(Ailith): The strange stranger

"What's going on?" she asked Alex as they walked through the panicked city streets.

"Our base got attacked. They're getting more and more frequent. This is the 2nd one this month."

She nodded along. Ailith had heard that there had been numerous attacks over the past few months. Whether they had anything to do with the red activists, she didn't know.

"Why are they attacking our base?" she asked in response.

He looked at her as if she were stupid. "We're assassins, getting trained to kill them. Isn't it quite obvious why they're attacking our base?"

"Yeah, I suppose…" there was a brief moment of silence passed between them before Ailith spoke up again. "So what now?"

He looked at her questioningly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what now? Our base just got attacked. Where do we even go to train?"

"Oh, that. There are multiple bases stationed in different parts of the city. We just move temporarily into one of them while the other one goes under construction."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Ailith used the time in between their discussions to observe the city. Although she lived in the city, under the harsh training schedule, she never had any spare time to wander about outside.

No one paid her any attention. They were all too absorbed in their own work to notice an assassin amongst their midst.

A shoulder bumped hers.

Ailith turned her head. Walking away from her was a suspicious looking man. She couldn't see his face as he was wearing a black hat that shadowed it but as he walked, she could tell that he carried a slight limp on his right leg. The fact in itself was very suspicious. Not very many people got injured badly in Aharean. And if they did, there were many labs around Aharean that could get them fixed up in no time...of course unless they were from the suburbs. But what would a dosser be doing in Vertlyn?

Alex started talking again. Something about the rebels. She ignored him, keeping her focus entirely on the man.

Ailith figured her best option would be to tail the guy. Keeping her gaze on the man, she said to Alex over her shoulder, "Yeah. I just remembered I had something going on today. I'll see you later?" Without waiting for an answer, she ran after the man.

He turned around and when he saw her running after him, he too started sprinting.

Something about him seemed off somehow. That was the only way Ailith could describe it. It was with both logic and instincts that Ailith reached upon this conclusion. Who wore long sleeves in the middle of summer? And if he truly was innocent, why had he started running?

Ailith followed him down the street and through several alleyways, into a dead end. When she caught up with him, both she and the man were panting out of exhaustion. She grabbed the man's shoulder and whipped him around, words already forming in her mouth. "Who are you-" Her words trailed off as she got a chance to study the man's face for the first time, or rather the woman. Upon closer inspection, it was obvious that it was a woman disguised as a man.

The woman had a small face, a sharp nose, thin lips and big, brown eyes. They were the eyes that had gazed at Ailith with love and affection for 6 years of her life. Her lips the same as the one that had lulled her to sleep at nights when she woke from nightmares drenched in sweat, as a child. The same face as the woman who haunted her dreams both in and out of consciousness.

Staring right back at her with firm eyes and pressed lips was the face of her mother.