The Cypri

The Cypri - Becca Cross (A. W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts, Eleventh Grade)

Clashing waves hit the wall ten feet below Cyrus’ window. A baby wails in an adjacent

room, averting his attention from staring at the second sun rising over the horizon.

The floor creaks beneath Cyrus as he rebukes the urge to stare at his idea of home. The

wailing continues, the piercing sound bouncing off every wall of the home. If it could be called a

home, that is.

The bricks barely holding the building together deteriorate more each day. Ivy climbs up

every wall, interior and exterior, breaking Cyrus’ home’s foundation with their roots. Rotting

leaves and the infant’s fluids fill the home with a stench Cyrus’ nose filters out.

Four children fill the cramped home. The youngest is less than a year old, and the oldest

is almost twelve. The batch looks nothing alike, and yet, to Cyrus, they are all his children. Or at

the very least, his responsibility.

His baby, Fleur, lies in a poor excuse for a crib in a storage closet Cyrus calls her room.

He still doesn’t know how to decipher her wails. He’s never dealt with a child so young.

Regardless, her crying continues.

He can’t help but wonder if she is crying for her mother, or if she knows that all that is

left of her is bone and rotting skin.

Cyrus reaches down to her crib and cradles her as well as he can. He hums a lullaby from

his childhood, from the woman who raised him, now only bone and rotted flesh. He focuses on

the melody.

Fleur’s veins, a warm blue, are fully displayed in Cyrus’ arms. Her paper skin let the

world see how small she was, inside and out. Her paleness directly contrasted Cyrus’ tanned

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olive skin; her short, almost white hair and light pink eyes opposite to Cyrus’ long black hair and

sunken, dark amber eyes.

A small hand tugs at Cyrus’ pant leg.

“Bubba?” A small boy looks up at Cyrus, his big black eyes full of crocodile tears. At

five years old, holding in emotions isn’t his strength.

His black flattened coils, the poorly kept corkscrews Cyrus has tried his best at

maintaining, seemed to droop with each new tear.

Cyrus’ eyes are heavy and warm. Fleur’s crying has not ended. The second sun still

hasn’t risen. By the gods, this is the last thing he wants to deal with. He never asked for these

children, but something within him, some foul need to nurture– or to at least not let innocent

children die– always overwhelms his indifference.

Cyrus, still holding Fleur, gets on his knees to the boy’s level. The boy murmurs under

his breath, holding in tears, trying to communicate.

“Kasim, I can’t hear you,” Cyrus takes hold of the boy, Kasim,’s warm umber hand,

balancing Fleur in one arm. “Breathe in and out, okay?”

Kasim is the second youngest and by far most sensitive of the kids, just recently six years

old. Another Caldovan raid in a western village followed by a humanitarian sweep, by Cyrus and

his partner Elias, finding only Kasim, with no other survivors. He was just three then, and Cyrus

sincerely hoped that in time, Kasim would forget.

Kasim squeezes Cyrus’ hand in intervals with every exhale, just like Cyrus taught him

the day he found him.

Fleur’s crying devolves into coughs. Cyrus hears the screaming of his other children. His

eyes widen, bolting to the sound. Through gritted teeth, he exhales.

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“Kasim, stay with Fleur for a minute,” Cyrus tells Kasim. “Get me if her coughs get

worse.” Kasim nods his head. He stands in the corner of Fleur’s room, shaking in fear, staring at

her, unblinking.

Outside Fleur’s closet, the older kids scream at each other. The oldest, Suri, is a twelve

year old Stokian girl. She was brought to Cyrus after a siege on Stokia, one of the few nations

not yet brought down by the “true god,” Almora,’s follower nations. Most notably, Caldova, the

largest nation in land, money, and people. Their power reaches beyond their shores, and recently,

beyond the Ocean Rift made by the gods to save their followers from Almora’s siege on their

followers. It separates the eastern, Almorian nations from the western nations every child and

refugee has had to flee from. But the gods’ defense was nothing compared to the Almorian spirit,

the need to conquer like a disease.

Elias begged Cyrus to take Suri. At the time, Cyrus knew he was in no state to harbor a

child. But Cyrus understood Suri in a way barely any could. None of the westerners conquered

by Caldova lived to relate to them. After all, Almora was not a merciful god, they knew that

better than anyone else.

Suri’s amber eyes were familiar to him. She was just like him at twelve. She needed

someone as badly as twelve-year-old Cyrus did after he lost his parents. Now she stands, in the

middle of their home, yelling at the top of her lungs, defending something. Just like he would

have.

The other girl, Briar, remains a mystery to Cyrus. He tries to love her the same as his

other children, but she knows that she’s different. Briar is not from any western nation- she’s

Caldovan born and bred. Elias took her from a knighting school there, saying he understood her.

