NOTE: This is the FIRST draft of Between Water and Sky. Information on the finished draft will be published later.

Chapter One

    A warm breeze tousled the boy's locks, leaving him with dirty cheeks and a wide, gritty grin. "I know you're out there, Linus!" he squeaked, turning in a long, drawn out circle. His mind raced with every strategy a ten-year-old could manage. One dealing with a game of midnight tag, anyway. Tonight he'd decided to play 'coyly'.

    If he had any true idea of what the definition of the word 'coy' was he'd realise he always played in such-a-manner. But, as far as he-knew, it was a term to describe utmost intelligence. His papa was always calling his mother by such a term, anyway, and his mother was nothing but intelligent!

    Cascading clicks and hums tripped about one another in the would-be silence of the night. Peter didn't pay it any mind. He'd grown up in the world of mechanic symphonies. A clock sounded prematurely, but soon a street full -- a city full -- of growing accomplices chimed and dinged and sang along with it. Within the chaos the sound of an ashcap[1] hissed open as a wallop of smoke sauntered leisurely to join the endless smog that subdued the moon and stars.

    Peter's History teacher, Miss Simons, had once shown the class a photo of what stars used to look like from land. Before the black pollution choked out the suspended sea. The photos had been fascinating! Small pinpoints of light -- as if it was a child's job to draw the skies, but in a raging tantrum the child decided to throw golden paint about, nicking navy pages -- clumped around one another. They were even said to twinkle; dancing like those on a stage.

    Peter dreamt that one day he would fly above the endless overcast and witness such a glory for himself -- that was if they still existed. Miss Simons had also taught them about pirates and how they stole whatever they could get their hands on. No doubt they'd take every last star down and hide the treasures away for themselves.

    The boy rushed into another alleyway -- this one parallel to his last -- making extra-sure to look behind the thick pipe that ventured up and around the buildings. It was a pipe made for a coal-munching stove[2]. Peter knew the stove-pipe system had a more 'mature' name, but he always preferred to call it as it was. A coal-muncher.

    Peter's family had one in the sitting room; they also had a room dedicated to keeping coal to feed it! When fed, the monster would cry out 'crunch-crunch-crunch-ssptt!' and then it would make relentless banging noises until it was fed again. Peter wasn't exactly-sure what it did with the coal it ate, but he did know whatever it was had to do with the pipes that groaned and moaned throughout the inside and the outside of his home.

   Coming up empty-handed once more Peter pouted beneath a syline[3]. A tuff of his hair glowed golden beneath it, his head a halo of messy strands. He started his way towards the next stretch of hiding spots when a dash of movement stole away his attention. Peter turned about just-in-time to see Linus's sharp, mocking eyes as the older boy sprinted out of sight once more.

    "Ah-hah!" Peter bellowed, launching off on stout legs in vital attempts to catch up with the brunette.

    His heavy boots thudded noisily against the metal roads. He knew why he needed to wear them, but the knowledge did nothing to assist him in his desperation for quickness.  He knew they were his only protection (if one looked past the sweat inducing inch of balled-up cotton that posed as a protection against the shoes them-selves) against the steel and tin and magnetically-pulsing surfaces around him. Stepping on a crack in the road could result in a stitch-deep cut, riddling him with diseases like tetanus. Nevertheless he wished wholeheartedly that he could tear them off and bury them in some lot of the grey imitation-dirt that filled everyone's yards. He'd never escape the scoldings, though, so he left them on.

   By the time he'd turned a third corner in his prusuit, his breaths were intense and sporadic and there was a deeply settled ache in his side that threatened to topple him. He stopped in the mouth of an ally, grasping his sides. A hoverer[4] passed by carelessly; invisible fumes were quick to lap up the precipitation that had beaded over the child's brow as it did so. Once it passed Peter continued on his path. He'd never won this game. Determined to make this night the one that finally won him some respect with his older companion, he reared around another bladed building.

