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MYTH
L.A. Mango
Copyright © 2014 by L.A. Mango
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN: 978-1-4566-2175-9
Published in the United States of America
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Acknowledgment
First and foremost, I would like to thank my God, Allah, for always being there for me when I needed Him, and for making my dreams a reality. I would also like to thank my parents next, for being the best advisors any teen could ever ask for. And of course, special thanks to my younger sister Lana, because I know that she’ll pulverize me if I don’t add her to the acknowledgment page (Just kidding!) I would really like to thank her for being the first person to ever read this book and also the first person to encourage me to publish it. My sincere thanks also goes to my two best friends, Noor Alyassin and Yasmine Almomani, for supporting me through the writing process and always keeping my spirits high.
Shout-out to my editor Beirut Abu-Hdaib. Many thanks also goes to the Aventine Press team, in specific, Ryan Ratliff and Keith Pearson, for making my dreams of becoming an author a possibility.
To Leen and Waleed
Chapter 1
I was pacing around, back and forth, inside the bathroom. I couldn’t believe it was tomorrow, only a day away. I finally looked at my watch to check the time as I clearly saw my reflection on it. A look of disbelief glistened over my face: the same large gray eyes, the same chestnut-colored wavy hair, and the same freckles running across my nose and let’s not forget the thick eyebrows. There’s only one day away from me turning seventeen and becoming one of them: the protectors.
I was too distracted to realize how long I had been in the bathroom until my twin brother Isaac yelled at me for hogging the bathroom: “Iris, hurry up! You’ve been in there forever!”
“Alright, alright! Just give me a second,” I yelled back. I got out of the bathroom as promised. I stopped and looked at him with a smirk. Isaac looked at me with a raised eyebrow,
“What’s with that look?” he asked.
I shrugged,
“You forgot the magic word,” I said teasingly.
Isaac rolled his eyes and entered the bathroom without any sort of comeback. I ran to my room and quickly changed into my regular T-shirt, jeans and sneakers. I walked down the stairs towards the kitchen, just like any other Thursday morning. My stomach lurched as I made my way towards the kitchen, hoping my mother wouldn’t make any comments about tomorrow.
I saw my mother cooking lumpy oatmeal, again, just like every other Thursday. She turned to face me with her usual warm smile.
Other than the fact that we both share the chestnut-colored wavy hair, my mother and I don’t look alike; the rest of our features make us no less than strangers to each other. Her eyes had the most beautiful deep shade of blue. My mother always said that my brother and I look more like our father, (who we never knew). I just knew that he was dead, even though my mother would never admit it.
My mother pulled out a chair and sat down. She rested her elbow on the brown, worn out table and smiled,
“So, tomorrow’s the big day for you and your brother. It’s the day you choose to become one of the protectors of the city of Purlieu! Are you up for the challenge?” she asked in a questioning tone. I shrugged at my mother’s question,
“I guess so,” I said in a non-committal tone. “You make it sound as if I have a choice in the matter...” I tried to make it look like I wasn’t nervous at all. My mother raised her eyebrow with half a smile, revealing an expected look of surprise. I took a seat and grabbed a bowl of oatmeal, and so did Isaac shortly after.
I took a spoon full of oatmeal and swallowing with difficulty, I added,
“I mean, it’s not like it’s going to change anything, right, Isaac?” I turned to Isaac, as did my mother, hoping that he would take the ball and carry on with the conversation. But he said nothing, not even a slight nod, which was very out of character since he was never the quiet type. He just kept his eyes on the bowl of oatmeal thinking about whether to eat it or just secretly throw it away.
++++++++++
“I hate buses,” my best friend Lexus Keats said through gritted teeth. She always gets nauseous in a moving vehicle,
“I can’t wait for the Sector Commemoration tomorrow; then we’ll be outta here!”
The Sector Commemoration is a ceremony that takes place every year for the youth who turn seventeen, which coincidentally happened to be the same day as Isaac’s birthday and mine this year. I sat next to Lexus staring out of the window and trying to ignore how fast the bus was moving as I wondered which sector I would be placed in.
At the Commemoration, each “Undecided” enters the Unknown Courtyard in the plaza. The Unknown contains strange and mysterious obstacles with the objective of finding your way out. The way you react to every obstacle determines the sector you will be placed in: Phoenix the Noble, Dragon the Power Hungry, Mermaid the Manipulative, Sphinx the Intelligent and Pegasus the Pure. These five sectors combined to form the league of The Guardians of Purlieu.
The overall job of each sector entails protecting the city from the forces of evil from the Shadow Lands, which are home to such creatures as hydras, sirens, chimera and lots more. However, the ultimate responsibility is protecting the city from the most dangerous person ever known to man: Cygnus.
The Guardians of Purlieu are trained to fight, and each sector has its own particular weapon: Phoenix has the sword; Dragon has the fists; Mermaid the spear; Sphinx the battle theory and Pegasus the bow and arrow.
Two Dragon affiliates entered the bus talking about their training at the Dragon tower, where all Dragon affiliates train and live. One of them bragged about how his battle was won with a single punch. I recognized their deep sense of pride, since it’s one of their famous characteristics. Lexus hates their recklessness. She thinks it’s a waste of brain cells. A Mermaid affiliate got on the bus at the next stop. In typical Mermaid fashion, she looked down at me at the end of her nose like she was not pleased with what she saw. Typical Mermaids: they always show off with their beauty.
No affiliate is allowed to be in this part of the city unless on a special quest, so there must be something going on. The leaders must have sent some of the Mermaid and Dragon affiliates to check it out. It’s important that no affiliate comes here unless on a special task, because before that rule was even applied, affiliates would sometimes come and secretly take their young relatives or loved ones away to their sector to save them from their undetermined destiny in The Unknown. It never even worked anyway and it could have dangerous consequences. I once knew a girl whose brother, a Pegasus affiliate, had taken her away to his sector. We later heard that the leaders of the sectors executed her and her brother because her brother illegally took an Undecided, his sister, to a sector she probably didn’t belong to yet.
The bus stopped at our school: The Purlieu School for the Gifted. As Lexus and I stepped down from the bus, I saw Isaac walking along with Mason.
My mother was technically Mason’s godmother. Mason’s mother was my mother’s closest friend. She told my mother to be his godmother after she found out that she wasn’t going to be able to live after his birth since she was physically too weak to handle