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Facets of Fantasy: A Collection

By Sarah Scheele

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“Carina! Carina! Wake up.”

Carina rolled over, blinking sleepily. Her bedroom was lighted only by dim starlight coming through the grated window. Outside, the sloping roof of the nearby house was visible. She brushed her hair out of her eyes as her brother shook her shoulder.

“Darren? What’s wrong . . .?”

A shot fired, followed a second later by a blast of yellow light. Carina flinched as a detonation hit the house, accompanied by an earsplitting noise. Darren was pulling her out of bed.

“Wait, are we going outside? My shoes . . .”

She fumbled in the darkness for her DArt-48, stumbling over the locked metal trunk that held her most treasured possessions. A tell-tale scent seeped into her nose as the grenade explosion chemicals saturated the walls. She searched desperately for her weapon, her face a shadowy outline streaked by intermittent light. Catching sight of the DArt by the gleam of another explosion, she grabbed it while shoving a tiny gas protector, made of a clear material, over her nose. The detonation chemicals were intended to explode the grenades, not specifically to kill people, but they often caused death if inhaled.

“Come on!” Darren exclaimed.

He grabbed her hand before she could finish putting on the only shoes she could find, woolen house slippers. Hopping because the shoes were only half on, she scurried across the living room, which was drenched in fire and chemical stench. Her parents hustled her and her brother towards a small shelter hidden in the ground, accessed by a back way into the woods. Their neighbors had told them about it. The neighbors were invaders and weren’t supposed to tell EC anything—but in a tiny town like this, common sense had preempted tradition.

“We’ll be safe in here. Safe. If they rob the house and don’t find anyone there, they’ll leave. They won’t kill us,” her mother gasped. “Be calm. Be calm!”

Carina felt uncomfortable. She was calm. Tears were running down her mother’s face, but Carina was quite stable. It was embarrassing to be calm when one’s mother was so obviously losing control.

“Well, I guess that answers our question,” Darren remarked. “We’ve got to leave now.”

He stood silhouetted against the opening of the shelter. Carina fumbled with her weapon in the darkness. Finally, she found the activation button. The charge light was at thirty percent—enough for ten rounds.

“Yikes, it’s low. Don’t fire unless you have to,” Darren commented, noticing the charge knob. It was the only light in the shelter. Above it Carina’s face looked almost alien, pale green, with abnormally large eyes. “You’ll miss most of them anyway.”

Carina was indignant. “I never miss! Well, sometimes, but not all the time . . .”

Secretly, she knew she had messed up. She was supposed to charge the DArt every night, but she only used it around town, so she had forgotten. Their house was always safe. People respected the EC . . . or so she’d thought.

“The point is, don’t waste. You can’t recharge the thing. Better not shoot than miss.”

“Don’t fire unless they come in,” her mother remonstrated, clutching her arm. “Don’t make additional noise! Don’t panic . . .”

Her father’s voice spoke out of the darkness. He sounded tense, though subdued compared to her mother. “Those guerillas have never done anything like this before. They’re getting out of hand.”

A noiseless bullet from a DArt landed just short of the shelter and blew up into a burst of white electricity, highlighting Mr. Fierten’s form against the buckling roof of a nearby house. The invaders of Tercera were extremely poor. The Fiertens weren’t rich at all and they were millionaires by comparison. They had always been reasonably safe within the community, in spite of this income difference, because of a long-standing, almost superstitious tradition that put the EC off-limits. The Tercerans viewed them as essentially an alien race, so remote that communication, let alone violence, was rare. The surrounding fighter groups and outlaws who littered the countryside had also acknowledged this invisible barrier—up to now.

“But we talked about this. We can’t go into a city. Those Dragonaks will have complete control over our lives . . .” Mrs. Fierten began, her voice rising and falling unevenly.

“Be quiet!” Mr. Fierten ordered.

