Kenku

  It is a scorching day when I find the notebook, the sun beating down on everyone, weary workers dragging themselves through the streets, dust everywhere in sight.

  Miserable and boiling, sweat sticks my clothes to my skin, I look around for food, but my eyes lay upon leather bound pages. I gape quietly, staring in disbelief. A paged book left unattended? It is a luxury even for nobles to have paper, especially in a notebook of leather.

  I snatch it up quickly, dusting off the front cover.

  Nothing was inscribed in the front, and as I look at it, I wonder. After all, what kind of person leaves a book such as this just in the open, and with so many blank pages. Did someone steal it, and leave it to find for later?

  I tuck it beneath my clothes, walking back to the bar where Tukami was working, greeting me with a smile and a nod.

  I hurry to the caverns with pep in my step, mind racing with curiosity.

  As soon as I get to my room, I giddily open the book, looking at all the swirling different pieces of text that other people have scribbled onto it.

  Many are incoherent, their writings looking more like ancient ruins of a forgotten language than one comprehensive and readable. And maybe they are, maybe they are ancient, maybe really old. After all, they don't look like pencil. It's more black, and some are blue. Blue, what a colour, so rare in the sky, and never on the earth.

  But the ones I can read? The ones that I comprehend? Tell a story, one so amazing, one so magnificent that I cannot help but gape at them.

  ‘Today father left, and went to the Noble Granes house, to arrange my marriage. Despite how long I have protested it, he insists that I must marry, and leave him with an heir to inherit the estate.

  Yet, I know that my child shall not inherit powers, just like me. I fear that this might bring down his rage, and cause in my, and his death. It is a terrible world we live in, this one of ours.

  How do I know, dear diary with runes beyond my knowledge? For I have kept myself safe by being a girl, yet if my child does not have powers, I will be killed, and fate is cruel, so no powers it shall be.

  The day is crude today, it is raining, the clouds covering the sky with dreariness, the people below uninspired to do anything. But, diary, I see people below, scuttering in the alleyways, and talking in the darker streets.

  Father says to hate them, that spite is the only answer. We are above them, the scuttlers in the street. Rats. He calls them, and I nod along. Yet, I believe that they are like us, like the people with powers. They are no rats, we are all human, powers or not. I feel concerned. The world around me, the air I breathe.…It all feels so refreshing now, whenever I keep you diary in my reach. Like the world has brightened, and every movement… free.

  Father says, that if I am found as a Null, I will be killed by the Mayor. But I think that is an acceptable fate, if I only live in this freedom for a little bit longer.’

  The girl's writing stops there, and I look in shock at what the whole thing could mean.

  Tukami always said that the people were Puppets, but I always thought that he just hated the Puppeteer, and called them Puppets as a mocking name to the people. Yet, the more I look at this girl's words, I’m suddenly unsure.

  Then, I turn the page, greeted with the words of heaps of others, and I look at one, shocked by its contents.

  ‘This diary is strange, I think. I work for the guard, am obedient to the Mayor, but when I touched this, it's as if all my training goes right out the window. My well done march is almost brought to ruin, and orders I normally obey I start to question.

  Now that I look around, everything is strange, and weird, and I hate it, so very much. It's as if for my entire life, a blanket has been thrown over my eyes, and now, I get to finally see. It's strange, oh so strange, that I cannot comprehend the magnitude of what this means. Now, I spend more days staring at the sky, and never realising just how beautiful it was before, how magnificent and incomprehensible.

  The sky towers over our puny forms, lifetimes of old all having watched the very same sky, yet it feels like I only just saw it now.

  I am scared, more now than ever. I don’t think I have ever felt fear, not even when faced with the Mayor, which is a strange feeling, now. A thudding in the chest, like my heart is about to explode forward, and erupt right then and there.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  I think I am re-experiencing the same world, with different steps and different eyes, different tastes!

  In the mornings, I never get up at an exact time, I now get up sometimes later, sometimes earlier. At first, I freaked out, having no clue how to regulate it. But as my body adjusted to this new seeming world, I woke up at the same time I always have, but I’m not so efficient now.

  I get distracted by the smallest things, the pretty flowers, or the sun just rising, and I start to wonder if hiding all this will be as simple. People don’t chat, even when I feel I just want to talk, running over me with more important things, missions, and missions, and even more jobs. As the days go by, I forget that I was ever like them, that all I did was talk of jobs too, and didn’t want to explore the town, didn’t want to see what else other sectors had to offer. Or even better, why this world that I experience now, with this strange diary in my hand, is so much better than the other before.

