Annihilation by Odessa McNiel (red white royal blue txt) 📖

Five Years Ago

The train chugged further down the track, blurring through the trees.  Melanie stood on the roof of one of the cars.  The snow-filled wind blew against her skin, rubbing it raw.  It stung her eyes with its wintergreen chill.  She closed her eyes as they began to water.  She could feel winter settling into her skin and bones, shaking her with shivers.  

Up ahead of her on the next car stood a figure with the distinctive curves of a woman.  The figure was an ink blot against the blank wilderness around them, dressed from head to toe in black leather and strapped down with sheaths hanging at her sides and around her back.  Golden butter hair whipped out behind the woman in snaps.  She was facing Melanie but seemed to be looking through her.  

Melanie turned around.  Behind her, she realized, stood a man.  His square jaw and coppery hair seemed oddly familiar as she stared at him, though she didn’t know where she’d seen him.  The man was also dressed in black leather, but instead of sheaths, he wore holsters.  Two were looped through the belt at his waist and were occupied by what looked like pistols.  Two more were strapped to either side of his torso, and a pair of sheaths was attached to his back, bearing swords.  His navy blue eyes looked through her as well.

It was only then that she realized the man and woman were looking at each other.  Suddenly the woman leaped from the train car in front of them onto their car.  The woman landed gracefully within an arm’s reach of Melanie but still didn’t seem to notice her presence.  

“Francis?” the man said in a deep voice.  He sounded neither mad nor happy.  The woman- Francis turned her attention to Melanie with recognition for the first time.  Francis- the name was familiar, too, though its origin was unknown to her.  She stared back at the woman with dark brown eyes and flowing blonde hair, trying desperately to remember who she was.  

“George,” Francis said, tearing her attention slowly away from Melanie. “You shouldn’t be here.” She sounded apologetic, almost sad.

“Neither should you.” He replied quietly in the same tone.  They gazed at each other.  Their eyes were sad and old, and Melanie silently wondered if they had been friends at one point.  

Then, Francis moved, and in a flash, had unsheathed the two swords at her back and started slashing at the man.  However, he was just as fast and parried the blows with a fierce clang of metal against metal.  They melded together- Francis and George- as a blur of black and silver light, parrying and dodging each other’s blows.  How could something be so beautiful yet so deadly? Melanie wondered.  

A cry sounded suddenly from one of them.  Melanie looked with sickening horror at the woman.  She had a wicked slash across her abdomen that was steadily flowing with scarlet.  Francis dropped the sword in her left hand and clutched at her stomach, her face twisting in pain.  The man had paused briefly to take in what he’d done before swinging at her again.

Francis defended the blow with her remaining sword but was pushed back by the man’s boot as he kicked her in the chest.  She fell against the roof of the car with a boom, rattling the metal.  George stood over her in victory.  The woman dropped her last sword, sending it flying off the side of the car and into oblivion.  She raised her hands in surrender, but it didn’t stop him from plunging the sword through her chest.  Her hands remained raised for a few seconds but soon fell as the color in her face faded from pink to a pasty white color.  Francis’ head lolled to the side.

George slowly drew the sword out of her chest, wiping the blood on his pants and then sheathing the swords.  He sat down next to her dead body on the train car and pulled her head into his lap.  Gently, he closed her eyes and took her hand in his.  A sob escaped his lips as he rocked her back and forth against him all the while mumbling, “I’m so sorry, Francis.”  He cried desperately.  “I’m so sorry.”

But this time, he looked at Melanie with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Melanie’s eyes flew open in alarm.  She unconsciously flung her arm around herself, slashing at the dark with her knife.  This brought her into a sitting position in her bed.  She bared the knife in front of her face as she searched the corners of her room with her eyes.  When she was satisfied that nothing was going to kill her, she set the knife back on the end table.  

A chill ran up her bare legs as she realized that she’d kicked the comforter to the floor in the middle of the night.  She sat on the edge of the bed and retrieved the blankets, setting them back on the bed in a big lump.  For a second, as she stared at the full moon through the window, she debated going back to bed.  However, she could still feel the adrenaline racing through her body, making her heart thump wildly against her ribs.  There was no way she would be able to go back to sleep after that dream.  

She stood up from the bed, rubbing her arms as goose bumps rose all over skin.  The missionary was always this cold, even in the summer, unless you were sweating half to death from training in the practice room, but then again, it was in the middle of winter.  She started towards her closet in search of something longer and warmer.