But Elias isn’t here raising her.

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Cyrus tried to put any of his previous notions of Caldovans away for Briar. But it was

like chaos flowed through their veins, a genetic trait Cyrus couldn’t shake out. He couldn’t

understand her. Her bright green eyes glared at Suri, almost trying to poison Suri with just her

stare.

But Briar was a child, just nine years old. She came to Cyrus after Kasim, Cyrus was

certain he could handle her. At this point, he needed to handle her.

Suri and Briar ignore his presence, continuing to scream at each other, inches away from

hair pulling and punching. They were practically begging for Cyrus to stop them before they

killed each other.

Fleur’s coughs continue. The screaming only escalates. Cyrus is the only force holding

this crumbling home together, and yet the enchanting smell of sea salt grasps his attention.

He stands and stares out the window.

The sulfur fills his nostrils and the screaming quiets. Cyrus zones them out. The call of

the waves is louder than their screams. Over the horizon, the setting suns resemble the amber

eyes that haunt his dreams. He can’t shake the feeling that somewhere, across the untamed

ocean, she was still there. His first child, looking, hoping. Waiting.

✦•┈•✦

The suns beat against Yuna’s bare neck. She runs atop a cobblestone wall, panting through her

wide smile. Cart wheels creak in the city of Castacove, cacophonous to the swishing of fishing

nests and gentle splashes of waves.

“Emo de piscis!” Merchants scream sales and curse in a language Yuna cares not to

learn. “Almun!” a balding fisherman yells as children run past him. Yuna watches as she

balances step by step- street on one side and a steep ocean cliffside on the other.

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Her long, tangled hair gets caught in the wind as she runs; she could have sworn her

brother braided it for her this morning.

The wall cuts off at the docks. Fishermen yell at her to get away from their nets,

assuming the foreign girl must be there to steal.

She’s ushered out like a wild dog, forcing her calloused feet to navigate her through the

streets of Castacove filled with rotting fish and human waste. People swarm the roads, heading

east and west in hurried paces, bumping into Yuna as she twists and turns to navigate.

She can hear every step slam against unpaved roads. Wheelbarrows creak. People partake

in idle side conversation. Seagulls squawk over merchant’s yells. The noises, smells of fish, and

feeling of dust underneath her scabbed feet overwhelm her senses.

Everything is so loud. Every rotting fish and seagull squawk and curse in some

Castacovian language distort her head– where was she going? Where are her shoes- where’s

Cyrus?

She towers over the traffic in Castacove, standing at five feet and nine inches, taller than

the average Castacovian man. She’s forgotten why she’s gone so far south.

People won’t stop touching her, constantly grazing shoulders against her still sides. She

forgets to breathe. Her eyes bolt in every direction, towards the market square and main road

until she finds safety in an empty alley.

Yuna heaves in and out, squeezing her wrist. For whatever reason, it’s a comforting

feeling. She bolts to an alleyway, knocking over a few pedestrians.

The aroma of human sweat and feces is trapped between buildings. Each step, unshielded

by shoes, is moister than the last. She can breathe.

“Yuna?” a crackly voice calls to her from deeper in the alleyway.

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Nobody here should know her name. She follows it, and it calls louder: “Yuna?”

A figure comprised of shadow leans in the end of the alley, revealed by the two suns high

in the sky. It hovers above Yuna– she feels barely five feet tall.

It gestures towards her.

“Cyrus?” Yuna whispers, echoing through the alleyway. She squints, looking up for her

brother. “Bubba?”

“Yuna- what did you do to your hair?” he darts behind her, sending shivers down her

spine. She whirls to see the shadow staring down at her.

His shadow’s smile parts into a frown, light shining through it. His eyebrows narrow in

disappointment.

“I- I don’t know-” Yuna looks down at her filthy feet, tightening her shoulders at his

voice. When was the last time they talked– how did he get so far south? She makes herself as

small as possible. Yuna looks back up at him, ready to be scolded.

He’s gone.

Her memories of him have faded. She barely remembers his face, but still, her

hallucinations force themselves on her in shadows. She only needs to hold onto his voice. Then

her brain can trick her into comfort, holding onto the semblance of family she still has.

Exiting the alley, Yuna tries to comb through her hair with her hands. Cyrus’ braid must

have fallen out when she was at the docks. She rips out a chunk of hair, thick and matted.

The streets are still busy, and the suns are just as high in the sky. Their amber color

reminds Yuna of something.

The yelling of Castacovians block Yuna’s thoughts. All she can remember is a warm,

unfamiliar feeling in her stomach while gentle hands press against her scalp.

