The sky, aside from the cloud shaped patch in the distance that Ellen did her best to ignore, turned blue along the way. The decay was still spreading. It would one day be the greatest issue they faced, but right now, her biggest concern was keeping her friends alive long enough to finish their mission.
Once they were outside the fortress, Kilroy explained, "Most teams complete their training mission in four days. Some take a little longer, and some finish faster, but that's usually because they took shortcuts." His face flushed with anger. "The Fortress Guard soldiers on top of the wall are watching you, so don't do that." He relaxed. "That's it. Just remember your training and come home safe."
Ellen inched away from the group. She felt odd leaving behind the fortress she'd spent weeks searching for, but it was only a temporary thing.
Her friends probably felt even more odd, the fortress had been their home for their entire lives, but they soon followed. Barry came first, then Ludendi and Trevor.
Their mission was to follow the main road that led outside the fortress until it ended, then move in a circle around the fortress, marking any points of interest along the way. Kilroy made it sound simple, promising them more than once that the grassy plains surrounding the fortress were safe, but there was a hint of fear in his voice Ellen couldn't ignore. His definition of point of interest was also nebulous, as if he didn't have any idea what they'd find.
Ludendi sighed. "I can't believe we're out here. I never thought I'd make it this far, but here I am."
"We're really lucky we made it here," Trevor said. "We were attacked twice before we were officially accepted, and we survived. I wonder if we're going to keep getting lucky."
"It wasn't luck," Ludendi said. "We survived because we had Ellen. We'll probably keep surviving as long as she doesn't leave us."
They seemed more interested in praising her than doing their jobs. "I'm not going anywhere," Ellen said carefully, "but... you really should watch our surroundings."
"Oh, I forgot!" Trevor fumbled his binoculars out of his pouch and started scanning the plains. "There's another group up ahead of us, but I don't see any monsters around. Not yet, anyway."
Barry shifted his backpack around. "I wonder what's in here? It's too heavy to be just food."
"We should reach the end of this road soon," Ludendi said, eyeing her book of maps. "Let's take a look once we get there."
But the road continued on for hours without an end in sight.
At least the plains were calm. Ellen watched them intently and Trevor seemed to be watching them as well, and there wasn't a hint of danger anywhere.
"This dimension is much bigger outside the fortress," Trevor said after a while. He quickly added, "I mean, I always knew it was big, but seeing it firsthand is something else."
"It's so big that some parts of it aren't even mapped out yet," Ludendi said. "Or maybe this is just an old book."
"The unmapped parts are probably where the dimension ends," Ellen said. Her friends didn't say anything. She glanced back at them and found them looking very confused. "No dimension goes on forever. Eventually the ground just stops, and after that..." That was something she didn't know. Her guardian had never let her get too close to the edge of a dimension.
"What happens if you reach the edge and keep going?" Ludendi asked. "Do you fall into empty space forever?" She quivered. "That's kind of spooky. I'm glad we're not going that far out."
"You can fall off," Ellen agreed, "and sometimes the ground will collapse on its own. That usually doesn't happen if the dimension is healthy, but if it's started to decay-"
She shut up as fast as she could, but it was too late.
"I didn't know dimensions could decay," Ludendi said curiously. "Do you think that weird spot in the sky means our dimension is decaying?"
"That would make a lot of sense," Trevor said.
"But wouldn't Galvin or one of the administrators warn us if our dimension was rotting away? I haven't heard anyone say a word."
"They probably don't want us to know," Barry said. "Remember when that special forces team told us not to talk about the monster we fought on the wall? If our dimension was rotting away then they'd probably want that kept secret too."
"What do you think, Ellen?" Ludendi asked.
Panic surged through Ellen's body. All it took was a few badly timed words for her friends to uncover everything she'd sworn to keep secret.
There was no sense in trying to hide it anymore. "You're right," she said. She stopped and faced them. "This dimension is decaying. As it gets worse, the sky is going to turn dark forever, the land will slowly collapse, and there'll be so many monsters appearing that we'll probably have to abandon the fortress."
"I asked you about the sky before and you told me you didn't know anything," Ludendi complained. "Why did you lie?"
Ellen put her head down. She had lied right to Ludendi's face, there was no denying it. She'd also lied to Barry and Trevor. "I asked Brendon about the sky when I first came here. He said I'd get thrown out of the fortress if I told anyone. If I can't stay here, then I don't have anywhere else to go."
She braced herself. Her friends were surely upset, maybe even enraged. There was bound to be a fist or a foot or maybe even a weapon coming down on her any second now.
Something did come down on her, something soft and gentle. It was Ludendi's arms. They wrapped around her and held her tight.
"I didn't know he threatened you," Ludendi said warmly. "You must've been so scared."
Ellen froze. She never imagined she'd be on the receiving end of a hug, not after deceiving them so much. "S-sorry I lied."
"How many times did you save our lives?" Barry asked with a chuckle. "Did you really think we'd turn on you because of something like this?"
"None of this is your fault," Trevor said. "It's not like you personally caused the dimension to start decaying. At least, I hope you didn't."