The door stood ajar from last night when she’d fished out the pair of shorts and tank top that she was now freezing in.  Quickly, she changed into a pair of black yoga pants and a red long-sleeved t-shirt, making sure the door was firmly shut when she was done.  Before she could step away from the door, however, a flash of silver caught her eye.  Her head whipped back at the door, relieved that it was only the reflection of the moonlight in the mirror.  

But still she stared.  Chocolate brown hair fell in wild curls down her back and framed her fragile face.  Sapphire blue eyes took in the full lips and snubbed, button nose.  She was almost six feet tall, with perfect curves and endless legs.  Even to her own eyes, she was absolutely stunning, but her own beauty was something she’d never liked.  It had cursed her with peers that doubted she had any talent and a list of relationships a mile long.

She tore herself from the mirror and stood for a second in the solitary darkness of her room, debating what to do.  The clock on her desk read two-forty-three.  No one would be awake at this hour, not even the person she wanted to see the most after dreams like that.  She wiped the thought of him from her mind, thinking of a better alternative.  

Silently, Melanie slipped on a pair of black flats, reaching for her bedroom door.  She opened it peering down the hall.  It was dark, except for the candle sconces that were lit every ten feet.  Melanie stepped into the hallway, latching the door.  

Melanie followed the hallway until it opened off of the side of a large entryway.  The long, glass skylight let the glowing moon pour through onto the hardwood flooring.  Tall candle sconces stood at random intervals around the room, basking in halos of golden light.  A grand, stone staircase loomed at the other end of the room, rising to meet the second floor.  She glanced at the two pairs of double doors on the opposite wall, knowing already what was behind each.           

She walked across the room, her shoes creating a slight rustling sound on the floor as she approached the pair closest to the staircase. The doors were made of dark oak slabs attached to the doorway by wrought iron hinges.  Melanie touched the handle and pushed on the doors.  They swung open with a small groan.  She cringed a little at how loud the noise was in the sleeping monastery.

The doors opened up to a room full of glinting, silver light.  It was the familiar glow of weapons Melanie had always known.  To her, their light was like looking at a precious gem.  They were her diamonds.         

She sighed, slipping off her shoes and leaving them by the door.  She tiptoed towards a wooden chest that was tucked away in the back corner of the weapons room.  Its brass accents glinted in the moonlight that streamed in through the large bay windows on the left wall of the room.  Her hands slid across the smooth surface of the wood as she searched for the hidden latch.  Suddenly, she felt a slight change in the surface of the trunk and pressed on the indentation.  The trunk popped open like a cork on a bottle of wine.  Slowly, Melanie lifted the lid.  

Inside the trunk lay a large array of weapons: daggers, nun chucks, sheathed kindjals, flails, and more.  However, her only concern was in a black box that skirted the bottom of the trunk.  Avoiding the other weapons, she gently lifted the box from the chest and set it on the floor beside her, closing the chest.  She took the box to a small table setting in front of the throwing range.  The latch unclasped with ease as Melanie lifted the lid.  Inside, there were four throwing knives, each intricately designed to look the same.  She carefully lifted the first one out of the box.            

The cold metal stung her skin as she gripped it in her hands.  It was small but deadly and concealable.  It was the reason it was her favorite weapon compared to the others.  Her enemy wouldn’t even know she had it until it was too late.  

She stared at the black and red target hanging on the cream-colored wall of the practice room.  There were already nicks in it even though it was hardly used.  Very few people in The Association were skilled in knife throwing and sword wielding, and even fewer were experts at both.  Her trainer had been one of those experts, and thanks to her, Melanie was now one, too.  The only person that was almost as good as Melanie was Kyle. She smiled inwardly at the memory of the two of them practicing together as children.

She spun the blade in her hands, taking in the pattern on the black, leather hilt.  It was a floral design that surrounded The Association’s symbol, an eye with a snake in its pupil instead of color, on one side.  The opposite side was occupied by the same floral design encasing her initials, M.J.W. Melanie Jennifer Wirth.  She remembered being told that it had been an old huntress' name.

Melanie continued to stare at the blade as pain constricted her heart.  Her trainer had designed the knife and the rest of its set, a total of four blades, as a gift to Melanie when her training was completed.  The tradition during the Induction Ceremony, which happened after the trainees turned fifteen, was that the parents would present their child with the child’s weapon of choice.  However, growing up, Melanie had had no one-no parents, uncles, aunts, not even siblings.  Melanie’s trainer had been her only family since she was five- when The Association started the training process.  

Before the ceremony, Melanie had been told that her trainer would be her presenter.  But when the presentation of weapons began, there was no sight of her trainer.  Later Melanie would discover that her trainer had