Beyond the Thorns: A Novel

I wake up, coughing and throwing up brown, watery liquid. I rolled over on my side before getting up again because of the cold, squishy, stuff I was on. That doesn’t feel like a bed- where am I?

Oh, I’m on dirt. Real dirt. Not the thinly lined mattress of the Lab. I get up and wipe some of the muck off my uniform. My uniform that is dirty enough to be put off as brown pants and an artistically designed white to brown gradient. I hop up, balance myself on the squishy dirt, and start walking off.

Across the water, and to (according to Luke) a town. I walk up to a clear wall and look into it. There was a bunch of books (again, something I learned from other Tested), lined up atop one another with gaps between. I curiously gaze through the gaps before seeing another pair of smokey eyes looking at me from the other side. I jump back, peering in again after a while. This time I see the back of someone walking by the shelves.

A light, pleasant ring of something was heard soon afterward.

“You like books?” A kind, charming male voice asks me.

“I wouldn’t know, I haven’t read one before,” I chirp nonchalantly.

“Really? Never? Sure they are kinda’ boring, but most people have at least read one book,” he replies. “How old are you anyway?”

“The adults never let us see the time so I dunno,” I answer.

“You look about eighteen or so. Old enough to be called adult but not old enough to sip wine, but so you have any place to stay? Any relatives nearby?”

“Dunno, been in the La- that place all my life, and nobody came to visit or anything so…”

“That’s sad. Maybe you could chill with me for the day, until you find a place to stay that is,” he offers.

“Sure. I’m Cana by the way,” I beam.

“Jyrasck, I go by Jyra though,” he repeats the motion.

We walk off before another shop (again, Tested) catches my interest. And another shop. And another. We keep visiting shop after shop until late in the day (which it already was after noon as Jyrasck said). He stops at a large, sparklier building than the rest with symbols on the top of it.

“This is where I gotta be so… um…” Jyra pauses.

“What does that say?” I point to the symbols. Luke said those are called words and showed me what L,U,K, and E look like. But not the other letters so I just see “????E??’? ????L??? ??LL ??? ???”

“That says Garrett’s Gambling Hall and Inn,” Jyrasck explains.

“Cool! I can’t read so I wouldn’t know,” I smile.

“Wow,” he falters, “wait. I know the perfect person,” he smacks his fist into his open palm. “Wait here for a sec’.”

“Okie!” I nod, and wait outside the building for a while until Jyrasck returns with a lady. They were talking but I couldn’t hear them.

“Hi, I’m Emma. I heard you can’t read,” the lady introduces herself. She seems nice.

“Yup, I only know how to spell ‘Luke’,” I answer.

“Wow,” Emma says, exasperatedly, “and how old are you?”

“About eighteen,” I chirp proudly.

“Double wow, okay. How about I teach you the alphabet while Jyra is gone on work? Sounds good?” She says sweetly.

“Yup! Can I learn how to spell my name first?” I ask excitedly.

“Sure, what’s your name then?” Emma asks as she pulls out some paper (we had some for drawing in the Lab) and a pencil.

“Cana! But people also called me Unkno back at the place,” I say. She writes some symbols and tells them which is which and stuffs as Jyrasck departs into the gambling hall and inn.

… What is gambling anyways?