Prologue
The illumination was dim, the thin slats of light filtering through the blinds that barricaded the small room from the hustle of the busy main ward merely lengthening the shadows cast against the plain white walls. The air hummed with the hushed whir of different machines while a tall man stood, hunch shouldered, over one of many glass-topped cots. Behind a thin screen of silken black hair, eyes trained on a tiny, healthy human child wept silent tears.
In his opinion, 'healthy' was by no means the right word.
* * *
The merciless wind whipped the long blonde hair of a pale-skinned girl into animated dreadlocks that swirled around her frowning face like the hair of medusa. Brown eyes blinking vacantly in the face of the needling rain, Cassandra Nallu ignored the persistent cries of her mother as they echoed around the darkened rooms of the mansion behind her.
She stared out over the storm-thrashed buildings from the balcony of her room, those dark eyes failing to take in the image of broken windows, uprooted vegetables and missing roof slates that depicted the chaos unfolding in the island village. She was far away, beyond the howling wind and flaying rain, listening to a conversation she never should have heard in the first place…
"Th' mainland… it was fab!"
"…There were these Pokémon…"
"…used t' be here too, 'til he bought th' place…"
"…Got rid of 'em, 'e did…"
"…said 'e did it for 'is daugh-ah…"
"…yeah, fuh'th' freak…"
Gripping the railing of the balcony, the girl's thick knuckles turned a brilliant shade of yellowish white from both the cold and the pressure.
"I'm not a freak." She hissed to the empty air as it strafed invisibly against the sturdy walls of her father's manor.
"I want to see the mainland as much as the rest of them. I want to see these 'Pokémon'! I never asked for this! My father is innocent!"
With a howl of trapped desperation, Cassie smashed both fists into the unforgiving steel of the railing. The shock ripped through her arms up to the shoulders and she shuddered.
The earth shuddered with her.
Momentarily startled from her eruption of pent-up frustration, the daughter of the island's owner windmilled her arms as the balcony - no, the whole island - bucked beneath her feet. Hands slapping against wet stone and glass, Cassie steadied herself and watched in wide-eyed fascination as, just within her range of vision through the stormy haze, the sea started to fall back from the beach…
"Cassie!" exclaimed the voice of a fiery haired woman as her bony yet slender hands latched onto the shoulder of her only child, "What are you doing out here?! You'll catch pneumonia or wor-"
She broke off abruptly and Cassie felt the pressure on her broad shoulders lessen as her mum's grip weakened.
"Good mother of…"
The woman stopped again, her face twisted into an expression of sheer stunned terror before she tried again, grabbing the arm of the younger female and pulling her back towards the sliding door that led inside with petrified urgency.
"Well, what are you waiting for?!" she screamed at the static blonde, whose mind was caught in a mixture of horror and morbid curiosity, "Get inside NOW!"
Breaking from her trance at the blast of her mother's voice in her ears, Cassie ripped her gaze away from the roaring wall of water that was now hurling itself at the helpless islanders. Together the two women slammed the door shut behind them, wet and numb fingers fumbling with the lock, as the tsunami barrelled up the beach, consuming everything in its path…
|