The Warrens: Sam, Nicola Collings [best book club books txt] 📗

Prologue

This tale takes place in the colourful, yet complicated City of Tyrell. Colourful because of it’s wide variety of people and complicated also because of it’s wide variety of people. It’s not an ideal place to live; in fact, if you were to move to the city, then I guarantee that within a week, you’d be looking at houses in another city! People don’t move to Tyrell City. People from Tyrell City move to other places in Tyrell City because other cities in the country would probably discriminate them for their origin.

                I shall explain; within Tyrell City, there are four regions. The city itself is built in a small but steep valley and it’s houses spreading right out to the surrounding highlands, but stopping and giving way to a vast desert beyond. At the centre if the city is, the quite astutely named City Centre. This is where you’d find the typical shopping centres, the schools, train stations, monuments and tourist attractions. It’s a shame that the only thing that the City Centre is missing is tourists. This is in the centre of the valley, deep in the heart.

On one side of the valley, the gold of the grey city, is Boundary. Boundary is filled with big, modern houses built from pale bricks, wide, tarmac roads, black, neatly paved drive ways, posh cars, neat, well-kept front gardens, trees and, most importantly, Horizon House. Horizon House sits at the top of Boundary, gazing over the surrounding Valley and it houses the Mayor and the people who govern Tyrell. Boundary is where you would find the successful business men’s houses, the policemen’s homes, the most expensive schools and the people who are most well off and can afford their electricity bill, along with taxes and gifts for their children at Christmas.

The opposite side of the valley is called The Wynde. Looking at The Wynde, you would notice the tall, dark brown-bricked, historical buildings built extremely close together, the narrow, cobbled roads running up the steep hill like black veins, the black, slate rooves, some which had ancient gargoyles nestled in the corners. This is probably the most historical part of the city, the only part with the original, iconic, gothic buildings from centuries ago. It is here you would find the people who live in small, confined flats down narrow streets, people who have no real jobs but get income by other, more shady means, people who dress in a certain way, people who are looked down upon by the rest of the city. Oh yes, discrimination is a big part of life in Tyrell City! People who live on The Wynde live in a tight community, look out for themselves, concentrate on surviving, not luxury.

The last region of Tyrell City is the Outskirts. People out here are middle-class, normal, in-between people who aren’t defined by where they live. They aren’t defined by money or status but go about their daily lives, rarely involving themselves in the conflict between the prejudice and the survivors.

There is another part to the city, a part that people learn about in their history lessons and are told about in the form of legend. The city’s Underworld lies beneath The Wynde and spreads out beneath the whole of the city and some of the desert or wasteland that surrounds the city. It is only legend, not many people speak of it. Years ago, in medieval times, the king decided to ‘cleanse’ the city of the vermin. To do this, he decided to build a wall around the section of the city where the peasants lived and dwelled. Doing this, he entrapped the peasants and effectively, ordered his men to build another city on top of their city. Their city was buried deep beneath, the only hope for them were the people who knew better, who knew that one day, the kings plan would fail him; vermin would find it’s way back into society somehow. So a secret group was created, people who were part of the kings court were given keys to secret entrances to their underground city. These people who were entrusted to passages to the Vaults, which in turn, would allow passage to what the people called The Warrens. These people were called the Descendents. People in league with the descendents, were known as disciples. Together, they believed that one day, the people of the Warren would once again, rise and punish the king for his actions. Of course, the legend was soon forgotten about.

This is who we are. We are survivors, living against the harsh inner rims of society who call themselves sophisticated but are really just tyrannical beasts posing as human beings. Or so I say; I’ve yet to meet someone who isn’t form The Wynde, who actually accepts us and isn’t a complete bitch. People say, however, that a Black Parade will soon rise and take back the city. What once belonged to the myths of the Warrens and what was once held in hands of black and gold, of The Wynde and Boundary will be reclaimed. Those who claim they are gods, who drove the warriors beneath the city itself, will fall to it. And all it’s descendents.

At the top of The Wynde is Duskgate Mansion. My house. It sits at the peak of the hill, surrounded by trees; it’s huge, gothic structure reaching above the tallest pine trees. My parents are dead, so I inherited it. The mansion itself is only the tip of the iceberg, there are more chambers running deep into the earth, reaching the Vaults through the Archives and the Cellars, through it’s many rooms. The mansion itself rivals the beauty that of Horizon House, the two houses stand face to face, forever locked into each other’s sights. It holds authority; as do I. As my parents died, I and the house inherited the secret of the Descendents. I know for a fact that the rumours are true. I am a key holder. I see the future from my bedroom window.  I can see almost all of Boundary from my bedroom window. It seems a shame that so few people can witness such a beautiful sight.

