanted to explore Paradisia. They didn’t understand what could be fun about watching birds fly on a cool breeze that smelled of yeast and roses or how watching a business man in a suit go from the coffee shop to the bakery to the office was interesting. I enjoyed every aspect of human life and I was beyond ready to experience the brighter side of it now that I had escaped the darkness of Platham.

  “Good morning,” an elderly woman greeted me as she walked by.

  “Morning,” I replied cheerfully.

  In Platham no one greeted each other with such friendly abandon. I was already in love with this city and I had been here less than an hour.

  The day wore on as I continued to watch the citizens on their various paths, some out for a morning jog through the park, some walking their dogs, but most on their way to work. The sun warmed my face and the chill of morning began to dissipate. I stretched my arms and legs while I sat on the bench and squealed with satisfaction at the end.

  “Are you alright, Miss?” a police officer asked me.

  I nodded with a bright smile. “Just enjoying the day.”

  He looked up at the clear blue sky and smiled. “It is a nice day today. I heard it will be around eighty-five this afternoon, which is perfect in my opinion.”

  I nodded my agreement and he continued on his way, patrolling the park. I had tried to explain to other orphans at the orphanage that cops are not the bad guys. Sure, they might look at those living in the orphanage a bit harder than anywhere else, but that’s because most of us got into trouble. If you didn’t do anything wrong, the cops weren’t going to hassle you. Now I had firsthand experience that I was right.

  Foot traffic died down in the park and the area I was in so I walked through the park, admiring how green and alive everything was. Nothing lived across the bridge except some creepy trees that crows perched from at night. Bright pink flowers swayed in the soft breeze and I could smell them from ten feet away.

  “If you like roses, you should smell these?” a man said from somewhere in the flower beds.

  I tilted my head as I tried to find him, but it wasn’t until he stood up that I found him. He was tall, well over six feet, and terribly ugly. I smiled politely at him and asked, “Which flowers were you suggesting?”

  He pointed at some pink and white flowers off to his right and I pranced over to smell them. He was right, they were incredible smelling.

  “These smell wonderful,” I told him.

  He nodded and resumed adding what looked like black dirt around the base of the flowers. “Thought you might enjoy them. Most who cross the bridge find their way here and those are almost always their favorite.”

  I tensed and asked, “What do you mean cross the bridge?”

  He looked up at me and very seriously said, “It’s not hard to recognize. We all have the same wide-eyed awe when we come over here.”

  “You…are from…”

  “I lived in the orphanage until I was eighteen and then I came over here,” he answered. He resumed working and said, “If you go
to Seventh and G you’ll find a small building with a flower on the door. The owner’s name is Tippy and she can get you some stuff just to get you started. Might even have a job or know of where to go for you.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered in disbelief.

  “Life is better over here,” he told me and then looked at me with an expression that left no doubt about where he had been raised. “But you keep your eyes open and your back protected. The ones likely to stab you in the back here don’t carry knives, they use wits and words as weapons, and they’re just as deadly.”

  I thought I knew what he meant, so I nodded and took one more sniff of the flower before thanking him and leaving. The place he had told me to find was fifteen blocks away and it took me an hour to get there because I kept getting distracted by the weird architecture of buildings and interesting people walking by. The flower on the door was the same as the one he’d had me smell and I wondered if this was a trick. Was this some trap that they set up to catch us and keep us from living over here?

  “We don’t bite,” an old woman in a pink muumuu said as she lit a cigarette from inside the window.

  “I, uh…” I stammered nervously.

  “We ain’t goin’ta kill you or anything. I’m just an old lady with lots of time on ‘er hands and know what it’s like to live over there. Who sent you here?”

  “I didn’t get his name,” I admitted. “He was working in the park.”

  She nodded. “Jonas, he’s a good boy. Well, come in so I don’t have to talk to you through the window.”

  I opened the door and stepped inside what looked like a shelter instead of the small house it appeared to be. There were tables of baskets with various supplies, stacks of papers and forms, and medicine supplies along the wall. The old lady was the only one in the front room, but I could hear others moving around in other rooms. It smelled sterile and reminded me of the one time that I had been to a hospital.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Alyssa.”

  “What’s your story?”

  “Orphan.”

  “Age?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “You ran away then?”

  I nodded.

  “Smart,” she said. “When you stay until eighteen it gets harder to leave because they try to guilt you into staying and working at the orphanage for low wages.”

  “That’s what I heard,” I admitted. “And they were already trying to convince me to stay after next year.”

  “You’ve already got a bag, which is good, so come here and I’ll give you the basics.”

  “I don’t have any money to repay—”

  “I married a rich man when I came here,” she told me. “There was no love, just his old, rich self and me being a hot, young girl. I spent ten years with him until he finally died and now all his money is mine. I don’t want another girl marrying against her wishes like I did just so she can have a roof over her head and food.”

  “There are worse things,” I whispered.

  She nodded. “I’m trying to work on those too.”

  I took off my backpack and opened it so that I could put the items she handed me inside. A blanket, small pillow, two pairs of thick wool socks, first aid kit, jerky, basic pain reliever, fever reducer, sleeping medicine, and a map of the city. She bent down and pulled out a small box that locked, pulled a key out of her pocket, and opened it. I tried to see what was inside, but she was being very secretive about it and locked it before I could see inside. She held out an envelope. “Inside is enough cash for a week of food if you spend it well, a blue plastic card that will get you into the apartment building down the street, and a card with an address of a warehouse two blocks away that is always hiring. It’s honest work, no sweat shop or wink wink massage parlors, and you can start tomorrow morning when you get there at eight o’clock sharp.”

