Editing City Series:Volume6e Prologue (section)

===Part 1===

The light inky sky was damp and colored by a misty rain and heavy air.

The inky color gradually darkened as the rain grew heavier and the night arrived.

The sky looked so much like blurry dark waves and the vague shapes of dark mountains covered the earth.

The weight of the gray sky and white mist pressed down on the many slopes of that vast land.

Concepts as vague as the misty rain and dark night were gradually taking over this world as night fell.

But one notably unvague thing traveled from the ground and into the sky: a sound.

Something in the forest sounded a lot like stone hitting stone.

It was a gunshot. The bang of the bursting gunpowder echoed through the mountains and spread through the mist. Its lingering echoes rattled the misty air and mixed with the other sounds in the air.

The deep sound rose into the rainy sky where water burst and the rain grew stronger.

The rain fell on a narrow mountain path running between the forest’s trees.

A single person was running down that rainy path.

The woman’s long blonde hair was a mess from the rain and she held a white sword in one hand.

Her eyes were different colors. The left one was a brown feline eye and the right one was a blue human eye.

Both eyes were facing dead ahead and the mouth below it was busy releasing white breaths into the chill of the misty rain.

She stared at her own white breaths for a moment and then smiled bitterly.

“But it’s only August.”

She kept running. Her footsteps were light on the wet dirt and she ran softly across the ground by kicking off with her toes.

A sign was carved into a tree on the side of the path, naming this place.

“Borderson. Armed conflict isn’t allowed in this land.”

She removed the poncho she wore over her clothing and wrapped her sword in it.

She covered the plain white sword in the forest camo green, giving it a long package.

The hem of the poncho swayed loosely past the end of the sword.

She checked her pockets for something to tie up the hem with.

The choker around her neck and a red gem pendant spilled from the collar of her inner clothing.

She tugged on the choker’s string, but the rain-wet cloth had gone tight and she couldn’t get the knot undone.

“But I can’t use the pendant. It’s too important.”

She put the red gem back in her clothing.

She hesitated a moment before continuing the search and pulling out dog tags on a thin chain. She quickly wrapped the chain around the package and used the dog tags as a clasp to hold it in place.

The wet dog tags caught the light, revealing the name carved into them: Hazel Mirildorf.

Hazel held the tightly closed package under her arm and nodded.

…''Only I came down with the chill of a Live disease three days ago, so I went to Germany first.

They would meet up again in two days’ time. At midnight of the 24th in an inn on the outskirts of Germania.

They had to stop Tristan before the History Lives could begin another loop.

According to continued research by the AIF’s prophets, the pressure sent back through the ley lines would cause Tristan to lose control at 3 AM of the 24th and the loop would happen at 4:42.

…''If we stop Tristan by 3 AM, this world will remain until 4:42.

But if they stopped the Wheel of Destiny, the Spacetime Lives would be freed from the loop and connect to the future Spacetime Lives. 4:42 AM was the moment of truth regarding the loop.

…''There will be a revolution to create a world without the Messiah, but we will finally have a future again.

The Allies didn’t believe any of it and had rejected everything the AIF tried to tell them.

But they had accepted the AIF’s plan to stop Tristan and were paying careful attention to it.

A one-way transmission from the Allies had said the ACBS being used in conjunction with the ley line pressure would be launched at 3 AM. And it would arrive in Germania at 4:42.

But if the AIF managed to destroy the dome before 3, the ACBS launch would be canceled. To meet the conditions laid out by the Allies, the AIF was gathering almost all of its forces in Germany.

Hazel had intended to spend a day in Borderson and then head there.

“But I’ve been on the run ever since I arrived!”

She focused on her ears. A new sound had joined her footsteps and the falling rain.

She heard running water.

Quite a lot of water was flowing by a bit to the right of the path.

Her gaze was drawn rightward by the sound.

The forest here was thinner and she could see a river of about 20yd across through the trees. The river was fuller than usual thanks to the rain, but its water hadn’t been stained by mud yet.

The dark green water seemed to swell up at the surface as it flowed downstream.

“If I follow that river over the hill, I reach the Village of Pardons.”

Hazel sighed. She broke through the white breath with her shoulders as she continued forward. She removed her eyes from the river to face forward again as well.

She saw a bridge through the forest. It was a simple design – two logs placed end to end to connect the banks with a boulder sticking up from the middle of the river. The bridge was hard to see through the mist rising from the river, but it hadn’t been washed away yet.

She could still cross.

If she ran down the straight mountain path for another 20 yards or so, she would reach the side path to the bridge.

Then she heard the grass parting behind her.

It was pretty far away, but the rustling of the grass soon changed to the footsteps of someone in pursuit.

She frowned.

…''Someone’s still after me?

“They don’t give up,” she muttered, leaping right before reaching the side path.

She ran through the forest, taking a shortcut to the bridge.

The pursuing footsteps did not enter the forest. They chose to remain on the path.

She did not look back.

In the shadowy forest, she held her cloth-wrapped sword to her chest and ran along the knee-deep grass and soft humus.

She saw the side path through the trees up ahead. As well as the small clearing at the end of the bridge.

She sped up, kicking the humus back behind her.

Her speed whipped up the wind, shaking the branches around her.

The sound of the rain doubled as more drops fell from the tree leaves, leaving a spray of water in her wake.

She arrived at this end of the bridge, but then her face stiffened and she stopped running.

Two small silhouettes in raincoats were on the bridge made from two logs.

One was a small girl down on her knees, nervously watching the river below as she crawled across.

The other was a boy taking careful steps in front of the girl to make sure the log wasn’t too slippery.

Hazel saw the two of them and they turned around to look at her.

The two pairs of eyes within the raincoats widened with surprise and then looked behind her.

When she noticed that, she twirled around, her blonde hair trailing behind her.

A slender woman carrying a handgun stood at the entrance to the side path leading to the bridge.

She aimed the gun with the pale light of the main mountain path behind her.

Hazel just about ran into the forest on reflex, but…

…''The children.

She stopped herself and prepared to raise her poncho wrap as a shield.

But before she could, a gunshot rang out and she felt an impact in the center of her chest.

Before she even felt the pain, she found her feet had left the ground.

Her airborne body was first caught by the empty air rather than the dirt ground.

And then the water caught her.

All of a sudden, she couldn’t see anything other than the inky gray sky. But when she felt a tugging on her back, water splashed high toward the sky on either side of her vision and she heard rushing water.

At the same time, the sky seemed to shake unsteadily in her vision and then it was covered by a thick layer of water.

The water felt ticklish as it surrounded her cheeks and neck.

Her mind resisted the ticklishness and the chill, but her mind was dragged into darkness by shock.

Her senses of sight, hearing, and touch all faded away.