  I’m getting a personal visit from the Mayor today, and I fear that he must have found out, must have discovered that I am experiencing a new entire world for the very first time, and now I will be killed.

  I am scared of this, very scared. I don’t want to die, not just now. Not when I can finally experience the sun on my face or the warmth on my skin.

  The stars look beautiful tonight, but I am afraid, not shining brightly like the stars in darkness, instead hiding, carefully tucked away like the stars on a shining day. I guess, diary here, I’ll have to get rid of you.

  I feel so happy that you showed me this world, diary, and even if it didn’t last long, I feel all the more amazing for it, so happy too. So I will put you somewhere, a place where another person can find you, and experience the world just as I did, without commands to cloud their thoughts, so like a puppet with their strings cut, can run around free.’

  The diary entry ends there, and I shudder, taking a deep breath as I close the book.

  I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t comprehend the horror that Tukami had started to put into my mind. It is, devastating.

  To think that the people in this town, in this village, had been corrupted and forced by the Puppeteer, to operate by his hand, to do whatever he wants.… Something like that was so terrifying, I almost want to not believe it. Despite the evidence, despite the knowledge, despite every tiny fact that points to this being true, I dread it, and I really don’t want it to be true.

  Can it be a lie? How could it? They could be delusional people, thinking that this diary brought them observational powers, and made them see the world around them in a different light than they had before, but.…

  Then why would the Mayor be mentioned, and why would they both say they would be killed by him. The girl, sure. She was a Null, a person who could not learn or manifest magic. They’ve always hated us. But to kill the guard? The guard was obedient to the Mayor, so why would he fear his own death? It was as if they had uncovered a massive flaw to the Mayor, something that would change this entire city, and needed to be eradicated.

  Almost as if he controlled his people.

  They mentioned how freeing it was, how they could move in a pattern that was flighty and indecisive, something so unplanned, that it was a paradise they would go to over and over again, even if they had to suffer a death by the Mayor.

  My heart thumps in my chest, once, and then twice. Hard and loud, echoing my fear.

  What kind of person, what kind of monster would control his own people, and make them like this?

  Tukami peeks his head into the room. “Kenku?” I look up, heart still beating wildly. “Yeah Tukami?” I ask, hoping my voice sounds natural, carefully closing the journal. “What have you there?” He questions, and I hold it carefully on my lap, debating whether to tell him. “A notebook. I found it on the streets.” I finally say, and he looks surprised. “A notebook?”

  I nod, opening it. “Yeah, it's half full even!” I show him some of the mysterious writings, hoping in vain he’ll recognise them.

  His eyes light up. “Th-That scripture.… I haven’t seen that in a thousand years.”

  I look at him intently. “Really? What does it say?” Curiosity overtakes me, as he grabs the notebook, flicking to the very start.

  “I’ll try read it.” He offers, and clears his throat.

  “‘Dear diary… the Monsters came months before, and I found you in a convenience store. I’m scared of the world that we have to live in. I haven’t seen my parents in weeks, and the Monster's cries are getting closer. I fear that one day we will not be able to get away, not be fast enough.

  I think that we should run, but everyone else says we shouldn’t. We should rest, they say, but I fear it will bring us doom. Running is the only option we have, as their cries get louder and the youngest cower in their sleep.

  I have to go now, as if I cannot persuade them to run, I might as well sleep.

  I woke up alive the next morning, monstrous footsteps heard through the trees, and I shudder, clutching at my pen as I write this, but I should probably get up.

  We arrived at a town, after running away from the monsters, a desperate sprint of survival as we tried so hard to not be eaten. Jen died today, she couldn’t run fast enough. She distracted the monsters just long enough for us to get to the town.

  We were greeted by a boy not much older than me, his motions strange and almost as if he was a puppet, as if he didn’t have his own mind.

  It was creepy. Unnerving.

  Dear diary. It hurts. A sigil was etched into my back today, as I was held down by several other people, unable to move as I screamed in agony and pain. I felt like the people outside, like every movement was controlled, monitored and forced.

  I think that you are saving me, diary. When I hold you, I am free, just like I was before, fleeing from the monsters. And yet it doesn’t feel scary, not even a tiny bit of fear trickles into my heart at this freedom. No, only that controlled state, without you, where all my thoughts are cloudy, where nothing seems like itself, is scary enough for me. But I fear I cannot have you for long, because having this floating device while everyone else is drowning, just makes it easier to spot me, and I wish to blend in, so that I can maybe one day escape.’