I present the first chapter of my original novel SHENLIGHT. Hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think!

CHAPTER ONE

I ran through falling sand.

It was a big storm, judging by the empty streets and alleys. The sand came down thick, covering everything, and my feet made a soft thumping sound as I ran over it on the rooftops.

During a sandstorm, most people stayed inside.

Which meant the bandits came out.

I jumped from the rooftop at full speed, leaping into the swirling sands. I sailed across the gap—the cobblestone alley floor a leg-breaking three stories beneath me—and caught a quick glimpse of the bandit in the street below as I crossed the gap. Crashing to the rooftop on other side, I rolled once and staggered back up onto my feet, sprinting to keep up with the bandit. He ran too, but at street level, turning corners and hugging the walls. I was trailing him by only a few seconds—close enough to see which streets and alleys he turned down, but far enough to stay out of his sight.

Though that wasn't hard in all this sand. I squinted through my goggles as the storm thickened for a few seconds.

For what seemed like hours we’d been running through the orange city, districts and neighborhoods passing under our feet. The storm was everywhere—blowing sand in a hundred directions, covering everything in sight. An inch-thick layer already covered every rooftop, and there was more in the corners and up against crates and boxes, where the wind blew it into piles.  As I chased the thief, silently sprinting across the rooftops and jumping the gaps between buildings, I saw no one else. A storm like this one shut everyone inside for the rest of the day.

Well, almost everyone.

I stopped briefly at the edge of a roof as the thief below slowed to peer around the building in front of him. Panting heavily, I breathed sharply, trying to pull clean air through the cloth over my mouth and reached up to adjust the goggles on my head. Usually the thieves didn't cover this much of the city.

He started moving again.

No break this time.

I grunted, holding my side, and jumped back into action.

Jumping the gap, I glimpsed the bandit's shape below, covered head to toe in dark gray. He turned left and I made the necessary change in direction to stay on his path, dodging under a clothesline that swung violently in the wind, and side-stepping around a few blue barrels of water that were taking in a lot of sand. Both the water and the clothes were probably left there in their owners’ haste to get inside and evade the storm.

As I ran, breathing heavy under my scarf, the sand pelted my entire body. I was completely covered in tan clothing to blend into the brownish-orange storm. But where skin was still showing—on my hands and ankles—the wind stung.

But the bandit never stopped running, so I didn’t either.

Finally, as my side began to ache and I wondered how much longer I could keep going, I reached the end of a roof and stopped abruptly, stepping up on the raised wall around the border of the roof. The thief had stopped again, and was backed up against the side of a building, four stories down. I wiped sand from my goggles and glanced left and right. I could tell we were nearing the center of the city by the size of the buildings and the distance between them, since the streets were much wider here. The one I stood on was about fifteen feet away from the one I had to reach. The gap was too wide to clear in one jump. But the bandit started around the building again—having checked the street ahead of him and deciding it was safe—and the longer I waited, he moved farther away and out of sight.

I backed up to make room for building up speed, took a deep breath, and sprinted toward the edge.

I had seen a rusting, green spiral staircase attached to the side of the building across from mine, and though the distance from rooftop to rooftop was too far to jump across, the stairway was just close enough. I reached the edge of the roof, planted one foot hard on the concrete ledge and leaped.

I slammed into the stairway with a huge crashing sound, my feet landing through the railing on the sides of the stairs like I had planned, but then slipping off as my hands missed their mark and flailed uselessly in the air. The impact had been stronger than I’d prepared for and I tipped backwards in a stunned moment of panic. As I fell toward the cobblestone alley below, I realized I was still three and a half stories in the air and my heart stopped. But at the last second, I simply thrust my right hand out to where my foot had been a half-second before and caught the steel edge of the stair with three fingertips.

If there had been people below in the streets, they would have seen the whole jump and near-fall, and the commotion would have drawn the guards instantly.

But I knew no one would be there. Not today. Not in a heavy storm like this. Even at midday the streets were deserted and the only sound was the constant whir of the sand beating on brick and stone.

Hanging by one arm, I swung my left arm up to help the right and was able to pull myself up and over the railing and onto the spiral staircase, pain screaming out from my leg. I stopped to catch my breath and reach down to check the gash. A spot of blood was already soaking through the pants. I pulled my hand up and the blood on my fingers was instantly coated in sand.

That would need to be cleaned before going home.

But it looked like it didn’t need to be treated immediately. I wiped the sandy blood on my shirt and ascended the stairs as fast as I could, ignoring the throbbing leg. I had to get to the top of this building and back on the trail of the thief or I would lose him.

And then I would have much bigger problems than a bloody leg.

I reached the top of the stairs, pulled myself up onto the roof, and took off running toward the other side. When I got to the end of the roof, I stepped up to the edge and peered down to the street.

Finally, something was going my way.