Carina crouched. In a minute, her father threw himself out of the shelter onto someone who had been creeping near. Blows thudded as Darren also disappeared.
Mrs. Fierten had grown up among the urban EC, who heavily discouraged women from using weapons, and she refused to learn to use them even when she moved to the unprotected countryside. She really felt women should not be armed, but had permitted Darren to teach his sister when Mr. Fierten insisted. Carina knew she must defend both of them if the fighters entered the shelter.

She poised near the opening. Over her head bodies moved, followed by thudding, occasional shouts, and little pinpoints of light as the silent DArt bullets laced through the air. She craned her ears, trying to catch footsteps. Weapons might be quiet, but people usually made some noise, especially if they were clambering around in the dark. She stepped backward as a body fell down the hole. It was one of the fighters, not her father or brother, but her relief was cut short as another man appeared at the head of the little stairway. Carina blinked once, made sure her hands were firm, and fired.

Darren’s face appeared as their mother yelled. “You all right over here?”

Carina shook her DArt, which was now reading fifteen percent. It was an old DArt. Sometimes a good shake would readjust the meter to a correct measurement. The strength climbed ten points.

“Sure. I got one and he fell on Mom. We’re good.”

Darren disappeared.

When Carina crawled out, half an hour later, everything was quiet. Grass and wildflowers waved at the edge of town, where she stood above the shelter. Low roofs clustered ahead, perhaps twenty shabby houses. As they approached their home, the residence of the only EC family in Tercera, she realized the attackers had not wanted to kill them. They had simply created a distraction while they trashed the house and stole everything in it. The building had always been plain and undecorated, set with alarm systems and prim windows protected by an insulating, anti-explosive material—more like a tiny fort than a house. Now it was hollow and empty, its windows broken.

Her heart sank. Presumably, everything was gone. Her mother let out a cry and rushed towards their father, who was approaching with a bruised face.

Darren came up behind her. “We got two of them and the others didn’t wait around to find out. Looks like we’re alive—and that’s good, considering.”

They crept back into the house, poking weapons around every corner before they entered rooms. The place was a mess, curtains slashed, nearly every item of value taken. Mrs. Fierten sank limply onto the sofa while Mr. Fierten tossed books aside in a frantic effort to open the wall safe. He muttered angrily under his breath about Palladia’s lack of law enforcement. Carina, peeping tentatively into her room, gave a happy exclamation.

There, in the middle of the stripped room, was her metal box. It was too heavy for her to lift, and she guessed its weight was why the criminals had passed on taking it. All the treasures in it—the image slides, the dance shoes, Mom’s special heirlooms—were safe.

“There can’t have been many, then. Dad can lift this,” she said, smiling at her brother.

“They probably just didn’t want to carry it as far as they were going.”

She easily activated the ignition sequence. The bars slowly loaded until finally, with a metallic ringing sound, the box snapped open. She lifted out the items, worn from age and use, but now the bulk of what the Fiertens still owned. Fortunately, she had kept some clothes in this box. She wouldn’t have to spend the next few days in her nightgown.

“Why didn’t they destroy the house?” she inquired, making neat little stacks around her.

Darren’s eyes scanned the roof, which was heavily charred, but intact except for a rupture where Carina’s window had blown inward. “It’s the best place between here and Derota. They’ll use it as a hideout.”

Carina’s fingers passed over her one really pretty outfit, a white lace dress she had received from an aunt last year. Her eyes blurred, barely seeing it. The little guard over her nose made her speak as though she had a cold.

“But . . . we’re EC. People aren’t supposed to attack the EC. They’ve always left us alone. For a hundred years.” Her eyes scanned her brother’s grubby, impassive face. “You know that. The invaders in Tercera know that and come to this house when they’re in danger. It’s changed, you think?”

Darren blew out his breath. Carina could hear their father exclaiming from the living room. The box of reserve money hidden in case of emergency had not been taken. They would need it now.

“Unconcerned, desperate, greedy . . . who knows? Probably all three. Anyway, I guess you know this settles it. We can’t let this happen again.”

Carina looked down at the box. This simple, military-like house was the only home she had ever known. Aware that she would never see it again, her eyes wandered around the room, then rested resignedly on the box. She knew.

They were leaving in the morning.

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