Chapter 2

Suddenly, a loud noise and a rough voice sounded. It came from a speaker mounted on the outside of the research area. “This is researcher 137 speaking. The preparation of subjects 278 and 279, arrived this afternoon, 74 and 70 years old, has just been completed. I ask you to monitor them from now on and to record the reactions to the experiments in writing. One of the lower researchers should deal with it and then report back to me. The subjects are located in outdoor sector D, enclosure seven. End of announcement.”  Cheyenne broke away from Xaver, looked at him hopefully, turned around and rushed towards the corridor leading to the outer area of Sector D. The friend followed her immediately and as fast as her legs carried her, they ran outside.

It was hardly colder than inside the hall, but it was still raining. Flood lamps were located to the left and right of the separated enclosures and so everyone would be able to discover the two friends without difficulty. Cheyenne didn’t care at the moment, she forgot everything around her, because at the end of the corridor, surrounded by enclosures, there was one with the number seven on the front door. Behind it, she could even see her grandparents.  Her heart jumped and she ran faster than ever. Feelings of happiness flowed through her body and she was so happy to have finally found the two. Cheyenne forgot the rain and cold of the night and couldn’t wait to embrace her beloved grandparents again. She would save them and everything would be fine again.

The entrance gate of the enclosure was closed by a metal chain and was now the only thing standing in the way of family reunification. Cheyenne shook it, but to no avail. Xaver drew his sword. “Go aside and let me do it!” She did as he had told her, the boy lifted the scratched metal weapon and hit the blade with full force on the chain. It shattered with a metallic sound at the point of impact and the lock fell to the ground. The door to the enclosure opened a crack before it was pushed completely open by Cheyenne. The loud noise had alerted the grandparents and they spotted their granddaughter in disbelief. She ran towards them crying and fell into their arms. An incredibly strong feeling of happiness and joy flowed through the girl and warmed her from within, so that she no longer felt the cold rain.

Xaver watched his friend and her grandparents and sighed with relief.  It was nice that they were still alive. The two elderly people wore soaked rags and metal bracelets and collars, shivered from the cold, were pale in the face and looked very sick. The faded brown hair stuck to their wrinkled faces, dripping with rain.  Their condition did not make a good impression and this worried the boy. Perhaps they had already been subjected to experiments that had a fatal consequence. But he remained silent and kept his guess to himself.

Cheyenne’s grandmother stroked her granddaughter’s soaking wet hair and then lifted the girl’s petite head up a bit with her hands so they could look at each other directly. The old lady also wept with joy, despair and sorrow. She whispered a few words to Cheyenne in a shaky, rough voice. “Girl, what on earth made you come here? That is far too dangerous! Now, if something had happened to you,  your grandfather and I would never have forgiven ourselves. Oh, my goodness, what happened to your neck? Dear, that must be very painful. What kind of things do you do?” The grandmother spoke softly and with concern for her beloved granddaughter. Cheyenne noticed how weak the old lady was. It took her two attempts to finally answer and find her voice again. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here this afternoon, I’m so sorry I got you into this trouble. I… I’m so sorry!” The grandfather stroked his granddaughter’s head reassuringly and made her understand that he did not blame her in the slightest for the whole misery. He just seemed happy that the girl was doing reasonably well. Cheyenne saw the old man shed tears for the first time in her life.

“Um… Guys, I don’t like to disturb this touching family reunion, but I think we should slowly get out of here, don’t you think? After all, a researcher is supposed to show up here…” Xaver spoke up worriedly. Everyone in the enclosure knew he was right.

Just as Cheyenne turned to her friend, he was pushed to the side from behind and fell to the ground. Where the blond boy had previously stood, there was now a tall, menacing-looking knight. His armor suggested that he was quite muscular and strong and was very different from the other knights who drew their swords behind him. It was golden and decorated with white plates connected by embellishments of the same color. A turquoise-green cloak was attached to the shoulder plates, which made this man look special, striking and honorable. His hair had a strange cut, looked like three hung up triangles and could be seen on the sides and back of his head. His hair color was dark brown with highlights, consisting of different shades of green. The tips were dyed white, with the exception of a hairpiece of the same color, which covered half of his right eye. The knight’s eyes were light brown, almost orange and only the left pupil in it was black. On the right side it was white. His gaze was empty, but at the same time wise and determining. The man’s face was marked by scars and showed no sense of guilt for knocking the boy over.

