Ainsley could not help feel excited by the fact that she was personally picked by Axel to go on a Praetor mission. She glanced over at Lachlan, and saw that his pallid gray eyes were soaked in uneasiness, she supposed he was just nervous to the attention being directed at him. It was rare and uncommon for Axel to pay special attention to anyone, and Ainsley supposed Lachlan had never felt this magnitude of notice directed at him personally in his life. Even through his thick goggles, she could see his dark skin underneath glimmering with sweat.

“Are you okay?” Ainsley whispered as one of the men Axel was conversing with placed his headgear back on and begin walking over to them.

“I’m fine,” Lachlan said without any humor in his tone, as he normally had when speaking.

“You two. You two are with me today.” The man with the helmet said with no emotion present in his tone. “This is not one of your usual scoutings. I want that to be as clear as conceivable. This is an actual Praetor assignment. That means you do what I say when I say and certainly without question. Understood?”

When the man behind the mask saw both Ainsley and Lachlan nod their head in mutual understanding he continued his speech. His tone was low and indifferent.  

 “I will not lead you into falsehood. I will be direct. This mission is more dangerous than the one’s you are used to. This is why it is vital for both of you to do exactly as I say when I say so.” He paused. “If you listen to me you will both be safe. Our objective for today is to venture further nearer to the old ruins, then you have ever been before. We will search for whatever food we can find. My name is Sloane.”

Ainsley could not believe what she was hearing. Axel had directed his own brother to supervise Lachlan and herself.

“With all due respect sir, but you are Axel’s brother are you not?”  Lachlan said this with uncertainty and respect.

“That I am Centaur.” He said making direct eye contact underneath his headgear with Lachlan, as a show of confidence and pride.

“I hope you two understand what a privilege you have been given. This step, means you are one step closer to becoming a true Praetor.” He hesitated to look over at Ainsley. “Now come with me and enough questions unless spoken to.”

Ainsley and Lachlan mechanically unfroze their positons and started to follow the masked man who revealed himself to be Sloane, their leaders only brother. Ainsley’s heart began to drum in a fast rhythmic pace underneath her suit, but not out of fear but pure excitement and adrenaline. When they started moving outside of their usual millage that the Centaurs go, Ainsley could hardly contain all the feelings she felt at once. She felt what was maybe fear now but it was an energizing sort of fear, one she welcomed. Her mind raced with so many thoughts at once, but she knew she had to focus, as Sloane had said this was a privilege and Ainsley could not afford to disarray from the task at hand. Ainsley began to take everything in. Her surroundings. Before she used to look from afar at where she is, but now she was actually venturing off into the unknown, and this brought her a sort of joy. She was actually getting to go near to the old ruins of what was once a city, instead of just staying up in the highlands looking at them from afar and using her imagination to think of what it was like down there for people. Up in the highland most of everything was drenched over in weeds and soil, and even moving around the highland was strictly controlled as to where you could or could not venture. Ainsley’s peered down to her dainty brown boots were knotted so tightly she felt as if they were cutting off blood circulation from her ankles all the way to her thighs. She became entranced at how swiftly her legs were moving ahead of her, lifting and falling down into the soft soil beneath her feet. She felt like her body was having a will of its own, following Sloane like it was the most natural thing in the world, she felt as if she was born to be a Praetor exploring the lands of the old ruined world that was once populated with billions of people instead of only a few thousand.

“Halt!” Sloan said with urgency.

 The urgency in his voice made Ainsley quickly touch her back to make sure her blade was in place. The safety of its touch slowed down her beating heart. As soon as Sloane’s voice reached her ears her body stopped automatically.

“What is that?” Lachlan’s voice dripped with dread.

“Did I tell you to talk?” Sloane said looking in anger at Lachlan.

Lachlan replied to Sloane’s comment with silence, and what was quite possibly embarrassment. Ainsley was too stunned to speak or to understand what was occurring. Ainsley came to the realization of why Lachlan sounded so frightened. It was one of those things. Those things that were only half believed by her people, not knowing if they were rumors or truth. Some people believed they had died out, others believed it to be a ghost story to keep their people in line from leaving. Ainsley always half believed them to be real and now she saw the evidence of it with her own eyes. She did not fathom why she was feeling less petrified as Lachlan seemed to be, and much more intrigued. But then she began to understand the reason for her not feeling directly alarmed. It was because she could obviously see the mutated creature coiled up was dead. She wasn’t as close to it as Sloane was beginning to be, but she could see that the creature or the other as her people sometimes referred to them in their stories was not currently breathing. But yet again she knew nothing of these creature’s biology and for all she knew, it could be pretending not to breathe. Ainsley thought that she saw blood or what was meant to be blood smeared onto its bald head, but it wasn’t red, it was a thick dim and gray.

