By Megan Ngo

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This piece was selected as an Honorable Mention in the First Chapters Contest, hosted in partnership with Penguin Random House and Electric Lit. Mave Chen finds herself in an impossible situation where she’s the only one who knows a secret the conquering Rynnians would kill for.

Monsters don’t emerge from their lairs to haunt the streets at night.

They creep into our homes instead.

“Welcome, Honored Hero,” my family recites, welcoming the man into our warm apartment. He wears the colors of the enemy, red and silver and boasts a prominent nose and slanted eyes.

Philip pushes his way into my home and slams the door shut behind him. The empty picture frames on the wall rattle from the impact. He walks with a stumble to his step, trips over air, and his steps are aimless.

I can smell the aura of alcohol around him. The letter in my pocket feels like a hundred pounds and I tuck it deeper into my pocket.

“A group of traitors attacked my squadron while we were on patrol,” he wheezes. Leaning on the wall, he laughs, a sick sound that fills my core with uneasiness. “They completely raided the camp.”

My shoulders collapse and some of the uneasiness is lightened with relief. I can’t help the small smile that forms at the corner of my mouth.

“Do you think this is funny?” Philip says, staggering towards me. I take a step away from him and my back hits the wall. “I can no longer be called a General after that loss.”

His boot buckles click menacingly against the floor, inching closer and closer to me. “Do you think you’ve won?”

“N-no. I have no part in this.” I push myself against the wall, willing the wood to open up and swallow me. But Philip only stalks closer, his eyes narrowing with every step.

“I’ve noticed your letters. I’ve seen your money,” he says. “Who are they from?”

My hand instinctively goes for my pocket where my letter is hidden. 

Philip’s mouth forms a snarl and he reaches for something hanging on his belt. When he pulls the object out, Mother gasps and sobs, covering her mouth with her frail hand. Father is solemn, uncharacteristically quiet. I look down at Philip’s hand and discover why. He holds a dagger, still crusted with a reddish-brown substance that doesn’t take much guessing to identify.

Fear rushes through my veins and my mouth goes dry.

He flashes the knife around wildly and it takes all my will to avoid begging for my life. I should be used to this. This is the third time this week he’s brandished the knife in my home. How many times will it be before he follows his threat?

He cackles. “You know what I’m going to do? Instead of killing you here, I’m going to turn you traitors over to the Crown General.” Giggling, he snorts and continues, “Maybe he’ll give me back my ranking as a reward.”

With that thought, his snarl morphs into a smile and he sheathes the knife. The knife disappears into fabric so quickly that I almost think I hallucinated it all. But then I see Mother still sobbing into her bunched up dress, Father’s stony face, and I know it was all real. 

I can’t help myself. I run to my parents and throw myself into my mother’s arms. Her dress is warm, but there’s a spot on the fabric wet with her tears.

Mina’s not here anymore, probably hiding in the shadows of his closet.  I sigh in relief. It’s a good thing to recognize danger and an even better reflex to run away from it. My brother is smarter than me, wiser than his sister in a million ways.

Philip recovers from his episode, straightening his spine as if he hadn’t been threatening me with a knife seconds before. His smile never fades from his lips, even sharpening at the corners when he turns to face me. His eyes are wild, blazing with an insanity that makes my skin crawl.

This is the madman the Queen expects us to welcome into our home.

Philip adjusts the neckline of his red coat. “Fix me a plate of whatever’s smelling so delectable, girl.”

Mother tries to hold me back, grabbing at the hem of my shirt, but I shake off her hands. I have a feeling she can sense what I’m about to do, but there’s nothing she can do to stop it. On the way to the kitchen, I tuck my letter underneath the pie that’s cooling on the windowsill. Next to it, I place a small butterknife. 

The rest of the night passes in a haze. When I wake up, the letter is gone, the butterknife placed at the center of the dining table.

And the next day, we get the news: On his way to the Crown General’s office, Philip had tragically turned up dead in a dark alley, a knife stuck into his throat, his grin finally gone.

***

 Two years later, a knock rattles the aging door. 

“Welcome, Honored Hero,” my family recites, welcoming the man into our warm apartment. He wears the colors of the enemy, red and silver. He has a round, sloppy face, almost as scarlet as his coat. Someone like this man, who has the integrity of starving lamb, shouldn’t be granted to hold this much power over our heads. But the queen doesn’t care about the sufficiency of her drones, all she requires is a pair of prying eyes and working ears.

