ROD WARS
ROD WARS
D.J. Hoskins
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Gatekeeper Press
3971 Hoover Rd. Suite 77
Columbus, OH 43123-2839
Copyright © 2016 by D.J. Hoskins
All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form without permission.
eISBN: 9781619845374
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Chapter 1 A Jet on Two Wheels
Chapter 2 Melissa
Chapter 3 A New Reality
Chapter 4 Aizer Academy
Chapter 5 Past and Present
Chapter 6 Desert Adversary
Chapter 7 Titus
Chapter 8 Submerged
Chapter 9 Tomorrow Isn’t Guaranteed
Chapter 10 Toxic Skies
Chapter 11 Train Ride
Chapter 12 Shocked
Chapter 13 Indoctrination
Chapter 14 Tiers
Chapter 15 Tour
Chapter 16 Nearly Falling
Chapter 17 Settling In
Chapter 18 Failing
Chapter 19 Tuning In
Chapter 20 Training
Chapter 21 Catfight
Chapter 22 A Whisper from the Past
Chapter 23 Urgency
Chapter 24 In Custody
Chapter 25 Humiliation
Chapter 26 Jail Break
Chapter 27 The Monks
Chapter 28 First Stand
Chapter 29 Rod of Radiance
Chapter 30 A Scarred Childhood
Chapter 31 A Question of Loyalty
Chapter 32 Upon the Battlefield
Chapter 33 Grief and Despair
Chapter 34 String of Life
Chapter 35 Unforeseen
Chapter 36 Strung Along
Chapter 37 Last Resort
Chapter 38 Sliced and Diced
Chapter 39 Agony
Chapter 1
A Jet on Two Wheels
No one wants to lead a boring life. People imagine themselves destined for greatness, fated to save the world, chosen to be sent to another world, or found by relatives hailing from royal lineages and bathing in extraordinary wealth. But reality is not fantasy. Dreams either die or are realized, ideals of being misplaced royalty fade with the memories of childhood, parallel worlds are discovered in videogames, and superheroes save the day in movies. And yet in every moment of time and point of space, a person triggers the rare and beautiful phenomenon of casting their life in a different direction. Be it by accident, chance or fate they turn down another path. Whether it is a path of adventure or one of solitude, it is all based on perspective.
“Hey, Alex, where’re you going?” asked a classmate as the blond strode by him in his motorcycle gear.
“For a ride,” Alex said, glancing over his shoulder.
“All right, don’t do anything crazy.”
“I won’t.”
“Right…well, catch you later man,” the teen said and waving, he started towards a group of students waiting for him further down the sidewalk.
“Who is he again?” Alex wondered aloud.
Stepping off the curb, he straddled his motorcycle. Picking up the helmet on the gas-tank, he pulled it over his head and buckled it. Turning the key in the ignition, he sped out of the parking lot. He had places to go, things to do, and records to beat. His destination? The highway.
Twisting the throttle, burning anticipation was followed by the familiar thrill of tearing winds and burning rubber. Picking up speed, he pulled the nose of the bike into the air as he merged into highway traffic.
What began as a clear day had twisted out from the weatherman's sunny prediction. Clouds stretched across the sky, gloomy in their misty darkness as they strangled the sun, suffocated its rays and smothered its early summer light in an overshadowing depression. Bright blue was no sooner covered than the rolling grey clouds released the first drops of a downpour. Falling upon the road, the rain rendered it drenched, slick and shining with water.
Alex blinked, annoyance pricking his skin like the rain on his jacket as he struggled to see the road through his fogged visor. Treading steam and burning rubber, he twisted the throttle ever further as the numbers flew faster on the vehicle's speedometer. Pushing past the sixty miles-per-hour speed limit, he returned the nose of his bike to the pavement as he hurtled down the hardened tar. Like a snake, he weaved, darting in and out between cars. A daredevil, a maniac, he cared nothing for the lives of others on the road. It was the exhilaration, the adrenaline that allowed him to fall into another level of focus and to see the road through tunnel vision. Addicted to the thrill, he threw caution to the wind and discarded his actions. It was just a thoughtless rush, a harmless misdemeanor.
Light green eyes leaving the road flicked down to the speedometer. I'm almost there, he thought, watching the numbers pass into the triple digits.
It was surreal. The rainbow of oily water touching the pavement displayed an array of colors which ebbed and flowed. The pattern danced into a melting pot of beauty despite its greasy origins. Speeding into a curve, his tires sliced through a gathered puddle and leaning, he dragged knee, sending the liquid up to spray his visor.
The cars were graffitied walls, ever changing, unpredictable in their movements, in their turns and sudden signals. The road was as volatile as it was beautiful. It was his path, constant and stable, and the sky, the horizon, was his destination. Well over a hundred and seventy miles-per-hour, he scaled the formidable wall of danger and surpassing that level, sped down the road of death. Yet he'd never felt so...alive.
Time seemed to slow down, rewind, and play back as a car, black as night, with its polished metal glinting maliciously in the downpour, began to turn, to signal into his lane. Too close, too late, he realized in anguish. Panicking, he pulled back the throttle on reflex, locking it into a death grip, which only increased his speed.