  I peeked inside and gulped at the twenties. “That’s more than a week’s worth,” I whispered.

  Her eyes, which had been hard, softened. “You’re going to have to start eating more to keep up with the work. To you it seems like a lot since you were basically starved, but you’ll learn that this is the minimum you’ll need for a healthy life.”

  I didn’t have anything to say about that so I just nodded and said, “Thank you.”

  “Go make me proud, Alyssa. Show them that we can be more than street trash.”

  I put half of the money in my front pocket and the other half inside my sock in my shoe to keep it safe. She didn’t comment as she watched me, but I could see by her smile that she found me interesting. I zipped up my bag, slipped the carabiner clip through both zippers so that no one could open it while I walked, and headed outside.

  The weather had changed significantly from the time that I went inside and now thick, dark clouds hung over the city with a threat of rain and thunder. Hadn’t the officer said it was supposed to be warm today? Where had this rain come from?

  I hurried down the street towards the apartment building, clutching my backpack straps tightly in my hands. I hated thunder. It scared me more than a gunshot ever would.

  I slid the card through the card reader outside of the apartment building and it opened with a loud beep.

  “Hello,” a beautiful woman in her thirties with long brown hair that hung in perfect waves and wearing a perfectly crisp suit greeted me.

  “Hi,” I responded nervously and held up the card. “I, uh, was given this—”

  She waved her hand. “No need to explain. We’re employed by the woman who sent you. If you’ll follow me, I will show you to your room.”

  “What?” I asked in disbelief. This couldn’t be real. No way would someone just give people a place to stay and food and money without expecting anything in return.

  “The rules are simple. You can stay here rent free for one month. After that you are expected to pay Two hundred dollars a month and provide your own groceries. You can stay here for six months total. When you reach your fifth month we will help you locate a new place to live, but you cannot stay here longer than six months.”

  “Okay,” I replied, still reeling from all of this and trying to think about every possible negative thing that could be set up to happen to me after arriving.

  “Follow me please.” She headed up a flight of stairs and I realized that the apartment building was sparsely decorated. The wallpaper was made to look expensive, but it was just wallpaper. There were recessed lights in the ceiling, but no hanging lights or shades of any kind. A girl who looked a year or two younger than me stepped out of room four and smiled at me.

  “A newcomer? It’s been at least a year since anyone new moved in.”

  “Yes, this is our new resident,” the receptionist answered her.

  “I’m Mara,” the girl told me and held out her hand.

  I shook it and replied, “Alyssa.”

  “Don’t worry, I know you’re probably thinking that you’re going to be drugged while you sleep and taken for your organs to be harvested, but they’re not like that here. Mrs. Walton really just wants to help us avoid a fate like hers.”

  Mrs. Walton must be the old lady in the muumuu.

  “Come along, your room is just two doors from here.”

  Mara waved to me as she walked down the stairs and I turned to follow the receptionist. “What’s your name?” I asked her.

  “Miss Walton,” she replied.

  “Wait, are you related to…”

  “She’s my aunt,” she answered. “And I work here because I agree with her that we need to help as many of the less fortunate as we can. No one should have to live over there or be forced into awful lives just because they were thrown into an orphanage.”

  “I didn’t think nice people were real,” I mumbled somewhat seriously.

  “There aren’t many of us left, but we are here,” she replied and then opened the door with a wide smile. “Here is your room.”

  I took the key from her and smiled back. “Thank you.
”

  “You’re welcome. Once you’re settled, you can head across the street to the grocery store or you can go tomorrow so you don’t have to go in this rain.”

  I looked out my window and blinked. It was raining. “Weird weather.”

  “It is very peculiar for this time of year.”

  I locked the door, checked the room for any hidden entry ways, exits, or cameras and then fell asleep on the bed that was soft as a cloud.

  TWO

  THUNDER BOOMED loud as a car crashing through my wall and shook the windows. I screamed and bolted upright in bed with a heaving chest.

  Mara pounded on my door. “Alyssa! You alright?”

  I gulped down a few breaths and said, “Thunder scared me awake.”

  “Want some company?”

  Part of me did, but I didn’t know this girl. She could come in and steal all my stuff while I slept.

  “No thanks. I’ll be okay.”

  “Okay,” she replied softly and after a breath I heard her feet padding down the hallway towards her room.

  I flopped backwards onto the bed and exhaled loudly. That had been a hell of a boom.

  Lightning flashed so bright that it blinded me a moment and then immediately afterwards the thunder exploded so loudly that my window actually cracked. I threw my arms over my head to try to protect myself, but when I opened them I was still safe. I got dressed, packed my bag again, and sat on the bed with it on.

  What was up with this storm? I’d never heard of thunder so loud it could crack windows.

  The lightning flashed three times in quick succession and I braced myself for the thunder, but instead I felt dizzy and nauseous. I tried to walk to the bathroom, but only made it halfway before I fell to the floor. A metallic taste coated my tongue and my ears rang worse than when I’d snuck into the clock tower right when the bells rang when I was eight.

  Someone screamed and I fainted.

  My cheek itched from resting on grass and my mouth felt like it was filled with cotton. I sat up and rubbed my face, brushing off dirt and grass. When I opened my eyes, I gasped at the sight before me.