Chapter 1
“ I was born with a privilege, a privilege that let me explore the world. Privilege to feel the wind of an ocean, feel the grass under my feet. I had the privilege to taste spices, to smell flowers, to hear the howling wolves. Privilege to let people know they’re still loved. Privilege to see good and bad in people. I had the Privilege of a life full of good memories. I don’t care how much I have to suffer outside of those things, as long as I can still feel I’m alive. However, I was born with a curse as well. Curse to be the miracle child of a royal family. Curse to be chased around the world, target on my back and bounty on my head. I was no child to them, I was only a miracle, a weapon for their greedy desire. Whoever you are, you now possess the privilege and the curse to know… how the world ended. - Maple Mayfield “
“Maple! We’re leaving, are you ready with that weird book of yours?” I heard the calling. “Yes I am, I’ll be right there!” I shouted back. Oh yes, that was my guardian Micah, the only person I can trust anymore in this world. He has been by my side ever since my little miracle was discovered. He has always understood me, well not always, but he understood how unreasonable my parents have been through my whole life. I closed my diary that Micah called a Weird book of mine. I don’t think it’s weird to write down my own feelings and thoughts, and who knows, maybe someday after I have passed away, someone will read it.
We stayed in an old cottage in the middle of the forest last night. It was small and broken, but at least we had a roof on top of our heads. Before I ran outside, I grabbed my diary and threw it into my bag. As I got outside, I was greeted by a tall man with a horse. “Hop on, let’s get moving.” This black haired and blue eyed man said to me before, with giggles I ran next to him, grabbing his free arm. “I’ll walk with you for now.” I said, looking up to him. He sure was way taller than me, there were at least two of my head between our height. “If that is what you wish.” Micah smiled back to me, If he was a few years… well many years younger, I would definitely fall in love with him, who wouldn’t. A smart, handsome, strong, well behaving man with a big warm heart. But like I said, too old for me. I’m almost 18 and he is 30, over 10 years between us. Let’s say, I think of him more as my brother than anything else. Or guardian angel, that is an option too. “Hey, so where are we going today?” I asked. I wanted to know if we were sleeping in the middle of nowhere in the forest again, or did we actually go into a real town.
I had to cover my eyes from the sun, as it was shining so brightly behind the trees. Max was adding his horse noises to the sound of leaves that were rustling above us. A small river was running a few meters away from us. It was a pleasing sight to see wolf puppies playing near it as their mother was hunting fish for dinner. It reminded me how lovely it was to have at least someone to take care of the things I couldn’t do yet. Example, Without Micah, I would have been caught already about a thousand times. Which made me not proud of myself, but I’ll manage. I always do.
“Aurich town. It’s the closest one.” Micah finally gave me his answer. Aurich town is one of those quiet but noisy towns. I mean, there’s not much going on, people are very introverted and poor. On the other hand, criminality is in the skies there. It’s for sure no one will look for me there, but it’s not like we’ll be safe there. Traveling around the world sure is hard when you can’t settle anywhere, you have to keep moving all the time. Every minute you use something other than walking towards, a so-called enemy will catch up with you. But maybe we get lucky and find a nice spa where to spend the upcoming night. But it was still a long way to walk to the Aurich town.
“Micah, what do you think?” I tried to start some kind of conversation between us. “About what?” He asked back, silly him. If I wanted his opinion on something specific, I would’ve asked a more specific question. “Overall. What is going on in your head?” I asked again. “Why are you interested in what goes inside my head?” He dared to ask back. “Well, I can hear my thoughts all the time, but not yours, so if you tell me what is going on in there, I can compare if our thoughts are similar.” I giggled. I could hear Micah deep sigh deep in my bones as he started to tell what was going on inside his head. “Well… Nothing special really. Just wondering how beautiful it is here. Sun is once again setting on the sky, warming up the air. How wind is keeping the temperature cool so it doesn’t get too hot. Birds are waking up to this day. And for some reason you are holding a laugh.” Micah noticed how hard I was holding back my laugh. “Don’t worry about it, you just sounded so poetic” I finally let out my giggle, grabbing his arm even tighter “You can continue, it sounded nice.” I looked up to him, kind of resting my head against his arm. Even Max took a lesson and placed his head on Micah’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m not a resting place for you.” Micah bumped Max’s head off of his shoulder.
As Micah continued telling his thoughts, I fell deep inside my own thoughts. Of course I still heard what Micah was saying, but the beautiful nature got most of my attention. It was a shame that I couldn’t just stop and stay here to see it everyday, but I guess it’s better to get moving and see a lot of other beautiful places, rather than being locked up in a castle without windows and guards roaming around keeping an eye on me. This was way more fun, an adventure with Micah and Max. Without a doubt it is scary, not knowing who you can trust and who you can’t, but Max and Micah are absolutely the ones I can trust, even though Micah is weird and closed, he can be very nice and Max is sometimes so silly I can’t do much but to laugh. I don’t know where I would be without them.′
“Get down!” I heard just before I was pulled backwards, falling onto the ground pretty harshly. After I realized I was laying on the ground, I quickly turned to look Micah’s way, seeing an arrow sticking on the ground, which scared the shit out of me. It took a while to notice… they had found us. Questions ran through my head, should I run? Should I take Max and escape? Or should I stay close to Micah? Everything went down so fast. Royal guardians were sliding down from the upper hill, straight towards us. “Maple, get on Max now!” I heard him saying and without a doubt I stood up and took hold of Max’s bridle, throwing his reins over his neck. I ran over to Max’s side and noticed, damn it, I’m too short to hop on. No, I can do it. I took a few steps back for some speed to jump on. As I jumped, I actually got on, kind of. Lastly I swung my other leg to the other side, lifting myself to correctly sit on his back. I took Max’s reins in my hand when Micah suddenly yelled at me. “Go! I’ll come behind you, just don’t use roads!” As I took a look at his way, his hands were full with the Royal guards.
I asked Max to hurry by gently kicking his ribs, squeezing the reins like it was the only thing keeping me alive. Tears in my eyes, fear in my body and the sound of swords hitting each other in my ears, I left Micah behind and headed to the other side of the river. One last time I glanced behind before I led Max into the river. It looked like they didn’t get to come after me, at least for now. “It’s you and me now Max, Let’s find a safe place to stay and wait for Micah. He will come back, don’t worry” I Pat Max’s neck as we crossed to the other side, continuing deeper into the forest. I had wondered in the past how these few weeks had been so quiet, no Chasers had been seen, but the truth was that they had gotten close to us, too close and we didn’t even notice.
