Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

I quietly walked down the dirt path. An occasional leaf crunched under foot as the warm sunlight filled my body. The birds chirped quietly as though from a distance, I stepped onto a metal bridge, which spanned the silent yet running creek below. As I walked across, the sound of my foot steps reverberated back at me like rolling thunder. Stopping midway I looked over the bridge to gaze at the sparkling water below. The water flowed over the rocky bottom making it sparkle like the night sky in the sunlight. The soft wind brushed past me barely disturbing my hair. Watching the glittering water below I thought about the silence of this serine place.
"Is this a dream?" I asked no one in particular, "If it is then I never want to leave."
"Well you must," whispered the breeze in my ear as it flowed past.
"Why?" I inquired as I looked up into the canopy above.
"You must move on, you must seek what was lost," said the breeze as it whipped faster.
"What was lost? Were do I find it? Why me?" I yelled over the roaring winds.
The breeze had turned into a howling storm, which instantly darkened the peaceful place that I knew. The wind raged around me, it made the strands of my hair whip my face. I tried to pull them back, but it wasn’t worth trying, for I had no string to tie it back with. I crumpled to the ground, hands clapped over my ears as the winds now booming voice bellowed in my ear, "Go now before its gone forever!"
I opened my mouth to inquire more, a thundering crack came from the canopy over head. Quickly I looked up at the wild canopy to see were the sound had come from. A large branch came tumbling down from the canopy breaking every branch it hit, and it was headed strait toward me. Wanting to move, to get out of the way, but at that second my brain and feet were not in sync. As a last result to try and save my life, I thrust my arms over my head. The branch hit with a sickening crunch. I fell slowly. I tried to scream, to make some cry for help but the timeless vacuum that I was trapped in swallowed all sound even the beating of my racing heart.
Snapping my eyes open, there was only white... white clouds. My hands reach out to feel what was beyond the clouds. The comforting thump of my hands hitting glass told me that I was home not in another dream gone bad. Relaxing I breath in the white cloud gas that was oxygen, super diluted muscle relaxers and sleep inducers. My hands slowly feel their way down the sides of the glass sides of the sleep chamber. Finding the release handles, I pull and a gust of air floods in and flushes out the white clouds. Slowly with a faint buzzing the top folds off. I sit up slowly squinting around the brightly lit room that I lived in. The room was plain, white walls with a black tiled floor. There was a desk, neat and polished, a changing screen decorated with a dragon and phoenix doing battle, the sleeping chamber and four wide windows, two of the windows had balconies, for this was an outside room that had a good view of Navar.
Lightly stepping through a window onto a stone balcony, I stared at the view, at the city that I fell in love with. Navar was my home and the only home I would ever want, with its gleaming dome that protects the city from the harsh suns and the tall wall that kept out the untamed jungles that bordered it on three sides. The city with its white houses that seemed dull, as the people in and below them, bustled about in their bright multi-colored clothes. The transparent protective dome glinted with the rays from Colta the second Sun, as it used those rays to power the city. Navar was one of many big cities that the Ganaxy governed and helped protect. The Ganaxy was like a government that let the cities govern themselves to an extent, if the cities had a plague, drought, bad weather, or a massive out break of crime; they would step in and take control till the trouble was over. Almost everyone liked this arrangement, the citizens did not have to worry about the government becoming too controlling and interfering with their lives. There were tales of far off worlds, in different galaxies, that the governments forced their citizens to fight in useless wars where many innocent people, who had nothing to do with the war, were killed. Whole races were wiped out or were captured and forced to forget their life before, all of the knowledge lost over those cycles of chaos and destruction.
The Ganaxy discouraged travel between the cities for traveling through and even over the jungles was very dangerous. The only safe way to travel was the sea and even that was dangerous at times. It was safer to stay in your own city. Where people knew each other and they knew the laws and where to go if they got hurt, to report a crime they had seen and even where they would sleep. I gazed out over the barrier wall, I could see the canopies with the slick inviting leaves that in the warmer seasons bore fruit. Many brave people went out to collect fruit, wood, to travel, some did not come back and then the rumors would start.Navar was such a tight city, rumors spread like frightened birds. When peopled disappeared, Navar would hum with the rumors of a lost tribe that lived in the jungles. They said that the Pe-jung or jungle people snuck up and carried the people off to their hideout where they were given the choice to join the tribe or die. When people would go missing the Ganaxy would send out scanners to literally scan the jungles for life. At birth everyone on this planet, Daknar, which was under the control of the Ganaxy, was imprinted with a bar code on the nape of their neck. This was to help official’s access necessary information, and to keep track of the population. The bar codes could be read by a scanner, and this is how the government could find missing people. When the Ganaxy sent its scanner out into the jungle the scanner could not pick up anything, it was almost as the people had disappeared completely. The Ganaxy sent out different scanners to try and detect new threats including disease or new breeds of animal. The only real crises, except for the people going missing, was a jungle fire that burned down a small portion of the jungle, even though it was not near the cities, the Ganaxy looked into intone the less. They told the public that they had found nothing but burnt wood and animals that had not made it out on time, for a long time I was sure that they had found something, but would not tell it to the public until they got to the bottom of it.