"This will be our secret," Ludendi said. "We're not going to let anyone kick you out of the fortress."
Ellen's eyes watered up. She had lied to them about the doom of their home, yet they still wanted to be her friend. "W-we still have to finish our mission," she choked out, "even if the dimension is falling apart."
"You're right." Ludendi released her then looked to her maps. "This road can't go on for much longer, and I mean it this time. We'll have lunch once we find the end."
Ellen turned her back to them, not wanting them to see her tears, and led on.
The grass on both sides of the road slowly grew taller and more unwieldy. The highest bits reached above her knees. A warm and gentle breeze swept through occasionally and caused it to stir back and forth.
They'd gone well past the point where she first arrived, she soon realized. Her friends were seeing this part of the dimension for the first time and so was she.
"How long does it take for a dimension to rot away?" Trevor asked. "At the rate that dark patch has been growing, it'll be years before it covers the whole sky."
"I'm not sure," Ellen admitted. "I've been to a lot of dimensions that were fully decayed, but this is the first one I've seen that was just getting started."
"We can't do anything to stop it," Barry said dismissively. "Let's just enjoy the time we have left. It's like those special forces guys said: fear is only going to make things worse."
"I'm sure there's another fortress out there we can move into once we leave here," Ludendi said.
They were braver than her, Ellen realized. Just looking at the sky made her nervous, yet knowing their home was going to be destroyed soon didn't seem to faze them at all.
After another hour of walking, the dirt path vanished beneath a thick field of grass that stretched forward for several miles before giving way to a dense forest.
Ellen put her back to the forest. It was an unsettling looking place even from afar. The treetops were so thick they blocked out most of the light, leaving plenty of dark spots for monsters to hide, and it was massive. It st
retched backwards with no end in sight, and it seemed to wrap around the entire plains.
"Let's see what's inside this thing," Barry said as he plopped his backpack down in the dirt.
Clothing was on top. There was enough scarves and gloves and shirts and pants and socks to outfit a full group of four.
Ludendi grabbed a scarf and put it on right away. "It's not exactly warm right now. I bet it's going to be freezing when we go to sleep."
"We can always huddle up for warmth," Barry said with a grin.
"That's fine. I'll sleep with Ellen, and you can sleep with Trevor."
Barry's grin disappeared in an instant. He shared a look of revolt with Trevor.
It was very likely they'd end up sleeping beside each other to stay warm, but Ellen didn't say anything. Her friends would quickly come to terms with their situation once nighttime set in.
She picked up a scarf of her own and put it on then smiled. It was her first piece of official Fortress Brigade attire.
Deeper inside Barry's backpack sat four tightly bound sleeping bags, then several pouches of food.
Barry opened one of the pouches then divided up the bread and dried fruit inside. "Eat up," he said with a wry chuckle. "I think we have some water to wash it down with."
Once their lunch was over, Ellen led the group off the dirt road and into the plains. She followed a makeshift path made of trampled grass, which looked to have been made by previous teams.
"Won't your scarves get caught on something if we get into a fight?" Barry asked after a while.
"I'll rip it off real quick if something happens," Ludendi said. "You should be more worried about yourself. You're the one with the heavy backpack."
"I can slide out of this in a second if I need to. I'd rather be carrying Ellen, but this backpack isn't too bad."
Ellen stared straight forward. She could feel Barry smiling at her from behind. He did have very firm arms that she didn't mind being carried in, but they had bigger things to focus on right now.
"I don't see anything moving out there," Trevor said. "I don't think we have to worry about being attacked." He lowered his binoculars. "I also can't find that group I spotted earlier. They must've gone a different way."
A point that might be of interest appeared ahead: a depressed section of land shaped a lot like a giant foot with three long toes. Ellen marked it with a bright red flag Barry dug out of his backpack then moved on.
There was nothing else like it anywhere in the plains. There wasn't much of anything in the plains, except for grass and the occasional rocky outcropping. The rest of the day was calm, almost boring.
"We need to find a place to sleep," Ellen said once the sky started turning dark.
"There's a cave somewhere up ahead," Ludendi said, studying her maps. "It looks close, but... I'm not the best at judging distances yet. There's a burrow that's even closer. Which one should we try?"
"Let's use the burrow," Ellen said.
The burrow was less than an hour away. It was a large hole dug into the ground beneath a large gray rock. Ellen crawled in first by herself. Her friends were weary of it, probably because it was nothing like the warm beds they were used to, but they soon joined her.
"So what now?" Ludendi asked. "I guess we just eat and go to sleep?"
"We can always start a fire," Barry said. "Kilroy gave us an axe, and there's a couple small trees outside."
"It's better if we don't," Ellen said. "This hole isn't very deep. The light might lure something towards us." Their day had been completely peaceful, but she knew better than to take the peace for granted.
"I'm not very tired," Ludendi said. "Maybe we can practice with our weapons while there's still some light."
"It's better if we don't," Ellen said again. "All the noise-"
"Right, monsters. I don't like fighting them during the day. I'm sure I really won't like fighting them at night."
"I'm not very tired either," Trevor said. "Is there anything that's safe? Can we at least talk?"