The knight stared directly into Cheyenne’s eyes and pinched his to frightening slits. He averted his gaze from the girl and looked at Xaver lying on the ground.  Without saying a word, the fearsome man drew his mighty water-blue sword and pointed at the boy. He wrinkled his nose and touched Cheyenne’s friend with the sharp blade on his neck. Xaver gritted his teeth and bravely, but at the same time frightened and disturbed, stood up to the knight’s gaze.

Cheyenne, like her grandparents, was horrified, unable to do anything, and she tried to gather her thoughts. With ease, the man in armor could now kill her childhood friend. She wanted to do something to help him, but didn’t dare to make a move. She was sure that if she tried to help Xaver, the knight would not hesitate long and pierce the boy with his sword. She was powerless and had to wait and see what happened.

Against all odds, however, the knight let go of the boy and gestured for him to get up with his blue blade, whose inner metal seemed to move like water, and go to Cheyenne. Xaver did what the powerful man told him to do, jumped up and stumbled over to his friend. Protectively, he stood sideways in front of the girl as the knight in the golden armor walked a few steps towards her and ordered his troop, consisting of six other knights, to surround the two friends and the grandparents.  Cheyenne’s grandfather became angry. “What on earth is this supposed to be? Haven’t you already made us suffer enough? Who are you anyway?” However, he received only mocking laughter from the ordinary knights, instead of a response from the man in golden armor. None of this seemed to interest him in any way.

The golden knight stood two meters in front of the friends and stared spellbound at the black crystal of the girl she wore around her neck. Cheyenne noticed this and covered the sparkling object with her hands, taking a step back, intimidated. The man closed his eyes briefly, then grinned and finally decided to say something. His voice was bossy, powerful and decisive. “Stupid girl, haha. Are you really carrying your crystal around with you all the time, huh? How careless. What if you lost it?” He paused for a moment and laughed a nasty, eerie laugh before grinning again and turning back to Cheyenne. He seemed to notice that the girl didn’t understand why he was talking about her crystal. “Hmpf. Either you’re very difficult to understand, or… Haha, they haven’t told you yet. What a shame.” Before the knight could continue speaking, the grandfather intervened again. “Just leave her alone!” Again the man in golden armor laughed and raised his hand. Two of the surrounding knights moved towards the old man and held him, roughly pulling him away from his wife and he groaned with a pained face when one of the two men in metal stepped on his foot. Cheyenne’s grandmother sobbed when she saw her beloved husband suffer. However, her granddaughter was rigid and did not know how to deal with the situation. It was all too much. The talk of the great knight, the sufferings of grandparents. She was confused.

Without paying attention to the old man, the knight continued to speak. “Well, at least you fell nicely into our trap. Your grandparents have also proven to be a wonderful bait. Haha. Your love for them is truly gorgeous. It was clear that you would try to save them, so we just had them brought here and waited for you to show up. Didn’t you have any concerns that you could easily reach the research complex without being discovered? Haha. We have made sure that no one crosses your path. All the while, we were able to make out your position from the control room. Did neither of you notice the security cameras? Oh, that’s right. In your slum, you probably don’t know anything like that.” He paused for a moment to laugh. “And didn’t it seem strange to you that the researcher called out the exact data of your dear grandparents? I had more… expectations of you. More than just a stupid naïve girl.”  Cheyenne looked down at the ground. Now it also seemed strange to her that they had no difficulty finding the old couple. Her grandfather was outraged and could no longer contain his anger. “What do you think using us as bait for Cheyenne?! You are a heartless scoundrel! A miserable bastard! A –” He didn’t get any further. The golden knight raised his hand again and moved his fingers. A fatal sign that triggered a cruel order.