Feeling my stomach growl with hunger I stepped back into the room. Padding across the tile, past the sleeping chamber, I slid behind the changing screen that my older brother had given me on my tenth birthday. When he presented it to me I could not stop hugging him, I loved it that much. I slipped off my night dress and into the form Fitting bright green tunic and white pants that were the traditional uniform for the Peace Walkers. The newer recruits included red striped in their tunic and pants, this caught on and stuck. Many Peace Walkers wore the new uniform that included the stripes, but I thought it looked silly. I was comfortable and stuck with the traditional uniform with the shoulder badge that identified me as a Peace Walker, instead of the flashy stripes and the gold trimming on the badges. Peace Walkers are responsible adult like figures that wander the streets, looking out for anything going wrong. The crime rate in Navar was very small, but it was still there, tucked away in back alleys and the lowest parts of the city. These parts were only assigned to the very best of the Peace Walkers. The Peace Walkers Academy was the place to go if someone wanted to become a part of the justice serving walk of life.
The Ganaxy came to the Academy to choose candidates for a position in the Ganaxy, but to be chosen you had to be the best of the best of those Peace walkers who were competing. They did not take the weak or fickle tenth cycles unless they rose through the ranks quickly, which in this line of work was not likely. It took me, good as I am, four years to get into the top five. There were hundreds of citizens that made it past the entry tests living in the Academy, and most wanted to make it in to the top spots.
This meant trouble for the top five, including me, anyone could challenge a person a rank ahead of them to try and take that spot. This put lots of pressure on rank five, who had to accept these challenges and complete their work to satisfactory to stay in the top ranks. Once a season the top five had competitions to see who was the best of them, and agreed to not try to take a spot that was not theirs during the training period. That’s what the top five did in their spare time, trained and trained hard. These challenges tested everything from street smarts to technique of the capture.
As I put on my lime green and white boots, I prayed to the gods to keep me alive and do a good job protecting the innocent people. A knock at the door alerted me to my surroundings. Grabbing my dagger I unsheathed it in one fluid motion, as I casually approached the door. It was weird, I thought to myself, the cleaning team doesn’t come till tomorrow and my friends know to knock in the rhythmic code I taught them. The handle jiggled as the person on the other side tried the handle. Quickly I jump to where the door would swing open so the intruder would not see me, I stood there silently. I slowed my breathing along with my heart beat, trying not to give my self away with a racing heart or a wheezy breath. As the door quietly, slowly opens a shadow is visible in the brightly lit room. I peer into the crack of the door but all I catch of the shadow is the bright green, white and red of the clothes. Great, a Peace Walker is breaking and entering. This is going to go over so well with the head Peace Walker for this section of the rooms, I thought smirking. The figure entered quietly, but the patter of feet on the tile was giving them away. I dropped and rolled behind the desk as the sneaky figure steps out onto the balcony. I peered over the desk trying to get a better view of the intruder as it stepped back into the room.
A Peace Walkers room was private; this is where most peace walkers with large rooms trained, relaxed after a day of running after criminals and did their reports. The figure looked to be searching for something, as they looked around then headed for the changing screen. I crept after the intruder watching for any sign they had seen me, but I never saw a sign so I crept closer.
As they peered behind the screen I placed my dagger in the middle of their back and whisper, "You shouldn’t have entered my room. I want you name and rank number, you’re going down for Breaking and Entering and possible thievery."
"My name is Kent Storm, my rank is not important," the intruder said stalling. He had no clue that he was treading on dangerous ground, which meant he either just transferred in or he didn’t care. I was all ready running late and if he was going to be stubborn, I wasn’t going to play nice. Whipping out a dagger from my boot I place it at his throat.
"I suggest you give me your name AND rank before you get hurt."
“Like you could hurt me, you’re only a girl. Girls are weak frail creatures that need constant saving from the big bad world," Kent chuckled.
"You obviously do not know who your dealing with, I am Peace Walker Simon, rank 5, day shift and I’m running late thanks to you. Plus this girl had a dagger at your throat and back, who’s the one who needs saving now?"
"If I wanted, I could get out of this dagger trap and kill you in three blows," Kent bragged.
"Really, I would love to see you try," I said pressing my daggers harder in to his flesh," I would be quiet if I were you unless you want to be a bloody smear on the wall."
A chime came thought the open windows signaling that it was nine in the morning.
"Thank you Kent, now I’m really late for my shift," I said turning us around. Propelling him towards the door with one hand and putting my boot dagger back into my boot. As I shove him out of my room with the dagger I had in my hand I slash at his face opening a gash on his left cheek.
"That’s a warning, never enter my rooms again unless you want to be feed to the dogs, and don’t think that I won’t report you," I said pointing at the cut. I closed the door in his face that had a horrified astonished look smeared across it. Hurriedly I gather my equipment bag and strapped it over my chest, adjusting it for comfort. I closed and locked my windows before heading to leave the room. I opened the door to an empty hallway, I half expected Kent to still be standing there with a look of revenge as the blood dripped down his face and on to the clean carpeted hall. He had left a bloody hand print on my door almost like he was marking his territory, for there was no other sight of blood in the hallway. I locked my door and making a mental note to find out who Kent was later. I raced down the hallway to the stairs that framed the end.