She had heard rumors as a child around camp fires of how they were once created. They were once men and women, who went deep underground before the nuclear war started and the radiation killed most people living about the ground. Except these men and women did not venture out from underneath. Instead, they stayed in the dark and mutated over generations, changing their biological structure to look monstrous. The constant dark made them blind. The lack of clean air and radiation that seeped into the tunnels, caused them to be hairless, and their skin turned a horrible sickly gray. Their fear of venturing out of the tunnels and into the light caused them more harm than the refuge they originally tried to find in hiding down below the earth. It had been their downfall instead of their security.

It was heard of that when these people once did try to venture out into the land once more, and that the sunlight burned out their eyes and caused them to hide back below the earth, into the depths of darkness once more. She had pitied these people from the stories, it saddened her to think that what they thought of would save them, ended up destroying these men and women. She felt sympathy for the children who would be born mutated and forced to live a life of darkness. Rumors had spread long ago, that these people had taken to eating the living above ground when the sun fell and the moon rose. To make matters worse, her people out of fear of these mutated individuals had apparently blocked all the tunnels so that they would die out underneath the ground and never venture out again into the land of the living. But seeing this dead deformed creature made her think that they had found a way to get out of their tunnels again, and into her world and her land. She understood in this moment that the threat of these monstrosities was real, and not made up stories, as some part of her always knew it to be true. She felt partially responsible that her ancestors had a part to play in the downfall of these creatures, but looking at the dead organism on the ground she knew that these things were long past saving.

“You two will stay here. Wait for me.” Sloane said, breaking her thoughts and conversation like a slap in the face.

Ainsley nodded to Sloane, as did Lachlan. They gazed at Sloane who moved with no fear towards the creature, pulling out his gun which was holstered to his hip in one swift motion. She watched in horror as he kneeled down to the creature, and slung its whitish-grey body over like a rag. He put his two figures which were masked in protective gloves and placed it onto the sickly transparent skin of the creature’s neck.

“As I thought. Dead.” Sloane muttered more to himself than to anyone. “You two can come here.” Sloane waved them over.

 Ainsley began walking towards Sloane, not checking behind to see if Lachlan was coming too. 

“What is it?” Ainsley questioned half disgusted at the reeking decay radiation off of its body, but also half amazed and suppressing a gag.

 “I’m sure you already know what it is. I’m just astounded this one ventured so near our camp. These things are normally too fearful to come around here. Haven’t had to deal with one of these in…” Ainsley noticed how Sloane began to loose himself in his thoughts.

“Well, now you to know. These monsters are very much alive still. You two will not speak of what we have found her to anyone. Is that understood? Doing so would cause both of you and your families, much… misfortune. Are we in clean understanding?”

 “Yes but…” Lachlan began

“You wouldn’t want to put fear in the hearts of everyone at camp would you.” He said this challenging Lachlan

“Or break any of the codes we have installed for this very reason? Fear like this would destroy our camp. I will take this straight to Axel and no one but Axel.”

“Sir, I understand why we can’t tell anyone… but what killed it?” Ainsley began.

“Smart girl. I can see why Axel chose you.” He said this looking at Lachlan rather passively. “That is something we will have to figure out won’t we?”

“We?” Lachlan began.

“Yes, we. Ainsley, you I and Axel. Whether you like it or not the boy, you are a part of this threat now.” Sloane paused and showed what Ainsley thought of as a hint of a smile. “Congratulations on your promotions; Praetor.”

The manner in which he said Praetor, filled Ainsley with less contentment and more trepidation. She couldn’t understand why Sloane made that word sound more like a threat and less of a felicitation.

“We will take this creature back to camp. But not now, not with the other Centaurs still scouting. Are you two ready to get your hands dirty?” 

Ainsley was lost for words so she simply nodded her head and said. “Yes, sir.”

Next Chapter: Genevieve: Chapter 5