I think I was in the sewer for several hours. Above me I heard the revolution as I kept walking. Scared to go to the surface, scared to get involved in another fight like the one I barely escaped from. If only we all were as lucky. All I knew at this point was that I was alone, and something had to have happened to Tylee. For hours I came across ladders that led back to the surface, but everytime I reached a new one, I could still hear it. It was everywhere. Rune had become a warzone, and I was sure there were plenty of casualties.
Not sure exactly when but the sound above me begant to change. In it's beginings it was loud, and violent. Now, it was startig to fade to silence. The ravage of war above me thinned to nothing. It was eerie now, because of how quiet it had gotten. The next ladder I came to I stopped at. Swallowing hard I grabbed the ladder and started to proceed up. I should have stayed down.
I pushed the cap of the manhole up and off and slid it to the side. Grabbing the edge of the ground I pulled my body to the surface then looked around. It was devastating. Rubble from buildings, parts from dados, glass from windows, blood from injuries stained the ground around me. Several cars were tipped over, another crashed into a building that was looted. A dead man was laying on the ground, with no apparent injury, except for the blood around his body, but I didn't find it where it came from. I was sick enough at what my eyes layed on. Small fires were scattered about, I saw another body, a light pole is tipped over, I saw another body only this time it's a kid no older than me, another body, another body, another body. I was surrounded by the dead.
Don't really remember, much of that moment was a blur. Soon I was on my knees crying. I had a bad feeling we didn't win with casualties like these. Bodies recklessly abandoned to rot and fester in the streets of a battle scarred city. My crying was so powerful I was heeving, tears pouring to ground below my head. I didn't even here the metal footsteps coming from behind me. It wasn't until the dado was standing over me, reaching with its cold lifeless hand that I realized it was there. I let it grab me.
" Do not resist," the dado said to me coldly and lifelessly. I just stared at it, waiting for it to kill me like everyone else. " Will you comply?" I remained quiet.
" Put him down," A voice said from behind the dado. The dado turned around but didn't put me down. Behind him was a man who was injuried from fighting, but still holding his own well. Behind him were several over men and women ready to fight.
" Surrender or force will be-," was about as far as it got before a black rod was thrown threw its head. Its knees buckled before it fell to the ground. I landed on top of the dado and had to grab its hand to make it let go of me. Once I managed to wiggle free I tried to ran but one of the people grabbed me.
" Calm down, we're not one of them," The woman who grabbed me said to me. Her grip was rough and hard so I jerked my arm away quickly, only making it hurt more. " Calm down."
" Let him go, if he wants to run, let him run," a man said to her. She sighed then let my arm go the same time I jerked away. So I fell back and landed in a pool of glass. My arms were sliced up nice but I didn't cry from that, I just got up and began to pick the glass out of my wounds.
" Why are you out here," the man who threw the rod asked.
I take a deep breath to keep from crying but I managed to mumble something. " They got her," I said to them.
" What, got who? Who got who?"
" The dados, they took Tylee," I said to them. I heard two of them gasp and a few others talk amounst themselves.
" Tylee Magna?" The man asked me. I nod then he sighed and kicked a head of a dado across the ground. " Dammit! Where, when!?" The man shouted at me. I flinched backward and the woman who grabbed me stepped in between us.
" He's just a kid, don't yell at him," The woman said then turned and faced me. " What happened to her?"
" They shot her with those golden things, and I don't remember much after that. All I know was she was alone, and surrounded."
" They got her. Son of a bitch," The man said aloud then kicked another item across the ground. " We need to head back before more of them show up."
" Agreed," the woman said then reach out her hand toward me. " Come on, if you want to be safe follow us." I nod then start to walk with them back to the base.
I hate it when my worse fears come true. We lost. At first everything seemed right. Until they found it, Mr. Pop that is. Burned everything, not even a page of one book is left. Not only that, they filmed it, and sent that image all throughout Quillan. The riot stopped in its track at one glance of a screen. A picture says a thousand words. They had a whole god damn movie. And it was saying one thing in a million differnet ways. Game over.
With no hope nothing can ever be accomplished. As I read in that book Tylee told me to read, people in history have won entire wars, built great civilizations on nothing but a strand of hope. A slight flicker of motivation. Now, we had nothing. No hope, no chance, no motivation, no dream, no power, no inspiration, no will to fight. The moment that video hit the screens it was over. Mr. Pop was all we had. Kill one of use we come back stronger, kill the head of the snake the rest of the snake dies with it. That was no different.
I did find out if Tylee was alive or not. She was, but it was more like death row. She had been caught and added as a challenger. Challenger green, to replace the red had beaten in combat. Heard it was one hell of a fight too. His was an empty win, he gave us a little push to break the barrier of hope, but in one second it was stripped away before everyone's eyes. Soon after all of this news was released I sat in a corner and cried.
Something amazing actually happened later that week. About ten days later a child in the abandoned underground came up to me. A few more children followed him. I was in the corner I practically lived in by then, looked at the palms of my hands. The little boy nudged me in the arm and looked at me sadly. He was sad because everyone else was sad. Though he wasn't old enough to fully understand why. He just stared at me with these big curious eyes.
" Do you think we still have hope?" the little boy asked me. What a dumb question to ask at this point. Hope is not even a word in my dictionary. But I didn't say no. I didn't say anything. He walked away from me with his friends to bother someone else. What he said to me stired my emotions so bad I got up out of my corner, grabbed the bag Tylee gave me at Mr. Pop and threw it against a wall. I was breathing deep now, panting from anger, frustration, sadness. It all raged into one giant emotion that settled when I saw it.
At first I thought I was dreaming. I wasn't. It was was really there. A book was in my bag that I had just thrown at the wall. It was thrown from the bag and sat on the ground, with its spin facing me. Slowly I walked over and picked up the book with both hands. I read it's cover aloud to myself.
' The history of Quillan.' The last remnant of Mr. Pop. The last small bit of hope of the entire civilazation was in my hands. A simple book, with simple pages, written in simple ink, telling a simple story, but fueling a very complicated cause. And somehow it fueled me. Tylee told me to do something for her one day. I pulled that memory from my subconscious and heard it play in my mind.
" Read this. The best way to know how to build a new world, is to learn from the past and know what not to repeat. Blok wants us to think, this is the way things have always been. After you read this, tell this story to three people. They will in turn, tell it to three more people. Soon, everyone will know the truth," Tylee had said to me.
I held the book in my hands then looked around me. I saw the little boy with his two friends. He looks over at me and I gesture for him to come over to me. After a second he looks at his friends and they all walk over and sit around me.
" There's always hope," I said to him for starters. " If you never let it die, it never will have to. Hope isn't just an item, or a cause. It's what people do. What we did was hope, we had hope, we used it, we lost some, but we're still here to try again. You only lose hope when you fail, and don't learn from it. If you don't try again with more knowledge of what you hope for. Never let it slip through your fingers."
The boy and his friends smiled and looked at each other. I smiled to then grabbed the book I had layed next to me. They eyed the book and awed.
" Is that.."
" It is. From the remains of Mr. Pop itself. Blok took things away from us. Anything that made us think, be individuals, have the will power to fight back. They can never take our hope though. Want to hear a story?" All of the children nodded at me.
" What about?"
" Everything that ever was in this world. And everything it will be, if you never give up hope."
That's the end of the Pendragon back story.