    The small trace of Linus that he had been holding onto was gone now. He stopped in his tracks, trying to be coy about the situation and come up with his next move. With a focused brow settling on the ground he had little in way of consideration as the sputtering hums of a hoverer's engine jittered closer at a fearful speed. It swayed gently on its magnetic path, never considering the boy that stood placid in the centre of the street, oblivious. A beat; a turn of the head; a gasp --

    "Pete!"

    The hoverer's hot, apathetic buzz hit Peter in a dizzying collision of radiation as he was knocked off his feet. The boy cried out, hitting his back on the metal ground, it's surface leaving irritated burns. The solid force that now panted over the boy was not a nefarious motor, but a very angry Linus. The brunette pinned him to the ground in a heap of limbs, his elbow digging hard into Peter's chest. His eyes were dark, sharp as blades, as if he were trying to scold the boy to death.

Unable to breath the younger of the two shook him off, coughing and sputtering into the warmth of the steel road.

    "Damn. Pete--!" Linus choked, propping himself up with open palms directly beneath his shoulders. He caught his breath before turning his attention to the younger one. "You gotta look where you're going!"

    Peter returned a lame nod, intimidated by the eyes he avoided. The clouds were ominous above them. "Sorry, Linus, " he managed.

    Linus rolled his eyes and pushed himself back into a comfortable kneeling position. Peter was only three years younger than him, but that handful of time seemed to hold an eternity worth of knowledge; Peter could be so dim!

    The younger boy finally met Linus's stare, and as his shock wore off a new -- questionable -- emotion stole away his countenance. "Hey!" Peter cried gleefully, "I did it! I won!" He sat now, laughing as if minutes prior hadn't tried to carve his name into a Memorial Wall[5].

    "What?" Linus retired, positive the jitters had turned his friend perfectly mental.

    "I've done it!" Peter chortled again. "I've beat you at tag!"

    Linus sighed. 'Yes,' he groaned inwardly, 'perfectly mental.'

    "You can't win a game of tag by almost being mowed down, you lunk!"

     Peter's happiness tightened. He took a very obvious and visible offense to this, twisting his face into a tight knot until, between the shadow cast by the sylines' glow and the dirt creasing his face and the flush in his skin, Linus had to admit he did, in fact, resemble the disgusting animal's image. "I'm not a lunk!" he wailed ever-so convincingly, "take that back!"

    Linus smirked. It was always so easy to pull a reaction out of Peter. "Can't," he mused meanly, "my folks would board[6] me for lying."

    Linus hadn't time to raise his hands in fake surrounded, for Peter jumped to his feet in a paroxysm of vexation and shoved him to the ground.

    "You're such a jerk!" Peter cried. Linus had half a mind to kick the kid in the shins -- hard -- but the boy had stolen enough distance down the street before he could make it possible.

    "Where are you going?" Linus demanded as he rose to his feet.

    "Home," Peter replied shortly.

    Linus groaned. Peter always did this; he was such a kid. "Wait up!" he called after. Peter didn't comply -- if anything, he brusquely sped his strides -- but the older boy caught up without issue. Linus knew he had to apologise. Peter would no doubt go crying to his mother about this, and then Peter's mom would talk to his mom, and then his mom would chew him out for picking on Peter. Baby. "Listen, I just wanted to apologise. You're not a lunk -- promise! If anything you're a -- a -- hey, oomph --"

    Peter had stopped abruptly, the crown of his head at perfect height to ram into Linus's throat, cutting off the older boys words of feigned sympathy.

    "What was that for!" Linus erupted within a croak, stepping back and rubbing his neck.

    Peter didn't answer right-away and an presumptuous feeling befell Linus. "...Didn't Miss Simons say that they stopped sending the Tectonic Air Force [7] out?" He asked at length. Linus furrowed his brow.

    "What are you going on about?"

    "The air Force," Peter reinforced surely, "they cut it off?"

    "Uh -- I think so, I dunno, why?"

