5. Zeina
ZEINA
Zeina Veloria was used to eating alongside crawling Bugs and rotting food scraps. It didn’t bother her.
Some people hated Bugs, thought of them as some creepy middle ground between magical creatures and humans to swat away like an infestation.
But when you spent as much time with them as Zeina had, you saw something much deeper.
They were wonderfully, harmlessly magical.
Sure, they crawled around in the corners of shops during the day and fluttered in the sky at dusk—but in the darkness, they glowed. Like little guiding lights.
Zeina adored them.
It was just before dawn, still dark enough for their light to guide her way.
Zeina carried three in her hands, watching their blue glow seep from the gaps between her fingers.
She opened her palms and released them to the sky, their tiny wings fluttering to keep them airborne.
She admired them as they blinked into the night, tiny sparks becoming stars.
Sadly, she couldn’t hang onto them—not with what she was about to do.
As she approached the back door of the small restaurant, she let out a sigh of relief when she saw the mostly eaten bowl of cold curry on the cobblestone. It had been left out for her by the restaurant cook, along with a scribbled note:
All we had. This is the last time, sorry.
Zeina tossed the paper aside to down the food left uneaten by a late-night patron, one who would never know the gut-rotting feeling of hunger she felt every day.
The note wasn’t expected but it wasn’t a surprise either.
This was the reality of Jarrah now. Zeina had spent her life surviving on the generosity of Jarrians.
Shop owners would leave out scraps, or unwanted and sometimes moldy food, until the threat of being caught by Defenders was too great.
Then she was cut off. They didn’t want anyone helping the sympathizers, and Zeina suffered because of it.
It didn’t used to be like this. Years ago, before the break ins, it was a lot easier to get a meal.
Now her stomach ached so often from hunger, it felt corroded.
Most shop owners didn’t mind giving her leftovers, as long as she kept herself hidden, invisible, never staying in one place too long.
She had become somewhat of a nomad, travelling from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, watching, waiting, strategizing how to get herself a single handful of scraps.
Over the years, she got used to living this way.
Jarrah thrived on family values. Their traditions were passed down from the Moon Goddess: the Great Mother.
You were expected to focus on and take care of your own family, as the Goddess had.
If everyone did that, society would function well.
That was what the Jarrian people believed.
And it worked, for the most part. Except for those who didn’t have families, like Zeina, and with nowhere else to turn, they had to fend for themselves.
To make matters worse, a growing number of creature sympathizers were being discovered and outed at an alarming rate, leaving them homeless, cast out by their families.
They wouldn’t be on the streets for long, as Defenders would soon catch them, but still the spaces she had gotten used to occupying were now far more crowded.
Even getting scraps was almost impossible, as fear of Defender punishment surged like a sickness throughout the city.
It had gotten so bad that Defenders stopped caring about the details. If they caught her, they’d assume she was a sympathizer and she would be punished without trial.
Their attempt to grasp control, she assumed. All it did was make her miserable.
She stood, her back against the cool stone wall, scooping the food into her mouth, forcing herself to slow down and savor the taste.
It wasn’t every day she was given something this delicious.
“You have excellent taste, sir,” she whispered to the faceless patron, the food’s original owner who was now long gone.
She licked her fingers, and then the bowl, before setting it back down for the cook to collect, and made her way through the desolate back streets.
Years ago, a kind woman had tried to get Zeina into Anastasia, but they turned her away. “She doesn’t have the proper social skills to be successful here.” That’s what they had said. And when they thought she was out of earshot reiterated in a far cruder tone, “she’s too feral.”
Feral.
Like she was some kind of creature that had broken into the city.
At the time, she felt vengeful. For a while, she continued to show up, hurling stones at the windows only to be turned away.
Each time, the pit of her stomach dropped a little farther as she realized they would never take her, no matter how many windows she broke.
But now, Zeina was used to having no one, and she liked it that way.
It was less risky snatching bags of rice from pantry shelves and smoked lentil steaks off the grill when she was solo.
It was easier to compel shop owners to feed her, as she was only one girl.
Working alone served her well, and she was quite happy keeping to herself.
She preferred the buzzing of the Bugs to the gossip of people anyway.
At least, until today.
Today, she wished she had someone, anyone, to help her.
Normally, when she overstayed her welcome somewhere or finally got caught stealing, she would move to another shop, often working multiple at a time.
But ever since creatures had been spotted in Jarrah and Defender presence increased, her options had become severely limited.
