Eternity Zero

Chapter 3

        Killian hated waking up. He always felt groggy and weird, and not himself, like he could fall over at any moment. The good thing is, he didn’t have to wake up that early. No one knew they were hanging out on the rooftops at night, so there wasn’t really any limit. He slowly opened his eyes, waiting for the blinding light.
        There was none.
        “Flaming-” He stopped. He was still on the rooftop, but Al was gone.
        For a moment there was total confusion. Then he realised: Of course he is, he’s out on the town. He always did this. But why had I woken up in the middle of the night? Had someone come up here? He looked around. No signs… nothing. Was there something in the alley, or… Why am I so paranoid? Honestly!
        He curled up under his meager blanket. They had made camp on a tavern, by a busy road, which they planned to con. There’s nothing he-
        Crack!
        A sound whipped at him suddenly, startling him out of his skin. There was something there. Curious, he crouched and tip-toed closer to the edge. A cat? A-
        “-but he’s obviously ignorant! There’s no sign of anything!”
        “You didn’t answer our earlier query, how do you even know when?”
        Voices. Kai sharpened his ears. One was Al, for sure, but the others… He couldn’t tell. Al sounded rushed, stammering. Everything served to make Kai more curious. He peered over the roof.
        There were three figures one was Al, he was backed up against the alley end, and sweating heavily. He looked kind of like a shocked pig. The other two made no sense to him. They were cornering Al against the wall, and smiling maliciously.
        “What’s the matter, Albert,” said one. “That is what you're called now, right? We only asked a simple question.” said someone with a face that belonged to someone in Buckingham palace; early thirties, clean-shaven, polite trustful eyes that, no doubt, often looked very nice and trustworthy. Not now. He had a white suite on, spotless and unwrinkled. His hair was jet black, and his face be Kai had no doubt, usually looked quite nice. Not now.
        But there was something else. Something about him. A certain air. An aura. Then he realised it wasn’t just that. He was glowing. An eerie white light came of him, luminous.
        The other, he could not say the same for. He was fat. Extremely large grease stains covered a good part of his extremely large apron, which, in turn, covered his extremely large body. His multiple chins framed a huge, drooling, mouth. You could smell it from miles away. Not only that, but only a few scraggly hairs still covered his pockmarked scalp, like someone’s very bad joke of a farm. He glowed green.
“He knows nothing! I swear it to you!” stammered the crook. “How would he? Ther-”
“Silence!” The one who looked like a prince snapped. “There is no room for mistakes! We need to figure it out, then get the boy.”