Time, as it always had, carried on. Relentless, unmoved by the plight of the youth, incapable of emotion in its entity, it spared him nothing.
He couldn't stop, couldn't think, couldn't move; heart skipping a beat, fear failed to register, replaced by one inaudible word: Shit.
As he rear-ended the car, there was a sharp snap of bones, an inferno of pain following in its wake. The split second of agony numbed to nothingness as his brain switched off the pain receptors in his leg. Aware and yet not aware of the apparent injury, he was distracted by the rush of air in his flight – no... He was flipping. Flipping...right into the back of a dump truck.
There was no impact. Nothing. Nothing but dull pain and darkness. Then another rush of air, as he was...falling? Airborne for seconds that felt like minutes; he hit the earth head first. The breath was knocked out of him and a scream cut short as he slammed into the earth.
Reality warped as his helmet cracked and neck snapped. Choking on blood, he turned his head to the side, sputtering. His arm slid out and shook as his body shifted onto it. The attempt to transition from belly to a crawl was short lived as white hot pain flared up in his right leg. Crying out, he reached for it in thought alone. Broken at the shin, the injury would’ve reprimanded the slightest touch, but before Alex could imagine the extent of his injuries, the sand, slowly at first, began to sink.
The ground, the earth, the sand itself began to consume him, tugging him down. Pulling him under, it swallowed him whole, his limp hand following last. His eyes burned, limbs hurt and protesting injury flared agony as his
dry mouth nearly allowed the sand to pass into his windpipe. Fabric tore as the sand ate away his clothes like acid; absorbing, dismembering, breaking down all but flesh and bone, skin and hair. Removing everything undesired, the sand pushed him to the surface to spit him out.
Rolling over and up with a gasp, Alex coughed and sputtered. Though sick, he felt clean, pure, like he'd just survived a deep scrub rather than quicksand. Relieved, grateful to be alive, he touched his throat, then his leg. His eyes widened. There was no pain; the injuries were gone, nonexistent.
He was whole, healed and—utterly confused. His attempt to stand proved futile, and he began to crawl. No sooner did he move than his hands sank into sand. Yanking them out reflexively, one moment passed into another as he sat there, still...frozen.
"I don't get it,” he said, sliding a hand hesitantly back into the cool minerals. He wiggled it under deeper, encouraged by curiosity. Barely a foot under, fingers brushed against a flat plane and his palm leveled out atop a smooth surface, akin to glass. Running the hand along the flat surface tentatively, Alex, retrieving the hand, stood.
If I haven't been pulled under yet, then at this point, I'm not likely to do so, he thought and stepping forward, stopped. What was meant to be a pause to allow his eyes to adjust to the dark setting, rolled into one minute followed by another.
Why? Why is it—? He thought blinking rapidly, as a knot of panic tightened. Why can't I see anything? He glanced up. I'm outside aren't I? So where are the stars? The moon?
Was the sky...always so...dark? he wondered.
With no notion of what lay ahead, he waved a desperate hand before him, over his face, over his eyes, certain they would catch a glimpse of some sort of motion to instinctively follow. He just needed a reaction, a reflex, confirmation that this place wasn't as ominously dark as it seemed. But there was nothing. He couldn't tell so much as an outline of his hand apart from the black background surrounding it. Beside the nerves of his hand and whoosh of air that his fingers conjured as they sliced through it, he saw nothing, no hand, no movement. It was as eerie as it was terrifying. Dropping the hand, he stared out into the unknown and unseen blackness.
Are my eyes still closed?
Cursed with blindness, Alex tightened his grip on his wrist. Squeezing his eyes shut, he inhaled deeply, picturing a wet leaf on a log in the effort to relax. Releasing the breath, feeling no better but no worse, he opened his eyes.
"I have to get out of here." he said, quietly. It was eerie listening to his voice fade into nothingness; it was like he'd never spoken. Is there anything out there?
Aside from his breathing and heartbeat, it was silent. A chill ran through him and Alex glanced over his shoulder, never had he'd been more distinctly aware of himself and his presence. The solitude was overbearing.
Taking another deep breath, to calm his nerves, Alex took the first step forward. Common sense ruled in favor of inevitably stumbling upon an exit – if there was one.
After what felt like an hour, his eyelids fluttered and pupils dilated. Squinting amidst the darkness, Alex glimpsed the faint but sure traces of light and color. Fuzzy in appearance, the purple glow's soft illumination shone out amidst the crushing darkness, poking through it like a hole, a chink, a little moon in the eternal night. The light held strong and constant. A sliver of hope for the lost, it reached him and rested its tranquil beam over his heart as if to say: I have found you.
Releasing a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding, he shifted onto the balls of his feet, and took off at a sprint. The light expanded rapidly with his approach, first from a sliver and then to a floodlight. A light which was trapped behind a rippling surface.
Slowing, he stopped before it and reached out a tentative hand. Touching it, he ran it down the haze's smooth texture. It was similar, he realized, to the surface beneath the sand.
"What is this?" he wondered tapping it with a finger. "Some type of barrier?"