Below, the bandit had stopped and crouched up against the far wall. He had clearly been stopped by something around the corner that I couldn’t see. I adjusted my goggles and took a few steps to the right to get a better angle around the building. Then I saw what he saw—robos.

There were two Peaceguards, about fifteen steps away. The two shadows walked toward the thief’s hiding place at a steady pace despite the powerful winds blowing sand all around them. I could barely make out their silhouettes through the storm, but I could see their right hands were morphed into shooters, and their lefts steadied the weapons from underneath as they marched toward us.

These were basic city guards—robos, we called them. Their eyes and the lighted panels and rank markings on their torsos shone a metallic blue through the brown, sandy wind. Standard blue markings meant standard guards, simply making their rounds during the storm. The routine storm patrol.

Most people did take shelter inside during a storm.  Or if they had to leave the house, they wore goggles, hoods and scarves over their mouth like me. The sand hardly bothered the robos, however.

The Peaceguards patrolled the streets night and day. Years of sandstorms had wiped off any colored coats of paint they used to wear, and had smoothed out any sharp edges on their steel figures. Some people say the robos used to be inspiring—beautiful, really. They say the machines were engineered to represent the ideal form of a perfect human being. They were incredibly strong and agile. Even the basic guards had been built with thick, curving, plated armor designed not only to protect, but to intimidate. Even though the endless buffeting of sand had worn down the curves and lines of the armor and all the robos in the city were now just a solid grey color, a pair of Peaceguards was still a menacing site.

I saw the thief below fidgeting, trying to decide what to do as the guards came only steps away from turning the corner and finding him there. With a surprise attack, he might be able to knock one down and buy enough time to get away, but they would catch him in minutes. They would alert other guards in the area, and he would have a dozen armed Peaceguards on top of him within three blocks. They would stun him and he would wake up in a cell in less than an hour. No, this was time for stealth.

That’s why the crew always operated in the cover of a sandstorm.

And that's why they hired me.

I bent down and with just my eyes above the edge of the roof I watched the bandit turn and jump behind some wooden crates. The guards rounded the corner. My heart raced as I realized that even with his heat-masking jacket there wasn’t enough cover to hide him. He had picked a bad spot—the stack of crates wasn’t tall enough. Even as the guards rounded the corner, the thief curled up on the ground, trying to get low enough. But I saw that they would still see his curled-up form behind the boxes. The guards wouldn’t even need to thermal scan the area. They would see him. It was over.

I closed my eyes and slumped down against the inside of the rooftop edge, out of sight. I peeked over the stone wall, focused on the spot where the thief hid behind the crates, and just as the robos stepped in front of where he hid, I did what they paid me to do. I pushed.

And he became invisible.

It’s still so hard to describe what I do. And though I’ve never even considered explaining it to anyone out loud, I’ve tried to describe it to myself a hundred times. All I know is I can see things with my mind, people or other objects that are nearby, and when I push on them with my mind—or shade them as I liked to call it—they turn invisible. And I don’t even have to be looking right at the person. I just have to be near them. I can turn around or even stand behind a wall and still sense the shape of the person, exactly as they stand, and make them invisible.

So I shaded the bandit and waited there silently, listening only to the roar of the sandstorm and my own heartbeat, feeling the sand pile up around me and fill the folds in my clothes. Finally, I cautiously lifted my head and looked over the edge of the roof. The bandit was there, and hadn’t moved, and the robos had walked ahead without turning or slowing. It worked.

A few seconds later they turned down another street and stepped out of sight, and the thief stood slowly and climbed out from the crates.

I sighed and glanced around me. The storm was strong, but manageable. The most vicious winds had calmed slightly, but the sand was still falling steadily.

The thief shook off the orange sand that had piled up on him as he hid, and I shook myself off too. He carefully returned to the street the robos came out of and looked once more down the alley through the blowing sand. Looking around him in all directions—probably for me—but seeing nothing, he stepped into the wind and ran on. One problem avoided, I let out a breath and started after him.

The amazing thing was that the bandit really could have stood there with his back against the wall, and stared straight at the guards as they walked past and I would have shaded him just fine. I was a lot better than I used to be.

But he didn’t have to know that. The bandits didn’t know exactly what Bones hired me for. He didn’t even really know himself. And I made sure he didn’t talk about it.

Shades, you keep yer black magic to yourself, he had said. You git my runners where they goin, I keep you outta the mines. Shades was the name I had given him. My real name was Ket.

I smiled to myself under my scarf and hood. Bones had been easy to convince.

He was too superstitious.

Finally, when I thought I couldn't run anymore, the bandit stopped.

We had made it to the abandoned warehouse, built up against the east wall. He began to work his way around to a partially collapsed section of the brick structure. I stopped to watch from my perch on the rooftop and plan how to continue.