But that’s just the way things work.

My name is Cynthia, and I can see The Black Parade rising in the east; we are ready.

Part 1: Sanity

                Sam stood on the edge of Boundary, ready for the raid. Strapped to his back in an X was a baseball bat and one of his collectable samurai swords; he’d grown used to hording equipment like this in his home on The Wynde, after all, this was what he did for a living. He stood at the back of a group of six; the only person who’d even acknowledged his presence was his friend, Alex. He hated this life. But he had to do what he had to, to survive.

                The group in front of him were busy streaking their faces with black war paint, partly so they wouldn’t get caught on camera, but another reason was that they believed in The Warrens. They believed the people of The Warrens wore war paint like this. Apparently it was one of the ways they kept their lives a secret from the people of Tyrell. In fact, the group that the little posse belonged to seemed to idolise the secrets of The Warrens. There were all sorts of stories about what goes on down there!

                It is said that the citizens of The Warrens train themselves from birth to become soldiers, to fight and to live in the darkness and the secrets. No one knew if they even existed; Sam didn’t want to know. He wasn’t sure if he believed it himself. Karl, the leader of the little group believed in a prophecy, that said that one day, a Black Parade would come and take over the city. He believed the Black Parade to be people from The Warren.

                Sam didn’t believe it. 22 years of age and he wasn’t about to start believing in fairy tales.

                The group edged their way onto Boundary territory, keeping to the shadows. 

                “C’mon Sam. We gonna take that house there.” Alex turned to him and pointed to a posh house with a Porsche on the drive way.

                Same nodded and followed Alex as the rest of the group paired off and began to rob the people of Boundary.

                Sam went to the back of the house, Alex close behind him and took a pin from his back pocket. After picking the lock within seconds, Sam was in the house and searching for a safe. The house was deadly quiet, the only light from the moon outside, sending tendrils of silver through the house. He found a hand bag and rummaged through it, taking money and credit cards from the purse.

                “Dude, help me with this.” Alex whispered form the other side of the lounge.

                “We’re not taking the TV.”

                “Yeah we are, now c’mon.”

                Sam hesitated. “We’re not taking that!”

                “Why? You know, it’s like you don’t like getting money!”

                “They’ll notice that!”

                “And they won’t notice the contents of their bank account suddenly disappearing?”

                “That’s not what I mean...”

                “Dude, get out, ok? If you’re not gonna help, then someone else will.” Alex spat and continued to try and take the TV.

                Sam went from the house and jumped the fence to the next one. He picked the lock of the back door and did the same again, and again with the house after that. Three was enough. He jumped the fence of the house behind it and made for the street, making his way to the rendezvous point.

                About an hour passed before the first pair of the group showed up. Around 10 minutes later, an annoyed Alex showed up.

                “Thank for leaving me there, prick!” he spat, angrily.

                “Dude, you weren’t gonna take the TV! They’d have noticed straight away and it would have taken ages, probably waking them up.”

                “Not if we worked together. You full on abandoned me!”

                “You told me to leave!”

                “Maybe you should.”

                Sam paused in shock.

                “Face it; no one here wants you anyway.”

                Anger started to grumble in Sam’s stomach. Breathing out, he forced himself to swallow it and just walk away.

                No one noticed him walk away. Only Alex. And Alex didn’t need him. Not anymore. Sam wouldn’t be surprised if he suddenly got a text from Alex, stating his apology and his welcome back. And Sam always did go back. He needed the group. It was his only source of income and his survival. But his options were becoming fewer and fewer.

                Sam reluctantly returned to his 2 roomed flat somewhere, deep in the heart of The Wynde; the part of The Wynde where the people that didn’t matter lived. The people that thrived on other people for their income. Survival wasn’t just a word to them. Other people on The Wynde may know of the word and may think that it is what they aim for, to rise above the oppression of Boundary, but to the people who lived on The Wynde that didn’t matter...

                Survival was more than a way of life. It was something they scraped at and grasped for, but somehow, it was always out of their reach.

                If The Wynde as a whole didn’t matter to the world, then who were the people who didn’t matter to The Wynde?

                Sam slid his samurai sword back in it’s bracket on the wall and tried to forget about his task of carrying out fraud of the people he’d robbed in the morning. He hated his way of life; it was dirty and rotten. He felt like a walking corpse; doomed to walk this path forever, dead to the