Stranded Pixels of Us

The Apeiron

"Kronm klank", the sound of the prison gates as they flung wide open. A tall man, moderately built, with beards quite long as that of the Vikings walked out with swift feet and a look of desperation, anger and revenge constantly emerging from his fiery eyes. His hair was really long and rough, a result of days running into years and decades of confinement within this thick bars of iron. 

Still in shock, he came out and stood outside the prison gates, staring into the whole where he had spent quite a number of his years. "Hurry, we don't have much time", another man who was really huge and quite bestowed with charming looks, pulled him from whatever horrid thoughts were dancing in his mind. They hurried through the dark balcony, long enough, and seemingly endless as they inhaled the smell of something that might have been dust, or clay as they passed by bodies of soldiers, guards who were either passed out or dead.

"Push, look at me… Look at me and push!", said the midwife with unearthly passion in her voice. "I'm tryin… nnnn", as the sounds of excruciating pain that felt like hell was being ignited within her belly. The brown skinned woman in labour was sweating like the clouds at the presence of the rain, only that this rain was from a repository of pain and affection. The room was built to be comfortable- ultra medical lights and a bed that only appears to be used in heavy-budget Sci-fi movies, with a couple of women either there for support, empathy or the real doctors and midwives themselves.

"AHHH!" That scream sounded like a trumpet that alerted the people of the presence of war. It's surprising the decibels that could arise from a mouth so small.

"Here, he's here", one midwife in long dreads to the back of her hair and a skirt so long, made of leather and touches of wool said with a wide smile on her cheeks as she handed the baby, a fair skinned, beautiful boy with fingers so small when compared to matchsticks to his mother.

"Awwn", she was speechless. I guess this is one of those moments where words seem to go missing. She looked at her child and smiled with tears peeping from every corridor of her eyes as she patted his head and legs simultaneously.

"There's been a prison break, we have to leave now!", a man in a thick brown overall quickly shouted with fear and not too much breath left to say more.

The disarray upon all of the faces of those in the room really murdered that short-lived moment of bliss. The mother of the child, with blood still very thick on and in her laps, hurried down from the bed with her baby in her hand and her fear and anxiety flooding her mind. She looked at the baby like that was going to be her last time, with slight semblances of smiles and now, a flood of tears was streaming down her cheeks.

The man who came into the room hurriedly was to engulfed in the imminent terror that was to come that he collected the baby from the woman and handed it over to the midwife in the white apparel.

"The time has come, and we must all do the needful. Hurry! This must not fail!", the confused man said with the baby in the hands of the midwife already. The whole room was full of a thousand feelings, or maybe a million and the only one that seemed to prevail was fear.

"Reikus, we have to go now!", the man said as he dragged the woman very fast from the room. He dragged her so fast that she was all sobered up from the shock in her face in a couple of seconds after.

"You are under arrest", a tall man; all armoured in steel from his head that was almost touching the heavens to his legs that were as big as the waists of some women, said to them in a voice as deep as the furnaces of Azeria. "Round them up, the both of them", shouted Zazuo, the commanding officer with as many as 14 guards surrounding him said with an audacious voice.

"Zazuo, this is a mistake and you know that"

"Perhaps, it is. But I'll rather take my chances with my head on my neck than with people in chains already."

The soldiers pushed Hoder and Reikis rather swiftly as they approached the end of the walls of the Roloi, a wall with beautiful engravings on every side. The Roloi was designed to look like just what it was- unfathomable and impossible to describe by mortals in a few syllables and couple phrases. It was simply breath-taking and nothing short of a wonder.

Still with hurry in each of their legs, it didn't take long before they were at the Ittatin Parkal (The Bars of Space). The Bars of Space was hellish enough that it was only meant for the worst of traitors and criminals who possessed the powers of time. The Bars of Space has only ever been used once, centuries and centuries ago, and now it was to be used again. Its name was due to the fact that within the confinement of the Bars of Space, there was absolute timelessness and everything was absolutely irrelevant.