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✦•┈๑⋅⋯ ⋯⋅๑┈•✦

Cyrus’ hands were black, coated in soot and dirt from unwashed wrenches and conveyor

belts. Smoke and smog filled every corner of the factory, no ventilation saved his lungs. Other

seventeen year olds worked the lines with him. Each of them hacked out a black powder.

They worked underneath the Caldova Company as the cogs that kept the nation turning.

Yet none of them were Caldovan. They were the products of their parents fleeing from their

mother country, scared of war, wanting the best for their children. Cyrus had wished that they

had just stayed in Leighelia, even if under an Almoran attack by Caldova.

His parents were sent to a prison across the Caldovan Mittel after they were caught for

smuggling in Yuna, his baby sister, four years ago. They didn’t want to force her into a factory at

five years old, not like they did with Cyrus.

Now, they were moons away– it would take Cyrus two months to walk to where he was

told they were put, if the Caldovan managers didn’t lie. Yuna had to work making textiles to

keep the two of them afloat.

Still Cyrus did all he could to give her a childhood.

On this day, Cyrus worked a sixteen hour shift, letting Yuna sleep for seven. The first sun

had begun its rise, and the younger children began piling into the factory. Yuna was one of the

last in, trying to milk in as much sleep as she could.

She yawned as she moved to her station, beginning to repair threads from a spinning

machine. Exposed turning gears and sharpened needles to hold fabric meant her job was not safe.

Cyrus wished her safety could be guaranteed, but there was nothing safer to do.

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Seeing Cyrus, she lit up and waved across the factory. He tried to smile, but any muscles

in his body still working were going off of muscle memory. Screw, lift, place, repeat. He hoped

she got the message.

Yuna’s braid had been in for a day longer than usual, and was coming undone. Cyrus had

four more hours until he could fix it, then sleep for five more hours. He continued his cycle:

screw, lift, place. His throat itched with the smoke of the coal, and all he could taste was iron and

ash. He continued, screw, lift, place.

Across the factory, Yuna paced the older girls’ spinning machines, leaning over, ready to repair

any threads. She held her hair back as she tied together frayed threads and held back broken

ones, trying not to disturb the girls pushing and pulling down the machines.

The two continued to toll away for three hours. Yuna’s hands regrew numb and Cyrus

barely held his head up.

Yuna’s braid was undone. She tucked her hair into her poorly patched dress to keep it out

of the way. She leaned over another spinning machine, fixing another thread. She had fixed too

many to count.

Her hands were sore. The joints in her fingers spazzed from one thread to the next.

She zoned out the pain as best she could.

The snap of thread a foot away from her warranted another sigh. She leaned farther,

holding onto pipes to not fall into the thread, needles, and quick spinning wheels.

Her dress’ collar slipped down, barely an inch. Her heavy hair fell out, any semblance of

a braid gone.

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Hundreds of strands immediately got lost in the thread. The bulk of her hair was stuck in

the wheels turning with the machine.

The girl manning the machine, a year older and far more tired than Yuna, didn’t notice.

Yuna’s shriek alerted everyone nearby, turning heads before they went back to work. The girl

jumped to the wheel, trying to stop it.

Cyrus’ eyes begged him to close them. He continued to screw, lift, and place. He was

awake, but his soul was not present.

A shriek across the factory brought the light back to his eyes. His immediate thought was

that it was Yuna. That she was hurt. Of course, it could be anyone. He continued to screw, lift,

and place.

Her sobs reignited his fear. Throwing his tools to the ground, Cyrus whipped his head

towards her screams and sprinted towards his ward. He abandoned his post, overwhelming the

conveyor belt, sprinting to the spinning machines.

His nine-year-old sister, his responsibility, shrieked in pain, her scalp bleeding. Factory

managers stared at them from a floor above, rolling their eyes. These children were such a

liability.

The machine ripped her hair out with so much force it took patches of skin with it. The

older girl tried to stop the wheel, but her frail frame didn’t do much. Cyrus leaped to scissors

resting a few feet away, cutting off the hair stuck in the wheel.

Yuna sobbed, holding the bloody bald spot on the side of her head. Cyrus picked her up,

letting her hold onto him like a koala, a mixture of tears, blood, and sweat streaming down his

back, running out of the factory to a clearing of dead grass and broken gears.

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Yuna’s blood soaked Cyrus’ shirt, wrapped around her head as a makeshift bandage. She

squeezed his hand with every inhale.

Then, she let go, gasping through gritted teeth. Cyrus had untied his drenched shirt and

parted her hair, trying to cover the wound with a layer of hair.

“Sorry,” Cyrus said, grabbing her hand, letting her squeeze it again. She tried to hide her

whimpers, knowing that her brother was trying his best, but she was nine. Holding in emotions

wasn’t her strong suit.

Yuna repositioned herself, grabbing ahold of her knees, digging nails into skin- poor

attempt at a mental distraction. Her whole body was still warm and running off of pure

adrenaline.

