by Caleb Monroe
“How dare you speak to me in this manner.” Pontis takes a few steps toward us, but he keeps a large group of royals between him and us at all times. “Guards, I want you to kill Jacob, but keep my son alive. I will have you thrown in a cell for this treason, boy.”
The soldiers close in again, and I tell Tayus, “I hope you have something up your sleeve.”
“You mean like another sword? How would a concealed weapon up the sleeves of my robes help us here?”
“Never mind. Just tell me you have a way to get us out of here.”
“Of course, I do. Remember how I told you I was recruiting people from within the castle?”
“I vaguely recall the conversation.” I take my blade and ready myself for a fight we cannot win.
“Now!” Half of the soldiers that were boxing us in turn and attack the soldier next to them.
“You brought friends?” I ask as I duck under a sword before darting behind the approaching soldier and kicking him in the back.
“It is a party.” Tayus knocks out a soldier who comes charging in with a spinning backhand. “You need to escape. There will be more soldiers here soon, and we can’t fight them all.”
I see one of Tayus’ men get pushed down, and a soldier loyal to Pontis stands over him ready to strike a killing blow. I charge at him driving my shoulder into his side sending him flying into the black brick fireplace next to us. “Keep fighting,” I tell the fallen soldier as I help him to his feet. I see that the soldier I knocked out has a few elemental weapons on him, so I reach down and take a blue and green pearl.
“Seriously, Jacob, it’s time for you to make your leave.” Tayus takes out another guard and now his men outnumber those loyal to Pontis.
“What about you?”
“My men and I will be fine. We will rendezvous at the base sometime tomorrow.” Tayus has joined a circular formation with his men as they prepare to stand their ground.
“Fine, but I have to do one thing before I leave.” I scan the room quickly searching for Cecilia and find her standing behind a few royals, so I take off running toward her, knocking a few royals out of my way.
“What are you…” I kiss her before she can finish her protest.
“I will see you soon.” She smiles as I turn to run for the window. I let out a loud whistle before turning my head to say, “Be safe, Tayus.” When I get to the window, I do not hesitate and break through it, sending glass crashing around me.
I panic at first, because Shadow is not here. “Oh no!” I brace myself for the ground, but out of nowhere Shadow comes swooping in and grabs my arms with his talons. “Nice catch, buddy.” He helps me get on his back, and I yell, “Portal us out of here!” Shadow flies straight up into the cold night sky opening a portal that we fly through keeping us out of harms reach.
Chapter 8
Shadow and I come screaming out of the portal into this new universe and new world where we are greeted with a sight that is ominously foreboding. “What happened to this world?” Everywhere I look is utter destruction; it makes me wonder what this world was like before whatever calamity befell it. Shadow takes us up higher and, from this elevation, things only get worse.
“Everywhere you look, there is nothing but destruction.” The area we are flying over appears to be the remnants of a large city that reminds me of New York. There are ruined buildings everywhere outlining this former city. Even from up here I can tell that the buildings are not made of metal or wood. They seem to be made of glass, or something like glass.
As far as the eye can see, all that can be found are the remnants of what I think used to be a great civilization. There are buildings that have been toppled, leftover parts of giant machines littering the streets, buildings that have been ripped in half. We approach two skyscrapers standing over a mile apart from each other that proudly proclaim the majesty that was once this world.
“Shadow, take us down over there.”
I point to an area between the two standing skyscrapers that somehow have been spared from the total devastation. Shadow takes us down and lands right in the middle of a street that was ruined by the battle. There are craters everywhere I look, and I can only imagine the firepower it took to create craters of this magnitude.
I approach the nearest building and notice that the top few stories have been blown off by some devastating armament. When I get to the wall, I run my hand against the glass-like material that has been spread all across this destroyed landscape.
“It’s so cold, and I can see right through it.” I tap on the structure, and if this is glass, then it is nothing like the glass on Earth. I take my fist and pound on the glass-like wall as hard as I can. “It feels like concrete.” I then take my Sica out and beat the wall with the handle. “I can see right through the walls in every building as we get close enough, but they are as strong as steel.”
I turn around realizing Shadow has walked away from me. “What have you got there? Is that a robotic arm?” I see that Shadow is smelling a metal arm that is just lying in the middle of the wrecked road.