An ever shifting cloudy substance swirled beneath his palm whose color ranged across numerous shades of violet from gentle lilac to soft lavender, mellow mauve and deep plum. Illuminated by a light from the other side, it reminded him of the sun, its rays shining through a stained glass window. It was as if the haze was a blind, a curtain, keeping out its own sun, guarding its own bit of light.
Was it even real?
His gaze skimmed the haze's surface as he pushed a palm on the glass lightly. Surrounded in darkness he'd found the needle in the haystack, the light in the dark. But like the needle, the haze was solid and he, like string, had to find a hole to thread through. Though ignorant about what lay on the other side, his priority was getting out and asking questions later.
Adding his other hand, he stepped back into a lunge, and planting himself firmly, pressed harder on the glass.
Everything has a weak point, he thought, determination filling him. All I have to do is find a hole in this wall and break through it.
Retreating back a few steps from the haze, Alex charged. Crossing the distances in seconds, he flung his arms up about his face, eyes squeezed shut, and threw a shoulder into the wall.
There was a rush of air...but no impact. His stomach rose in his fall and eyes snapped open as he flailed. A scream left him as he plummeted from the sky like a stone, helpless in his descent to the sparkling blue of water. He felt cheated, betrayed. The glass was but an illusion and he the fool.
His fate? Death by drowning?
Chapter 2
Melissa
“I hate being an eleven,” Melissa muttered as she stared out the window of her dorm. “Everyone stares at me as if I’m sort of alien; the school watches me with their cameras and government uses their squads.”
She tapped a polished fingernail against the glass as her pale violet gaze wandered aimlessly across the sky. Bright blue was speckled by the drifting puffs of white clouds as the sun meticulously worked its way across the sky.
“Whoever said that extraordinary people go on to do great things was normal,” she continued apathetically. “I was born a weapon, and I'll be used as one.”
Two sharp raps on her door made her jump.
“Uh, Miss?” a voice said from outside the dorm. “The principal—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” she answered, glancing at a clock as she slid off the windowsill. Dragging her backpack off her bed, she swung it over a shoulder as she stalked across the room and pulled open the door. Stepping into wedges, she walked out into the hallway without bothering to close it. Passing by two of her guards, she glanced back with a smirk as the third closed the door for her.
“I swear, don’t you guys have anything better to do?” Melissa griped as the third guard sped up to position himself before her.
“Your safety is vital to the national security of this country.”
“Oh, don’t give me that, Kevin, I’m just a tool.” The young dark haired man didn’t reply. “Why do I even have to see Principal Leptin?” Melissa whined, giving him a look. “I’m an eleven; it’s pretty obvious what school I’m going to. For me Corpus is written in stone.”
“Your powers haven’t fully matured.”
“Says who? The scientists don’t even know my full capabilities.” When he didn’t respond, she continued. “I don’t even know why I’m confined to this wing. The school has a barrier for god’s sake. I’m the only one here, the only one living here. I could open the doors to any of these rooms, and no one would be there.”
“Your safety, Miss, is top priority.”
“Well, I suppose it really is lonely at the top as they say.” Melissa watched the guard press the down button of the elevator. “At least the lower levels can hang out with people in the dorms, and aren't surrounded by guards all day.”
“I’m sorry—”
“If you’re really sorry, then stop making this floor off-limits to everyone.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Then shut up,” Melissa snapped as she stepped into the elevato
r.
“You were the one who was talking first,” he muttered, walking in after her.
Ding!
The doors slid open and Melissa, flipping back her golden blonde hair, stalked out of them. Strolling down the hall she lifted her chin. All conversation died as she passed, and attention strayed from lockers and gossip to her.
“What am I, some type of rare animal?” Melissa asked Kevin, balling her fists as she stared straight ahead. “They look like they’re waiting their turn at a petting zoo.”
“Bear with it,” he whispered back. “They just want a glimpse of you.”
“Bear with it? Pah, easy for you to say, I doubt you’ve ever been the center of attention. Not with that face.” She laughed; folding her arms as they paused at the end of the hall. “No, you rose to your position through hard work and dedication…unlike me.”
“After you, Miss,” Kevin said, opening the door for her.
“I sort of envy you for that, though, because I’ve never worked for anything.” A peculiar bitterness entered her voice as she stepped out into the wide open courtyard. “As opposed to you, I was born an idol.”
Ignoring the mingling students massing into one crowd, she walked down a cobblestone pathway, keeping pace with her guards as she made her way to a squat red brick building.
Always with the stares. Melissa thought. They all know me and have seen me before. I'm not new to the school.
You know why, her ego responded arrogantly. It’s because you’re the strongest. Look at how they cluster, revel in it. You are the center; you are a celebrity. Come now, don’t be shy. Exercise your power. Order them to bow before you. Stares of awe are simply not enough.
Oh leave me alone.
You have to demand respect from the rabble or else they won’t know what to do with themselves. You’re practically a goddess after all, so stop hesitating. Your abilities are on par with—
No they’re not. I'm nothing special; just a survivor of a science experiment. If that asteroid hadn't fallen who would I have been? That's right, just your average magus.
But it fell and you are as you are now. So claim it, claim your influence.
Rod Wars Page 1