One of the two knights stood in front of the old man, drew his sword grinning and rammed it with full force into the old man’s chest. The blade pierced the entire upper body and reappeared dripping with blood on the back. The red juice of life stained the armor of both knights and they laughingly enjoyed the agonizing moans and screams of their defenseless victim. The four remaining men in armor also began to laugh unrestrainedly and the mighty man in gold could be heard whispering, his eyes closed. “I have no time for your thankless insults…”

Cheyenne’s heart stopped for a moment. Her ears ached from the death cries of her dying grandfather. Then he fell silent forever and collapsed until he lay motionless on the wet, cold ground.  His blood, together with the relentless rain, now soaked the earth. The girl was unable to move. She was so shocked that she couldn’t even cry. She breathed abruptly and stared at the dead body of her beloved grandfather, from which his murderer was drawing his sword and drilling it into the old man’s flesh again. Cheyenne felt nothing but a tingling emotion. It was depressing and erased all her thoughts and other feelings. Then it was like ramming a knife into her chest, directly into her heart. She flinched in pain and moaned briefly and softly. She could no longer hear the laughter of the knights, everything fell silent. With a blank stare, she watched as the knights kicked the old man one after the other and robbed him of his last dignity for his insults. The rest of the environment was no longer noticed by the girl.

Suddenly, her grandmother, who was holding on to Cheyenne, pulled her down and sank to the ground. Cheyenne realized that her grandmother was no longer aware of what the knights were doing to her former lover. Still shocked, but worried about the only remaining family member, the girl knelt down next to the slumped grandmother. Her condition seemed to have deteriorated a lot, but it wasn’t just because she had just seen her husband die. Cheyenne wanted to ask what was going on, but couldn’t find the words and couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all. She saw blood dripping from her grandmother’s mouth and it was getting more and more. Grandmother! What is going on?  But she didn’t have to ask the question or hear an answer to know that these were the last breaths of her beloved grandmother. She, too, would have to go away forever and suffer before that. The old lady groaned and gurgled before she could quietly stutter a few words. “Are these the… Impacts of the… Liquid… which they instilled in me…? … Chey-enne… You… You have to… get to sa-sa-fety… I can’t go on… can’t be with you… and watch over you… You… must… live… You… a-are the world’s… last… Hope… beloved child…” The grandmother coughed and spat out a lot of blood. Then she stretched and couldn’t breathe. She gurgled again and then she didn’t move. Her eyes were open and empty. There was nothing left to see in it. 

Cheyenne sat emotionless and apathetic next to the dead body. She had stopped crying and felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. Neither soul pain nor cold, nor fear, simply nothing. The world seemed to have stopped. Everything was like in slow motion. Her blank gaze wandered around, everything was as slow as if it would freeze at any moment. All she heard was screaming inside. Then her gaze remained fixed on the man in golden armor. She thought she saw a trace of sadness in his eyes and pity. But that was certainly just imagination.

The knights were still busy laughing and Xaver took the opportunity to pull Cheyenne to her feet. If there was a way to escape from this hopeless situation, it would be now, when all the knights were still distracted. But Cheyenne stumbled powerlessly over her feet and fell to the ground again. “Come on, Cheyenne, pull yourself together, we have to get out of here!” The boy pulled her up again and held her, staring into her empty eyes.

“You’re not going anywhere!” The golden knight clenched his hands into fists and then turned to his troops. “You useless worms have a more important task than killing yourselves with laughter! Bring me this damn girl or kill her and get me the crystal!” He rebuked his men and everyone approached the two friends. Xaver drew his sword. “That’s it…”

But before the blades met, Adocaz jumped over the metal grid into the enclosure and barked so loudly that a gigantic sound wave went in the direction of the knights and caused them to fall backwards. “Adocaz! … Perfect timing.” Xaver was relieved that the fairy wolf had appeared. The boy took Cheyenne, who had meanwhile found her balance but was still distraught, by the hand and hurried with her to the end of the enclosure. “Adocaz, destroy this fence so we can get out!” Xaver gave the order to the silver four-legged friend and immediately afterwards, he whistled through his fingers to call the horses. The fairy wolf, meanwhile, gathered his inner strength in front of his open mouth and when it was strong enough, he unleashed it in a magical turquoise-glowing beam. In no time a huge hole had melted into the fence and the three ran outside, where the horses had just arrived on a hill and danced nervously. As fast as he could, Xaver dragged Cheyenne up the hill, pushed her onto Falconheart and gave the horse a slap that made it run. His friend was still apathetic and had just enough strength to stay in the saddle, even if she leaned more on the horse’s neck than sitting. The boy also swung on Shiva and rode after the girl, followed by Adocaz.