Ellen said, "It's better if-"
Her friends laughed.
"Let's just try to sleep," Ludendi said. "We're not even a quarter of the way done. We need to get started early."
Barry handed out their sleeping bags.
Ellen crawled into hers right away. There was very little cushioning between her and the hard dirt ground, but she was used to it. She closed her eyes and immediately started drifting off.
But her friends' complaining kept her awake. They had nothing good to say about their sleeping bags, nor how cold and hard the ground was, but eventually they quieted down and Ellen fell asleep.
She went to sleep chilly, and woke up strangely warm.
Her friends were all huddled up beside her. They slept so close she couldn't help but brush against them as she climbed out of her sleeping bag.
While her movements woke them up, they rose as fast as corpses. She crawled outside the burrow and waited.
It was still dark outside, but a faint morning orange was spreading across the sky. Most of the sky.
Her friends joined her after a few minutes. They stood slumped over, their eyes half open.
"I don't think you could've picked a worst spot to sleep," Ludendi grumbled.
"This is how most of our nights are going to be," Ellen said cautiously. "You have to get used to it."
She worried they might turn their weapons on her for suggesting such a thing, but no such retaliation ever came, and after some grumbling and groaning then a fast breakfast, they were once again traveling down the path of trampled grass.
"I'm thinking about using one of you as a pillow tonight," Ludendi said, her voice drained of all life. "Go ahead and think whatever weird thoughts you want, I'm too tired to care."
"That won't be an option," Trevor said, his voice the same, "because I already plan to make someone my pillow, and I'm not sharing."
"It's too bad Ellen is so small," Barry said. "If she was bigger, we could all use her for a pillow." He smiled. "I guess I'll just have to keep her for myself."
Ellen ignored him. Her focus was on the rift beside the path up ahead. Someone had come to this dimension recently, but unlike her, they had landed far from civilization. There was no telling what sort of trouble they might've ran into.
"You're not thinking about going in there," Ludendi said, "are you? That's definitely not a part of our job."
"Someone came here recently," Ellen said. "They might still be nearby."
"They probably already made it to the fortress," Barry said. "Or maybe they were leaving."
"Why would they leave," Ludendi said mockingly. "Do you really think someone would give up the fortress to come live out here?"
Barry shrugged. "So what do you think happened to them?"
"This rift wasn't here yesterday," Trevor said. "I would've noticed it. That means whoever opened it arrived while we were asleep." He dug out his binoculars and looked towards the fortress. "There's no way they could've made it to the fortress in the dark."
"The fortress does have those giant fires on the towers every night," Ludendi said. "It would be pretty easy to follow them." She pondered. "But... who knows what comes out of hiding during the night. What do you think, Ellen?"
There were a dozen different things that could've happened, some not noteworthy at all and some fatal. "Let's look around," Ellen said.
She drifted towards the fortress, scanning the plains along the way. Ludendi and Trevor fanned out around her while Barry headed for a group of rocks in the opposite direction.
No matter how much ground she covered, she found no signs of life anywhere. There was probably nothing to find, but if someone had come to this dimension and landed nearby, she wanted them to have a half decent welcoming.
Barry was the first to give up. He moved beside the rift and waited. Ludendi and Trevor soon joined him.
Ellen kept searching, but it wasn't long before her friends' bored, impatient looks convinced her to give up.
She couldn't blame them. They had a long trek ahead and this fruitless search was only slowing them down.
She was on her way to rejoin them when she tripped over something hard and stiff.
It was a man's leg. She caught a glimpse of it as she stumbled forward. Its owner lie face down in the grass.
She regained her balance and faced him. "Sorry," she said.
But the man didn't respond. He was dead.
Chapter 12
Ellen gazed at the man's still body. A dirty axe too twisted and grungy to have been made by a human stuck out of his back, and the ground and grass around him was stained red.
She took out her knife and started backing away. It was a terrible shame that the man had died so soon after coming to this dimension, especially when her and her friends were nearby, but whatever had stuck the axe into him couldn't have gone far. It might even be beside her right now. The grass was so tall she'd never know until it was too late.
Ellen startled when she bumped into something hard. She spun around.
It was Barry. Ludendi and Trevor were right beside him.
"Did you find something?" Ludendi asked.
"You look like a ghost," Barry said. Comically he asked, "What did you find? Is it a dead body?"
That was exactly what she'd found, but Ellen couldn't bring herself to speak. The words were caught in her throat.
Trevor sniffed the air. "I don't think I've smelt anything that bad before. Maybe there is something dead nearby."
Her friends moved around her and started heading towards the body.
"W-wait," Ellen stammered, but it was too late.
They walked right up to the body then immediately scattered. Ludendi broke into a coughing fit. Trevor covered his mouth.
"That's probably something worth marking," Barry said with an awkward, nervous chuckle.
Ellen relaxed a little. If there was something nearby, all the commotion they were causing would've lured it over already.
She dug a flag out of Barry's backpack, stuck it in the ground near the man's body then returned to the path of trampled grass. Her friends followed.
Forlorn Dimension Page 11