It was odd to find a building that no one used, because there wasn’t much space left anywhere. Sandshadow City had been built as a refuge. A long time ago, thousands of people had fled to the canyon from all over the region, escaping towns and cities the sandstorms had left in complete ruins. The city sits in a deep, but skinny canyon, so it’s protected from the worst of the sandstorms.

Sure, we still get the weekly sandfall that pours down and covers everything.

But it doesn’t knock down stone buildings or peel your skin off like it does in the topworld.

I crossed to another building to keep the bandit in my line of sight. He slowly picked his way through some rubble and fallen bricks to the hole in the back of the building.

As I neared the looming east wall, I looked up through the raging storm above at the dark red sandstone. The wind blew sand against the tall canyon wall like wasps attacking the side of a jar, trying to get out. Here, in Sandshadow City, the storms were survivable. Sheltered in a building, or protected with goggles and clothing like I was wearing, you could make it through a storm.

I wiped off the sand that had already piled up on my goggles.

But up there, in the topworld—where the entire force of the sandstorms raged across the desert—nothing could live. That’s what was up there in the topworld—nothing. The stories say there used to be cities as far as you could travel. But not anymore.

Nothing.

I heard the sound of bricks falling against other bricks and snapped back to the mission. The thief had climbed over a pile of rubble and entered the warehouse.

Time to go down.

I planted my hands on the wall that surrounded the four-story building, and swung my body over the side in one jump. My feet found a lip above a window and I stalled there for a moment, looking down through my legs to plan my descent. I bent down until my arms were extended above my head and held the entire weight of my body. From a crouched position on the wall, I lowered one leg at a time, and brushed sand off the window sill first with the right foot and then with the left. Before the storm re-covered the ledge with sand, I let go with both hands, fell straight down, and caught the lip I had been standing on.

This was the part I hated. Climbing up was exhilarating, but going back down was like walking backwards. I always felt better moving forward, or up.

But I knew I always had to come down eventually. I sighed and continued to climb down the face of the building.

Using windowsills or protruding bricks and pipes as hand and footholds, I found the ground. The sand kept falling, covering everything and never slowing. The storm was proving to be the biggest we had seen in maybe three weeks. With the storms coming every two or three days lately, but only lasting a few hours, I had been expecting a big one. And it came. Bones and the crew had picked a perfect day to pull off a job.

I snuck up against the enormous canyon wall, running my hand along the smooth, patterned sandstone. My eyes followed the shapes up the dark stone toward the red sky above. The dark, splotching patterns high on the wall looked familiar… Yes, we had reached the start of the Industrial Sector. I could always tell where I was in the city, but during a storm it got a little more complicated. I could usually tell how far up I was in the canyon by the patterns on the wall, as long as I was close enough to it that the storm didn’t completely block it out.

I shook my head as I ran. The industrial Sector.

I had wondered if this is where the runner was headed. Bones had only mentioned the general direction we would go on the run, not the final destination. Something about the way Bones did things said he would never pull a job less dangerous and risky than a job he had pulled before. So it only made sense to go right to the sector most infested with robos. I swore he wouldn’t last more than a year as crew leader at this rate. But we weren’t headed for the more important part of the Industrial Sector where the generators and enormous machinery was, so maybe there wouldn’t be a ton of guards.

I looked around me as we continued forward. The I-Sector—as far north as I had ever come. I began to memorize the buildings around me—well, the few closest to me that I could still see. The storm filled the whole canyon and limited visibility. I pictured the location relative to the city square, marking the spot on my mental map I had created of the city, noting the general area that the warehouse was located in.

Like I said, I always knew where I was in the city. I was careful—you could never be too careful when dealing with thieves and bandits.

Just before I crossed the open area strewn with rubble from the collapsed wall, I started shading myself. That was even easier than shading someone else, and I could do it almost without even thinking about it at all. But it was dangerous because I didn’t ever like to be completely reliant on one thing. So usually, I forced myself to simply stay in the shadows and alleys, and only go completely invisible when I had to. Crossing an open area like this, even under cover of a storm and especially this close to the target, was always a good time to be completely invisible.

So I disappeared and traced the bandit’s path through the rubble to the opening in the wall. As I approached the building, I saw two guards round the corner of it off to my left. My heart picked up, but they didn’t react as I stepped toward the structure. Reaching the hole, I stepped quickly inside and almost instantly the sand stopped, the building above me providing a welcome relief from the storm. I backed up against the wall, and held still for a few seconds, waiting for the guards to pass the gap. Soon I heard the clang of their metallic bodies as they marched past, and let out a sigh of relief.

I started into the dark, abandoned warehouse. The storm outside sounded like a choir of demons.

This was the final phase of the mission. The most important part—the retrieval.

My heart pounded in the dry, quiet air, and I became painfully aware of the fact that nothing had gone wrong yet.

It was never a good sign when nothing had gone wrong yet.

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Hope you liked the chapter! Let me know what you thought in the comments, and be sure to drop a follow so you don't miss the next chapters. --Brady