Rule Two-Fifty

By Michael Chaese

In the Age of Knights everyone must follow the laws. Rule 2 declares that each person must write their own law when the time is ready, making the world a better place. This story follows the chaos that ensues the day the 250th law is created declaring, "You shall not eat".

Written on the Novelist app for Android.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Chaese
• Release date: Feb 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005932886

Michael Chaese

Michael Chaese is a multi-genre novelist residing in London, England. His iconic approach to the first-person differs within each book.

Book preview

Rule Two-Fifty

Micheal Chaese

A.T.A.

Please try to understand that this book was not written by me, but by the Londoner within, the man trapped in a child's body.

He's wanted to write all his life, but until now I've been busy caring about other worthless stuff not worthy of recall. I don't enjoy writing like he does. I'm simply a bystander like you, caught in the dopamine waves not a moment after he paints the most beautiful landscape, dotting lightning in the background as if his hands could move that fast.

For those of you who are confused; I consider myself a soul to my body, part of the greatest duo the world may ever see. Just as one day he will be left with naught but pain to love alone, as a soul, a friend, it is my duty to do whatever he declares to be necessary.

For Holly. Fellow daring dreamer.

Contents

Prologue - Such A Ridiculous Word 1

1 - The Master 3

2 - No Time 17

3 - Two Wrongs 24

4 - Storm Chasers 38

5 - Death to the King 50

6 - Captain Crow and the First Assassin 60

7 - The Only One 69

8 - Ben's Heart 80

9 - Deny 88

Epilogue - Where the Women Went 99

Prologue - Such A Ridiculous Word

All I could hear was the rain echoing around us. I could feel it dripping down my fingers as if it were leaking out from my bones. I looked back to the mouth of the cave, breathed in, and spoke clearly.

"I have seen the future far too many times. What is strange about them is that they all end the same, someone kills me. I don't know if I will be avenged, if I'll ever have children, but I do know that I'll remember that moment forever. I can see every second. Not the longest deja-vu I've had, but for some reason, my favourite so far. I imagine the smile that illuminates their murderous eyes...the thrilling moment I finally become disadvantaged and my brain panics so much that it simply gives up right there and then, like it has already died. In the vital second, maybe milliseconds before I have time to create an idea to help me escape, my body will be pierced. Sometimes with enough force to crush me out of consciousness, others with accurate slices to fillet more than enough nerves in my limbs. And then I just die.

When I told this to dear Benjamin (may he rest in peace), he suggested I was cursing myself. Should your dreams always come true, yet they always do, I expect your last thought will be recognising this moment to be your last rather than thinking of a way to survive."

"Benjamin Stay was the wisest, the greatest man of all time. A friend, an inspiration, a rock for us all to lean on. I would like to thank you all for your part in bringing him peace. Not only is he a symbol of the way things once were, but also of the struggle we few went through to change the world, accomplishing his dream of making the world a better place. He would want you all to dream the same.

And so. I hereby law that all laws are to be governed by the men and women they protect. May the everlasting code be honoured by all. Benjamin Stay, may you rest in peace.

I turned away from the sullen faces bowed to the floor. Then I looked up to the souls of the three-hundred-and-seventy warriors that had set the footing for my path. I have found my purpose. Our leader held my hand tightly, blessing me with her honour. The elder nodded.

Proceed.

It didn't take as long for me to write it in stone, the number 371 followed by my law:

ALL LAWS ARE GOVERNED BY THE MEN AND WOMEN THEY PROTECT

I scribed the words deeper than every one of the others, grinding my nails into dust. I stepped carefully round the pit to return to our men. The elder nodded again and we each took turns to bury Benjamin in the pit, one fistful at a time. I furrowed my brow in frustration, desperately trying to maintain my mask of composure.

What did you say this was called again? I muttered.

Funeral.

A snort escaped out my nostrils, inaudible to anyone but the two of us.

Such a ridiculous word.

We also say the word burial, if you'd prefer that.

I paused to think about that one for a moment, tilting my head from side to side, swirling the word around, tasting each letter.

Much better. I sighed.

It suits you people.