Shadow makes room for me as I approach, and I bend down to pick up what he is smelling. “This is definitely an arm, but it’s not organic.” The arm I hold is no longer than two feet, and it is composed of some type of light-weight metal alloy. I try to bend it but find it as hard as the glass-like substance used to construct the buildings.
It looks like the arm was broken off by something strong, because there are ripped wires hanging out of it. “This was attached to something. Do you see the body of it lying around?” Shadow and I spread out, but we cannot seem to locate the rest of the body. After a few minutes of searching, I hear Shadow chirping to my left. “What did you find?”
I turn around, but Shadow is nowhere in sight. “Where did you go, buddy? This isn’t the time for games.” Shadow comes out from around a corner looking at me like I am the crazy one. He quickly turns around and heads back to whatever he found. I run over to him saying, “You can’t just run off like that. You scared me. What could be so interesting that you…” When I round the corner, my mouth stops moving, and I freeze in my tracks. “Is that real?”
Shadow found something, alright. The entire side of the building has been completely destroyed. A giant tank built from the same metallic material as the arm we found earlier must have toppled into the side of this building during the battle.
“What in the world?” The giant machine must be at least two stories tall and thirty feet wide. “This tank is huge. I wonder what could have possibly knocked it over. This war was clearly between two powerhouses.”
Shadow flies onto the top part of the tank, while I climb up using one of the machine’s giant wheels, which are made of something similar to rubber. “Look at the chunks taken out of the side of this tank. Whatever it went up against did some serious damage to this thing and was even able to topple it.”
I walk on top of the tank and see that it has two sets of guns positioned on the side of it and at the very top, which is lying against the ground now, is a cannon with a barrel that has a diameter of at least three feet.
“This world must have been occupied by a pretty advanced race at one point, but apparently, it wasn’t enough to save them from whatever overpowering threat they faced in this city.” I see Shadow jump back down to the ground. “Something interesting inside the building?” Shadow starts chirping, so I hop down inside the destroyed building with him. “What do you have there, Shadow?” Shadow lifts his head up, and in his beak he holds a black crystal. “Give me that.”
I run my hand through my hair as the scattered pieces of this war-torn puzzle finally fall into place. I take the black crystal shard, making my way to the other side of this ruined glass building. I emerge through another blown out hole in the wall to a street that is littered with the proof I was looking for.
It’s the thing I was dreading. Proof of the power we are about to face.
Shadow joins me in the middle of the street and fina
lly the picture is complete.
“The Mortem Mangoners did all of this. They destroyed this world.”
As I scan the area from the middle of the street, I can see the battle lines that were drawn in this once great metropolis. To my left lies the destruction that Mortem Mangoners are capable of. As far as I can see, there remains only the rubble of the glass buildings that used to stand tall and sparkle as the sun shone brightly down upon them.
To my right there is some destruction, but the line where the battle began to cease is evident in the lack of destruction of these buildings. This must have been where the inhabitants of this world made their final stand against the Mortem Mangoners. Most of the buildings farther down the street, including the two large skyscrapers, still stand, almost as beacons of life in this world.
“Come with me, Shadow.”
We make our way to the right, so I can see what happened as the crystal army began to cease their attack on the inhabitants of this world. There are more tanks like before, and even a few smaller crafts constructed from the same materials that have been left to rot on this forgotten world. I see shards of black crystals spread all throughout the scarred battlefield, telling me that at least this was not a one-sided war.
Shadow flies ahead of me, never getting out of sight. I take my time and soak up all the damage as I make my way through the remnants. Suddenly I am blinded by a strong reflection of the sun. I bend over and feel something metal, shaped like a large football, about four feet long and three feet wide.
“This must be the body that the detached arm we found earlier belonged to. Here’s the empty arm socket with detached wires sticking out. I don’t see the other arm though.” I hold it up showing it to Shadow, but he is too far away to hear me. I carry the surprisingly light body to Shadow, who is standing on top of some rubble that was once part of the building to our left.
“Check this out, Shadow.” It is a struggle to climb the eight or nine feet of rubble while holding this thing to reach Shadow. When I get to Shadow’s side, I look down to find where the battle for this world must have ended. “It’s a boneyard.” I simply drop the object I am holding as I realize that it is only one of many discarded body parts on the street.
