The first thing I learned was that running is easier than fighting.
The second thing I learned was even simpler.
Running doesn't always work.
***
I was speeding across the dark alleys when the screaming started.
Not mine but someone else's.
A man, judging by the voice.
The scream was loud and shrill at first, then breaking apart into something wet and desperate.
The kind of sound that makes your legs move faster without asking for permission.
I didn't look back.
Looking back gets you killed.
That wasn't wisdom, it was instinct.
My breath came out in soft gasps as I turned the corner of a broken street, my torn sandals slapping against cracked concrete.
Haven didn't look like a city anymore. It looked like something abandoned halfway through being destroyed.
Buildings leaned at wrong angles and windows were a thing of the past. The air smelled like dust, metal, and something rotten I didn't want to think about.
Another scream uttered in the air.
Closer this time as I ran faster, my calves burning.
My body was already telling me to stop, to slow down and give up.
But I ignored it.
Because I knew something my body didn't.
Stopping meant dying.
***
It took me nearly an hour of running when a huge exterior of blackened walls became visible it front of me. It was like a fortress that covered the city like a dome.
Haven was one of the 7 safe zones left on Earth after the sun started fading.
Knowing that I was safe near them, my legs immediately ran past a familiar market as I ignored the tensed bustle around me and rushed past to where my makeshift house was located.
It was a small block of wood covered from all sides with a sewage line running along its foundations, not that I minded it.
I was used to all this.
The area I lived in was the temporary market people here had made just in front of the fortress walls since we had knowhere to go to.
People of negligible value or origins were thrown here, a semi protected and regulated area that was attacked by beasts every once in a few months.
Chugging a glass full of water, I changed my ragged t-shirt and half torn pants, slipping into a single long top with boxers as I opened a plastic kit.
Inside, an ointment could be seen which I opened and applied on my bruises.
"Hafff—"
I sighed, feeling exhausted.
The reason I went further into the woods today was so I could find something to eat. It had been almost 2 days since I've consumed anything other than water.
Food was scarce here, and if not for the contract signed with the officials inside Haven, most of us here would have long been killed.
Everyone here assumed that it had something to do with the continuous disappearances.
At first, people thought it was luck.
A few would just…disappear.
Gone in the middle of talking, walking or even eating, it didn't matter. One second they were there, the next, nothing.
Then some of them came back, looking fiercer and different.
And the ones who didn't come back…no one talked about them.
I didn't think about it either.
Thinking about things you can't control is a waste of time.
I leaned back against the wooden wall, letting my head rest as I closed my eyes for a second.
Just a second as my body felt heavy, legs still shaking from the run and stomach twisting in on itself like it was trying to eat me from the inside.
I needed food.
Badly.
A noise outside made my eyes snap open.
Constant syllables placed together to form coherent speech continued outside as I tried flushing it all out, holding my stomach tight.
"…someone got taken."
"Just now?"
"…yeah, right near the edge!"
I stayed where I was, not moving or getting up. A few seconds passed as silence blanketed my surroundings.
My eyes instantly turned into pinholes as I stood up and rushed outside, still in my boxers.
There, everyone could be seen looking absent mindedly at the sun.
I grimaced, "tch* it's happening again-"
A few decades ago when the first 'trial' took place, humans couldn't help but be momentarily stunned, looking in the sky as if they were worshipping a divinity from down below.
It had come to me as a shock but ever since I last remembered, this strange phenomenon didn't affect me.
It was times like these that I took advantage off and sped past the markets to steal my monthly ration.
The sky was a dusky shade of orange, something that had remained constant since the last 70 years, ever since the light of sun had started fading. Even the nights had lost their darkness-
Everyone stood still with their mouths hanging slightly open.
I didn't waste time.
My legs continued moving on their own as I slipped past them, keeping my head low.
'Good.'
I cut through the first row of stalls, half of them were already empty.
Broken wood, torn cloth and rusted containers were the only thing present.
Whatever used to be here was long gone.
The second row was better as I slowed down, careful now.
Even though they were in a stunned state, it didn't mean that they couldn't wake up from their epiphany.
A woman stood behind a stall, frozen like the rest.
Her eyes locked on the sky, hands still resting on a wooden tray.
My mouth instantly watered as I looked at the crunchy and shiny dried insects on it.
Instantly filling my mouth with a few of these black, thin and delicious things, I moaned, my stomach twisting with relief.
I moved closer, slow and quiet as my hand reached out and grabbed another two handful of insects, stopping for a second as I quickly glanced around me.
'Good, everyone seems dumb and silent!'
Then, I hurriedly placed the handfuls of insects on the rucksack that I had carried with myself.
Then another…and another-
There was no need to sort or check what all I was taking as long as it was edible.
These trials happened once every few months or if I'm unlucky than once a year, so I make sure to take everything I can with me.
My fingers brushed against something else as I walked from stalls to stalls.
A small sack.
I opened it slightly, finding warm, squishy worms inside.
And although some of them were still moving, nothing that my teeth couldn't chew—
I smiled with satisfaction as I threw the whole pouch inside my rucksack.
The same process continued for the next few minutes as I robbed everyone of their possessions.
I was just about to turn around and rush back home when someone placed a hand on my shoulder, creeping the chills out of my as I instantly dodged.
"Hey, did you see him?"
"…who?"
"That guy, Kane! He was just here…"
I slipped past the two men standing near a broken stall.
"…lucky."
I muttered under my breath.
These moments, they're the only reason I'm still alive.
I adjusted the rucksack and turned to leave when I felt something was off.
Looking down, my eyes scrunched up, my shadow, for a second…it didn't match?
It stretched past me just slightly as if it was lagging behind.
I could see the people around me slowly gaining back senses, but I wasn't worried, other than those two men, no one had seen me pickpocketing the market.
"…again?" I muttered, feeling strange as the people around me started gossiping about the new trial that had just began.
"It's the first time in a few years since only a single trial has taken place, right?"
"Yeah! I had almost been begging to pray to the divine beings who look at us from above, hoping they'd choose me…"
An old man interrupted between the two ladies conversation, "ha! You old gags think you still have a chance to be an apostle? Laughable!!!"
I could almost smell a pang of jealousy as the man turned around, going back to his stall.
It was when the first lady I had looted screamed in horror as she found her stall empty that I knew it was my cue to leave.
That was the thing, I was never worried that the people here would find me.
I'd looted them so many times that people call me a ghost in the outskirts, because of my ability to skirt away from everyone.
As I slowly closed the door behind my makeshift house, the noise outside faded into the usual chaos, people shouting, arguing, blaming each other like always.
I dropped the rucksack to the ground and sat on a mat placed above the numerous lines of sewage, letting out a slow breath as my stomach had finally stopped rumbing.
"…idiots," I muttered under my breath, thinking about the people outside, begging to be chosen, praying for it like it was some kind of blessing.
"Why would anyone willingly seek death?" The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them.
I leaned back against the wall again, staring at nothing in particular until my eyes drifted down. My shadow stretched across the floor, still and normal. I stared at it for a second longer than I should have, then looked away.
It was almost a certainty that I never went to this so called trial, but the fact that I could make them believe I was never there even if I walked right past them…
It was times like these that a fleeting thought floated through my mind.
"What if I actually posses one of these so called gifts?"
***