Those damn sympathizers were ruining her life. It might be simple and pathetic but it was her life.
Zeina knew who to blame because she was good at eavesdropping.
It was natural when you were used to being tucked away in hiding.
She often went unnoticed, hearing a lot of things that the Jarrian people liked to keep quiet.
Like how the Defenders were instructed to physically punish anyone who they suspected broke laws in any capacity.
They were trying to prevent foolish rebels from getting reckless ideas—like breaking down sections of the Great Wall—and had implemented a total crackdown on citizens.
Everyone was on edge, picking at their cuticles and shuffling their children along quickly. No one wanted to be accused of helping a sympathizer. That meant that even the compassionate shop owners were too fearful and paranoid to help her.
By the next day, her stomach ached again, and she clutched at the concave below her ribs in an effort to calm it down.
She found a night cafe nestled on a street corner mid-city.
Candles lit up the windows, giving it a romantic, alluring feel.
She had been here before and had definitely overstayed her welcome.
But when the scent of oils marinated with herbs, warm cashew caprese drip, and freshly baked bread wafted out of the windows, instinct took over.
Sneaking around the back of the restaurant, she slid into a storage room stacked with barrels and cloth-wrapped blocks of nut cheese.
She could leave with a block and be out of there in seconds, but her stomach moaned for something heavier.
Fresh, soft, bread. Just thinking about a warm loaf with crusty edges and a pillowy interior made her lose all sense of rationality.
With tunnel vision, she tiptoed ahead into the kitchen, where a collection of loaves sat cooling. Her mouth watered and she leapt forward, fingers sinking into warm wheat flesh, but before it was fully hers, a hand grabbed her by the wrist, ripping her back.
“Orphan girl.”
Zeina’s eyes shot around like a wild animal, looking for escape.
“Settle down, I’m not going to call the authorities.” The middle-aged man wore a burly black beard peppered with grays. Zeina’s face was inches away from his, and his breath smelled rancid—like smoke and wine spoiled by the sun.
“However, I will cut off your hand if you try to steal from me again.” He released his grasp and she fell backwards, before scrambling to her knees and hurrying out the same way she came.
Defeated, she walked until her arches cramped and her toes swelled. Her shoulders slumped as she sat back against a wall of a deserted corridor. She had walked here in the dark. Hours must have gone by, but time was cunning when she was lost in her mind.
Strategy. She needed a strategy.
Maybe she could go North; it had been a while since she had dealt with the northern shops. Most of the disappearances and animal sightings had been in the south, so maybe they would be more open to helping her.
She rested the back of her skull on stone, letting her eyes close. Her body ached; she needed rest if she was going to travel such a long distance. The ache of hunger gnawed at her in protest. “I’ll go north in the morning,” she said to it. It didn’t stop.
Zeina didn’t open her eyes again until the first flush of daybreak, just as a large hand cart pulled by two grizzly men passed her on the street. The cart ripped through a puddle of Zeina-didn’t-want-to-know-what and splashed her torso.
“Hey!” she groaned, standing up. Not that her clothes were new, but they were clean, given to her only a week ago, and she wanted to keep them that way for as long as possible. Scowling, she noticed the back cover of the trolley had fallen open, revealing a heap of crates.
The smell of papaya, spiced chickpea stew, basil, and sweet lemon couscous filled her nostrils. Mmmmm.
Before she could think, her feet sprung forward. Her need to survive, a deeply rooted instinct, drove her to act.
She caught up to the trolley, and hopped up, viciously latching her fingers onto the rails. Heaving herself over, she quickly squeezed in between two crates. A space unwelcome for a regular sized adult was comfortable for her. Starvation had left her thin and bony.
The grains in the crates were raw, and the warm stew and couscous too difficult to access, but the fruit was fresh, and she sloppily inhaled as much as she could, sweet juice dripping down her neck and chest.
It wasn’t until she looked up, satisfied from her binge, that she noticed where she was. Even through the small gap between crates, she would recognize the heavy golden gates anywhere.
The Academy of Creature Defense.
“Fresh load?” She heard a man’s voice bellow from outside the trolley.
“Just packed,” one of the driver’s called back. Zeina crouched to make herself as small as possible.
“In you go!” the first man responded, and they were moving again. She slipped along the rough floorboards and peered out the back as the entrance faded behind her.
She was inside the Academy and the only way out was through heavily guarded gates.
Heavily guarded and crawling with Defenders.