She stepped forward to add the second-to-last fistful to the grave. Part of me was too frightened to take my turn. But what could I do now? I had been given the most time to say goodbye.

I hopped to what was left of the earth pile, a single scraping of mud. Everyone's eyes were on me, I could feel my strength draining into them. With a heavy heart, I patted my handful onto the grave.

You will live on.

1 - The Master

Long before anyone ever called me Captain, I was but a watch, a lookout, burning the memory of everything I saw deep into my brain, looking for change outside the slightly ajar window at the sun rays waving through the clouds, any indication at all that the rain would stop sometime tonight. As grim as the evening felt, it was a peaceful night that we kindly appreciated, around a tenth of the way to sunrise. Somewhere out there was a quiet rhythmic melody, the smacking of boots on wet cobblestones, perhaps a lone horse being ridden through one of the town roads which were blocked from my line of sight.

A thick, grey, smoky haze silently floated out into the cold from this cubicle, this box where the writer's mind had become a mess bigger than his mind could handle. Ink stains were painted expertly on both his desk and his uncuffed silk shirt, dressed with what seemed to be acres of scrunched up paper in the most pointless effort to absorb it. In a way, it seemed to blend in with his sheepskin loafers in both filth and colour.

Something's not right! he snarled.

Then he stood up in fury to perform his mad routine word for word.

"Everyone's the exact damn same, they're all defensive, doing whatever scares them the least! Bliddy cowards!"

He snatched the paper off the dinner table, shaking the dead ash off. He took a long draw of his pipe, filling his lungs like a professional deep diver.

"To whomever it may concern,

I'd like to inform you that the law the Lord of your parish has posted, with regard to our forefathers holiday traditions, is utter and complete—"

He slammed the paper on the table then whipped his head at me in an accusatory fashion.

See now, it can't be too formal or they'll start saying I paid someone else to write it! How do I talk respectfully to someone I jolly well HATE!

He pulled out the only dining chair, as if it were politely waiting to ask him to be seated.

So there's no way in all the waters, no crumb, no bubble, no chance at all, that any of these stupid cauliflower heads are ever going to listen!

In his fury he tightened his grip around the chair's back and tossed it into the wall across the room, knocking more papers off his desk. But he's always been the same way. Sober, smoking, shameless.

There's not much to be said about the room. It was one of the only ones I've ever heard of to have a toilet less than ten paces to the right of the bed.

And it wasn't going to get too smoky because all the smoke that had layered on the ceiling would start randomly punching through upstairs' floorboards.

Everything was organised in the messiest way imaginable. Papers, desk, bed and sink on the left, bird cage kitchen, dining room on the right. Everything was in plain sight, exactly where he could keep an eye on them.

I couldn't tell you what he was going on about this time. Most days it was some odd stranger he didn't know from Adam that had made some sort of decision that managed to annoy him into a heated argument with himself, staggering left and right like some lonely drunkard.

Odds are I'm being a touch too soft, but something magical happens when people like that talk to themselves. It's simply a matter of expression to them, you feel the chaos stirring deep inside that disturbs them and silently unnerves them, hoping too it will spill out to leave but absolute peace. This man had a duty, yet was always alone spewing more smoke than anyone or anything else in the world. Though it might have scared a puppy, I inhaled it as naturally as oxygen. I saw him as a boy, a more able me that could challenge the laws.

A few hours later he resigned to the wooden chair, resting the pipe, an indication to himself it was time to cool down and descend back to his illogical mad self. There was no bedroom. He slept on his bum with his head against the wall, til it got too stiff that the aching pain woke him up. The toilet had been repurposed into a door stop. This particular man preferred the window, I think mainly to stop any visitors getting too comfortable.

I love crows. he sighed.

Craftiest animal alive, you can only hunt it in the day, and they don't fear a bliddy thing. Why that's what I should be. I should be a crow...

He drifted off with his head slamming on the desk. Snores filled the room. It was my job to wake him if he started sleep talking.

My eyes were closed as I began to enjoy the silence. But then there were footsteps, the sound of heavy Damascus steel making the dangerously old pine floorboards creak from downstairs.

I suppose it was my own fault, I should have panicked sooner.

We weren't the only ones in the building so there was a pretty big