Mina pinches me, and my mouth jumpstarts, mumbling the rest of the greeting along with my family. I’ve been good with watching my tongue recently. I’ve learned that no matter how bad things are now, Rynnians can always find a way to make them worse. I’m the older sister, and yet Mina is my tether to restraint, preventing me from tripping onto a path leading to a tortuous fate.

But he also doesn’t know what life was before terror. Before the future was stripped bare of the things worth living for. I don’t pity him for it because he has nothing to long for, this life is the best and only life he has experienced. For every night he’d spent at home, a stranger had always slept in the next room. And for every dinner he’s eaten, a seat at the table would always be filled with the presence of an enemy.

We weren’t always forced to host Rynnian guards in our homes. That ruling was made to prevent guards from dying from the Night. It didn’t hurt that guards in homes meant the trickle of rebellion would stave off into meager droplets from the stifling gazes of the Rynnians. 

The man before me is a stranger. In a way, I guess Philip and Ingrid were strangers, but at least I learned to recognize their warnings. But this guard is unknown. It feels like wading in a newly discovered river, never knowing where the deep parts start or end.

“I’m Andres,” he grunts, adjusting the height of his pants’ waistband. He sniffs the air and grins, showing off his complete set of pearly teeth.

I scowl and Mina shoots me another warning look. But, I know that Andres won’t notice my flash of defiance, not with the smell of spices clinging to the air. 

He stalks through our hallway, dropping things as he goes, his sweaty feet leaving pools on the floor after each step. He burns a hole through the family atmosphere, ridding it of anything intimate.

I suddenly feel thankful that Mother made me put on socks before Andres arrived.

Mother picks the clothes up after him and doesn’t just pile them up, but folds them too. Her hands are weathered, and the rich rose color of Andres’s coat makes her skin look so thin her veins seem to pop out of the back of her hand.

Andres howls in pain after stubbing his toe against the table. The scream travels through the house and vibrates the walls.

Mina turns to me, his mouth pinched in worry. My family watches as Andres’s stocky frame vibrates the wall as he hops on a single foot. His reaction is dramatic, but at least his pain isn’t coupled with anger.

He punches the wall, visibly denting the wood. Mother flinches as if he had struck her, and I know that she’s already imagining our landlord’s critical remarks.

“It could be worse,” Father mumbles, just quieter than Andres’s grunts of frustration. He eyes the small circular hole next to the front door and shakes his head. That was Ingrid’s work. She liked bullets instead of knives.

“Woman, get me bandages,” Andres demands, still regaining balance from his hissy fit. He pats the dent in the wall halfheartedly and collapses into the seat at the head of the dining table.

It’s a sorry cry, but Mother still uses the last of our bandages to tend to it. 

I scowl. She’s put off using the last of our bandages for so long. My brother lost the skin of his palm working in the factories a week ago. The Overseer refused to treat the wound, so my brother continued working, dripping blood into lightbulbs. I wonder if there is a family in the Kingdom whose room is tinged red from the tainted light. 

Words crawl up my throat and threaten to puncture the real world. I bite my tongue and wince. Andres may be a pig, but at least he’s not cruel, at least not yet. Not like Philip or Ingrid were. But he’s so close to the line that the others crossed, the only thing barring him from the same fate as Philip and Ingrid is his ignorance.

Because a pig is content with a humble sty.

The others were willing to burn the world for a lick of power, which is why they had to die.

“Monsters don’t emerge from their lairs to haunt the streets at night.
They creep into our homes instead.”

My parents know better than to ask me where I spend my day, or how I manage to bring home a large sum of money each week. It’s my earnings that keep us in a house, that prevent us from selling our souls to the lightbulb factories in addition to our bodies like so many other families have to do. The cost is being left in the dark, a price my parents are more than willing to pay.

“Dinner,” Mother calls. Her voice echoes lonely in our wordless shuffle of settling in our chairs.

We sit around the table and Mother brings a steaming pot of stir-fried rice with chicken. Steam rushes out of the opening of the pot, disappearing into the ceiling.

Andres looks up from his meal, scratching his beard, and says, “You guys seem to have the worst luck in Rynnian guards. It’s so rare that guards die on duty, nonetheless two from the same household.” His casual smile forces my eyebrow into an unsightly arch. “And to believe they both died the same way.”

I can’t tell if an accusation is implied or not.

Father coughs into his napkin, and chokes out, “It’s unfortunate that both Philip and Ingrid have succumbed to unfortunate passings.”

Mother and Mina titter in agreement. 

