Lysar held her breath, watching anxiously behind the shelves as a couple of armed Rethans marched past her then exited the store. She wasn’t sure how long she had been hiding there, but the number of soldiers that had marched in then out again was at least starting to dwindle. Not that it mattered, all it would take was one soldier to see her and she would be dragged out, the same way that other Rethan had…
It had all started a few hours ago. Without warning, everyone else in the shop had suddenly frozen in place, then stampeded out of the store, leaving everything where it was. The entire shop emptied apart from Lysar and a couple of other Rethans, two of whom had rushed off not long afterwards in a panic. Lysar had no idea how far they had gotten as she had remained where she was.
While Lysar didn’t know what to do, she was beginning to realize what was going on. Something utterly horrible. The Rethan Secret, the telepathic connection between all Rethavok that allowed them to communicate and share their feelings, had been… Lysar wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. Destroyed? Hijacked? Taken over? Either way, nearly every single Rethan was now under the influence of an unknown other, except for Lysar. And presumably that Rethan who had been dragged away earlier. What was more terrifying was that Lysar was completely locked out of the Secret, meaning she wasn’t privy to whatever dark information was corrupting her fellow Rethavok.
Another pair of soldiers marched through the store, again marching directly past Lysar, only just not noticing her. They muttered something to each other, then left. But unlike the others, this pair closed the door behind them then locked the door. Lysar was pretty certain she was now locked inside this shop, but there were far worse places to be trapped. Through the shadows outside, she could see that the Rethans had stuck a large sticker across one of the windows. Why? Lysar didn’t know, but this did buy her some time to work out what to do next.
Lysar’s first trick was to crawl away from her spot, assessing whether anyone could see her or not. Apparently the answer was no, as the formerly busy street outside was now completely empty. Everyone had just taken off, gone elsewhere. With that answered, Lysar looked around for some sort of communication item that could helpfully tell her what was going on. Her wristband, which normally had connection to the Rethan Olanet, had lost connection the same time everything had gone silent, but there was a TV screen above the checkout. It was on but…
Keeping low to the ground, Lysar edged closer to the screen. There was no one on the screen but there was a constant ticker playing across the bottom half of the screen. The top half though consisted of one single sentence: “Please remain calm. The Kenon Change is taking place. Society will be restructured for a better future. No one will be hurt. The Voidlord will protect you. Please remain calm.”
“What the…” Lysar struggled for words, then abruptly stopped. The scrolling ticker on the bottom half of the screen made no sense at all. It was a scrolling list of Rethavok who were both apparently dead and traitors. One of those names… belonged to Lysar’s partner.
More fear and panic began to set in. Lysar’s truly beloved was dead AND a traitor? How could that happen? He was… so…
Lysar shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. There was no time for worrying about the past. She needed to protect herself. But how?
“Pss!”
A small hiss distracted Lysar. It came from somewhere behind her. The staff room door was wedged open and a blue and yellow Rethan was peering through the gap.
“Pss! Are you… not a zombie?”
Lysar turned to the voice and nodded. “I am of my own mind.”
“Good. Do you want to get out of here?”
“I do.”
“Double good! Come with me, I know where we can go…”
With no other options, Lysar sighed, then followed the mysterious Rethan. What else could she do?