    Peter didn't vocalise his response this time, too busy brewing in confusion as he raised a finger to the sky. Linus had to squint at first, but after a moment he spotted a moving blob that was undeniably an airship. Linus opened his mouth to express his lack of concern, but Peter beat him to the punch. "And what on Earth would they be dropping?"

    Linus never received a proper opportunity to respond, for in the next moment the world was swallowed by a pit of noise and heat and flame and confusion and fear.

    The ground grumbled like an angry stove. Spastically brilliant, but not enough to outweigh the pressure that had momentarily built in the air. It pressed down on them like a heavy tongue built of fire. Moist, unbearable, suffocating, burning.

    For the second time that day Linus threw the both of them to the ground, using one arm to shield his already pained face and the other to twist himself just-in-a-way so that he could use his body to protect Peter. The explosion had seemed to set the smog itself aflame, drawing everything into a blinding light before the lustful flames died out again, leaving everything darker than they'd originally been. Linus cried in and pain, the burn on his cheek drawing out his tears. He could feel that Peter shook violently with sobs, but the blast had rendered Linus's hearing useless aside from one droning -- maddening! -- frequency that rang mercilessly. He squeezed his eyes shut. The ringing slowly let-up, only to be replaced by a new cacophony of talking sirens and alarms and screams and disaster.

    "C-Cmon, Pete, we gotta get home." Peter looked up at him with wide blue eyes snogged with in tears. He nodded, and together the two rose to trembling stances.  

   It seemed an eternity before they reached Peter's house. Mrs Holster was already awaiting their arrival, a thick shroud of worry exuding from her rigid stance. "Peter!" she cried, rushing forward to pull the crying blond into an embrace. "I told you to be back before the sylines' half-glow!" she scolded, though the relief ebbed away much of her anger. Peter sobbed into her chest, nodding and riveting fast with shaky breaths.

    A part of Linus wanted to be included in the embrace, but he knew he had to get home. His own mother would envelope him in a similar manner, he was sure, but it wouldn't be the same as Mrs Holster's cradling arms. No, Mrs Holster had always treated every hug like the end of the world. No doubt where Peter got his dramatics.

   He turned before Mrs Holster could offer him a place to stay until morning; a place to stay until the chaos of the awakening world calmed down.

    Before he knew it he'd broken out into a sprint. Medical hoverers whipped past him, but he gave it no thought until he realised how hot it was getting the closer to home he got. The more he attempted to swallow down his fears, the more inevitable they became. One turned corner was all it took to confirm the fossilised dread that had sunk to the bottom of his stomach.

    Three blocks from his home,the buildings were broken and soft; at two blocks glass rained over sorrowful heaps that began to bleed into the streets; at one block from where he'd last seen his parents, the steel buildings couldn't be distinguished from hoverers or playsets or roads; standing in front of rubble that used to be his home all that was left was melting metal and broken glass and curling walls and shouting flames and machines that had the arrogance to survive long enough to spew their final tuts and whines.

    He barely registered his own scream as his heart was expelled from his body to burn alongside his whole life.

A/N

Footnotes:

[1] An 'ashcap' is like a chimney with a lid, allowing anyone to open it by means of a lever inside.

[2] A 'cole-muncher' is a stove that creates energy and heat by burning coal. Every house has one, as today's 'clean' energy system hasn't been invented.

[3] 'Syline' is a romantic term for sky or sky light, but it is also a system of street lights that are always-on due to the thick smog that keeps days dark and nights pitch black. 'Half-glow' would refer to a time period around 20:00

[4] A 'hoverer' is a car without wheels that travels on magnetically-charged streets. This allows them to move along easier due to the lack of friction.

[5] The 'Memorial Wall' refers to a wall that acts sort of as a gravestone, but it is filled with names of the dead as proper burial doesn't exist. All bodies are cremated.

[6] To 'board' a child is to strictly punish them, most commonly starting with scornful lecture and ending with a lash across the knuckles with a ruler-like piece of wood or leather.

[7] Just like in today's world there are Navies, Armies, air Forces, etc, but they were created to protect against civilian crime. There has never been intention to use them to fight off fellow plates.