I shovel a spoonful of hot rice into my mouth to stop myself from saying anything. Mother overcooked the rice and it melts into a scalding sludge on my tongue. I have to be more careful. I don’t know the extent of Andres’s leniency; he may seem to have a pearl for a brain, but this is the man the Queen gives the powers of jury and judge. Just as easily as he could leave me in peace, he could snatch my future from fate’s hands and wring it dry.

Andres startles, making the rest of us freeze in place. Surprise usually roots from either fear, anger, or delight, and neither is any good on the face of a Rynnian. 

Thankfully, he says, “Golly me, I forgot to pray before eating.” He lets out a carefree laugh. I glance at Mina, and even he can’t restrain the slightest eye roll.

Folding his hands together, Andres closes his eyes, rests his chin on his fingers, and whispers, “O’ Spirit of the Light, let the day win its battle against the dark and light continue to rest its gaze upon us…” 

The rest of us don’t act upon his prayer. Mina stares intently at his plate. Father even goes as far as to hum a folk tune under the guise. Sometimes, I think that Father has escaped death so many times that the skin of his teeth has evolved into a thick hide.

No one who lives in the Border Sector is religious. Those who were religious gave up their beliefs the day Andres and his people forced their rule upon us. We were the first to be conquered because of our shared border. It’s hard to believe in an otherworldly power when the world you live in is already so twisted.

“…never making us suffer in the dark. We thank you for the light that you provide us even when disconnected from the sun…”

I wonder if he knows how the lightbulbs that prevent him from dying are made— by workers who are treated as insignificant as they are paid. If he faced the truth, would he pray to us too, thanking us for keeping his world from plunging into darkness?

Andres continues his spiel, “I also wish that the rebels who killed my Philip and Ingrid be found and brought to justice…”

I shoot a counterwish into the universe for Andres’s prayers to go unanswered.

“And that the Curse placed upon the Rynnians would be lifted, so bid our suffering farewell. With love and honor.”

If I were religious, I’d spend every second of my day beseeching whatever’s up there to strangle the Rynnians with the Curse for all eternity. Their inability to ever touch the dark is the one leash on their neck, the only thing preventing them from conquering the continent. Andres is right about one thing— the sun does reveal answers. There are only so many things the Rynnians can do and so many secrets they can keep in broad daylight.

Finished with his performance, Andres resumes eating, munching his meal with an ungodly amount of mirth. His fork beats down on his ceramic bowl almost rhythmically. He only looks up from his meal to refill his plate.

I would be filled with joy, too, if the worst parts of my day were over by supper.

Dinner drags on, each second passing painfully slow.

Mina glares at me with buggy eyes. It could be worse, he mouths, and I worry he’s going to grow up to be like Father.

The misery pauses when the clock towers let out the first chime of the evening. It groans a deafening ring that makes the molecules in the air tremble. A gust of wind creeps through the opening of the window as if even the breeze is finding safety from the ringing. I breathe the cold air and an iciness pulses through my chest. 

The last of our firewood burns out. For a second, I consider tossing another log in the fireplace — Mother gets cold easily — but the consequences of breaking the Queen’s rule hold my feet in their place. No one is allowed to move during the ringing. The law even holds Andres back from reaching for another spoonful of rice.

Every morning and evening, the clock tower rings twenty-seven times, one time for every living member of the royal family. Before the Rynnians came, it was used to signify the start and end of a workday. Now, even time is a reminder that the Rynnians’ torment is an overseer in our jobs and a member in our homes.

My breathing stills and I close my eyes, reciting each bell under my breath. 27…26…25…

Even though the meaning of it hurts, it’s my favorite part of the day, the seconds when every sound is drowned out but my thoughts. 22…21…20…

Last week, the Queen’s second cousin passed away when her lightbulb unexpectedly went out while she was taking a bath. She was found in the morning, her skin burned to a char and her eyes no more than holes in her mushy skull. 

The bells only rang twenty-six times the morning after the Queen’s second cousin died. However, Rynnians aren’t fond of fidelity and, as it turns out, the dead second cousin’s husband had an affair with his wife’s sister, who soon gave birth to a baby girl, information that the press gobbled up. The twenty-seven bells sounded particularly scandalous that day.

12…11…10…

It reminds me of a timer, ticking down the final moments before their fateful end. The Rynnians can only do so much in the light, while my friends and I have the luxury of every hour to work. I smile, recalling Philip and Ingrid.

6…5…4

If all goes to plan, next month, I will be sitting down at this very table with my family and no monsters in sight. Next month, these bells will ring on schedule. But they’ll only ring once.

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