The Borrower Unit (Viktor)

I vowed to my sister that we would do something against the Kingdom. But in the end, we were found by one of them.

The following weeks me and my family endured the soldiers' setting camp in the town. It was really difficult living there, even though I still performed some of the same tasks before they came, I wasn't happy.

I heard the sound of something hitting the ground.

I turned around and Kate had dropped her bag of potatoes, she had begun to cry.

"What are you doing? if we don't do something they are going to hurt us. Get up"

"I can't do this anymore! they took everything. We were going to sell these potatoes with dad, and now we are giving them to the ones who killed him."

I couldn't say anything to my sister, she was there when my father was killed, she saw them take his life. I just stood there, motionless.

"What do you think you are doing, you have to keep working."

A guard had come to check on us, I dropped my sac too when I saw his face. He was the man who killed Max. I could now see his face more clearly, he had tired eyes and a mustache. His skin was tanned like he had worked under the sun for half his life. He was wearing light armor and carried a spear.

He pointed it towards my sister.

"What is she doing?"

"She- she's feeling a little tired, that's all."

I hesitated a bit to respond but he seemed convinced. He scratched his mustache and looked at my sister.

"It's ok then, you can take a rest if you want."

The man grabbed my sister and took her to where the rest of the soldiers where camping. I can't begin to even imagine what they did to her that afternoon.

That night every survivor was sleeping on a single barn. The cold floor wasn't comfortable at all and the hay wasn't enough to provide heat. Not many people survived the invasion. Much of us left were children about my age, the old were killed and those who resisted were executed in front of their families. I could see Alice resting, we hadn't spoken at all since we were captured, I couldn't after what happened to Max.

"You know, you don't have to blame yourself." Kate spoke in a low voice with cold eyes. She was even worse than Alice or me.

"You were just afraid of what they would do to you." Her voice was cracking and I could have sworn she was crying. Hearing her voice made me feel even worse, yet another person I couldn't help because I stood immobile.

Her words were practically telling me that what happened to me was my fault, that I could have intervened, but cared more about my life than the safety of others. My heart ached because what she said was true.

My friend died because of me.

My sister suffered because of me.

I tried to sleep but to no avail. I just couldn't. I didn't know how much time had passed, but it was still night. What good had I done in this world? I was repeating that in my head when I heard someone wake up. But I didn't move.

I covered myself in hay and pretended I was asleep. If only I hadn't.

I was so tired, but eventually, my body managed to sleep. And I woke up to the sound of a blast just outside the barn.

"There are still survivors in here!"

I heard a woman say that. I thought they were the kingdom's soldiers who had come to kill us all on our sleep until I looked up at her. She was wearing white armor and a crest on her chest I had seen many times before labeled on our potatoes. We were being rescued.

I tried to wake up Kate and the twins, but I couldn't see any of them. I panicked for a bit, I didn't know where they had gone. Maybe they were already picked up by the white army. I took comfort in that and proceeded to walk toward the woman and grabbed her hand.

"Ma'am, did you took my brother and sisters?"

"I don't know kid, but I'm sure someone else took them to any of the caravans, they are safe. Now come with me."

I grabbed her hand, it was warm, and I looked back at the barn. Another white soldier took Alice and carried her towards the exit.

For a small period I felt safe and hopeful, the future seemed good. Until we exited the barn.

If the invasion was gruesome and violent, this one was worse. It was only morning, but the sky was black, covered in ashes. Now it was the black soldiers who were running for their life, I felt happy, they deserved it. But what amused me the most was the number of white soldiers who were casting something with their hands. Some were using some sort of blue crystal to protect themselves from fire and arrows, others made a crystalline orange fist with their hands and punched the running soldiers with an incredible force. I saw another in the distance creating fire from his hands. I would later find out that these were Borrowers.

I looked at the woman I was grabbing, I couldn't see her face since she was wearing a helmet, but she definitely had black curly hair. And her eyes had begun to shine blue.

The same blue spheric crystal protecting some of the Borrowers was now enveloping myself and the woman. The moment the crystal surrounded us completely all outside noise was automatically canceled, it was as if we were in a space of absolute peace, isolated from the rest of the world. We were somehow still able to walk and breathe while inside this bubble. The moment we took a step forward the bubble moved with use and opened a space for us to step on the ground.

We kept walking avoiding the debris from the fighting until I reached a large vehicle that was floating above the ground. I had never seen anything like that before, It was completely made of white shining metal, and where wheels were supposed to be, there was a sort of structure that glowed blue. I tried to take a look at it, but the woman advised me not to touch it. The woman took off the blue crystal and her helmet.

She took me to the inside, but I hesitated a bit to step on it, fearing it might fall, but she took my hand and I stepped inside. It was bigger than it seemed on the outside, and that's saying something since on the outside it was the size of a small home. But inside it was about the size of a barn, it was massive. The inside was cool and you could see some cables on the top, but it was poorly lit. I couldn't distinguish the woman properly.

"Ok, that was all of them, let's move on towards the capital."