Cyrus braided her hair as gently as he could, inflicting pain with every slight tug. He

hummed a song their mother once sang to him, a comforting melody.

To Yuna, it was Cyrus’ song. She hardly remembered their parents, only a few blurs and

their screams as she and Cyrus were ripped from them.

It was just them. Cyrus was all Yuna knew and all she had. She didn’t want anything

more.

The suns rose higher, reigniting the sky in her blue flame. Cyrus’ humming slowed and

faded out.

Cyrus fell to the ground, his hand twitching, and Yuna yelped in pain, as a section of her

hand fell with him. He hadn’t slept in almost thirty hours.

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“I killed him,” echoed in Yuna’s brain over and over. She grabbed his twitching hand,

trying to drag him to the only people she knew could help him: the factory managers. But at only

sixty pounds, she could barely move him. She did all she could think of. Scream.

She called for help, yelling until her lungs were hoarse. It took thirty minutes for an adult

to walk over to them from the afar factory, twenty steps away.

Seeing her brother twitch on the floor, the manager gripped her wrist, yanking her back

inside.

She had a shift to finish.

Cyrus awoke in the same clearing he was just in with Yuna, sunlight beating down on him. His

limbs were heavy and his clothes soaked by rain. He didn’t wake up to a storm. He had no clue

how long he had been passed out. All he knew was that he had needed it.

He trudged through the muddy industrial town, water sloshing with every step. When he

got to his building the door to his apartment was wide open.

The furniture was gone. Cobwebs laced the corners of the ceiling. Yuna was nowhere to

be found. The only thing remaining was a broken window frame, fingerprints coating the glass.

The portrait of his parents holding him as a baby was gone.

Cyrus checked the perimeter around his unit. He checked the tree Yuna liked to lay

under, the black creek she would splash in- anywhere she could be. The ground beneath the tree

was cold. The creek was still; Yuna was gone. And suddenly Cyrus forgot how to breathe.

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Yuna finished her shift, snot streaming and tears caking her face. Her cries echoed throughout

the factory, like a ghost wailing for the afterlife. The other children stared for the first hour of her

shift, but zoned her out for the remaining hour. This wasn’t anything too unusual.

After a manager dismissed her group, she bolted out of the heavy metal door to the

meadow. She saw her brother standing, turned from her.

“Bubba?” Yuna called out. He turned to her. He was not Cyrus. His form was

otherworldly. A black cloud of smog, his shadow turned to life. He smiled his caring smile at

her, letting light seep through his mouth. His eyes were devoid of emotion, only two dimensional

holes to the world behind him.

Yuna did not see Cyrus in the field, but she saw him- it- the shadow. It reached out a

hand to her, and poisoned her brain, echoing its words to her,“Let’s go home.”

She followed him. He was her brother, after all. Her head hurt from the tears, from the

wailing, from the bleeding. She needed him.

✦•┈๑⋅⋯ ⋯⋅๑┈•✦

Yuna squeezes her wrist with every inhale and exhale. Just like her brother had taught her.

She is sitting on an empty dock, watching not the sun, but her brother’s eyes descend

from the sky. She feels his gaze from across the water; she does not see him. Her body shakes

with every exhale.

She feels the shiver behind her back. The shadow is there, again, watching. The waves

clash against the dock and her swollen, red feet. It, or he, brushes her hair with his hand, coming

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through a few knots and braiding it. A section of her scalp, nearing the side of her head, stings

with every brush. She doesn’t question it.

Yuna Cyprus stares across the ocean, squeezing her wrist. She is alone, comforted by her

hallucination.

✦•┈•✦

Cyrus closes the closet door. Kasim sleeps in the other room, acting as a buffer for Suri

and Briar. Cyrus sighs, his breath shaky. He walks back to the window.

The waves are finally calm. Stars illuminate his face as he stares at the horizon, at his

homeland, and at where his sister could be. She would be seventeen.

He doubts he would be able to recognize her, her eyes would be the only staple still

reminiscent of his childhood.

Kasim shakes in his sleep. The home is calm. Cyrus Cyprus can rest.

He abandons the ocean and his view of the horizon to join the children resting on a long,

thin mattress. He sits next to Kasim, squeezing his hand in inhales and exhales, hoping to quell

the nightmares. He is together with his family, held together not by blood, but fraying threads.

Cyrus collapses next to Kasim, passing out from the exhaustion, his hand twitching in his

sleep. He dreams of the ocean and his sister’s eyes piercing the sky.

In his dreams she is still nine. She holds onto him koala style. There is no blood, there is

no sweat, and there are no tears. There are only morning dew droplets lacing the grass below

them and laughter in the air around them. They are together, the Cypri, reunited at last.