The street below me is full of craters left by the tanks that did their best to push the Mortem Mangoners back. Some of the craters are full of black powder, proving the inhabitants of this world did not go down quietly, but everywhere I look, I find more of these odd robotic bodies lying lifeless on the ground. Between the body parts and the tanks I see overturned further down the street, it’s obvious the crystal army could be stalled, but not defeated.
I jump down to the street, while Shadow glides down to a soft landing next to me. As we traverse the crater-filled road, we come across even more appendages that used to be attached to the football-shaped bodies of whoever lived here before the crystal army destroyed this city. “I wonder if these things were robot soldiers for whoever lived in this city.” Shadow chirps at me, and we navigate this gravesite, which once upon a time was merely a simple street.
“I know we need to get back to Liferné, but I want to see what’s inside this skyscraper before we go.” We make our way down the street toward the largest building left standing amongst the rubble. As we get closer to the skyscraper, I see that while the outside walls are translucent, the inner walls are opaque. The amount of damage done to the city begins to subside the closer we get to the building. “Most of the buildings around here seem to be intact, besides some minor cosmetic damage. I guess that the crystal army won the battle before they got to this part of the city,” I say as I look up into the bright sky trying to see the top of this building.
We reach the entrance of the building, and I ask, “Do you think we push or pull? I don’t see any handles, so push it is.” I put my hand out, but when I get about two feet from the doors, they open on their own. Shadow jumps to my side and readies to fire his cry. “It’s okay, buddy, this building must be powered by something. This is just like the doors at most stores in my world. You were never able to see them, since we were trapped by fear in my house.”
Shadow’s ears lay back down as we enter the glass skyscraper. When we get inside, the whole lower lobby comes to life. Lights on the ceiling turn on illuminating the finer details of the room that the sunlight does not reveal.
“Those are computers, at least I think they are.”
I make my way to the left wall and watch in amazement as screens pull themselves away from the wall and begin floating near where they were stationed. “I wonder what happens when I do this.” I touch the screen but nothing happens. Shadow joins me as I look behind the floating screens finding no wires or anything connecting them to the walls. “This is like something from Star Trek.” Shadow just looks at me, having no idea what I am talking about.
Shadow loses interest and walks back to a counter positioned in the middle of the room. I join him and see that when we get close to the counter, more screens start to float out of the countertop.
“These people were much more technologically advanced than we are on Earth.” I try touching the screen but, again, nothing happens. “What’s behind us?”
I turn to walk away from the counter and make my way to the back of the lobby. The walls come to life as Shadow and I make our way to a set of doors that seem to mark the end of the first floor. The whole wall to my right suddenly turns into one large screen that has words scrolling across it in a language I cannot read. Shadow and I watch the words go by in silence for a moment.
“This is probably the last thing the inhabitants of this world ever saw before they were invaded and had to abandon their homes. At least I hope they got out.”
We leave the ominous screen behind and head for the only doors at the end of this hallway. When we approach them, they open automatically just like the ones at the front of the building. They lead us into a ten-by-ten box that is made from the same glass-like material as everything else in this city.
“I guess this is a dead end, Shadow.” He growls at me, and I turn around to head back into the lobby which is when I see ascending buttons on a side panel next to the doors. “We are in an elevator, I think. Should we try a button?” Shadow just stares at me, so I say, “I know you don’t know what I’m talking about, but you could appease me and just chirp, so I’m not just talking to myself.”
Shadow gives me one single chirp.
“Jerk.” I push a button that is halfway up the ascending rows.
The elevator quickly climbs upward, and I watch as buttons on the control panel begin to light up as we move higher. “We are almost there,” I say. The elevator comes to a slow stop, and the doors promptly open, letting us out into another open, empty space.
Shadow does not bother waiting for me as he heads around the first corner to our right. I make my way to a large translucent wall in front of us, but as I move toward the wall, I notice a couch suddenly materializing before me. The tiles on the floor rematerialized to create the couch, leaving a solid white floor where the colorful tiles used to be.
The solid metal tiles appeared to turn into a mercury-like liquid before blending together to form a couch, strong enough to hold me. “This is so cool.” I take a step back when I hear something moving behind me, and I turn to see a large screen come out of the wall displaying the same words we saw earlier in the downstairs lobby. “I think this is an apartment, Shadow.”
I stand mesmerized watching the floor continue its solid-liquid-solid dance, forming a complete living room set of furniture. I am brought out of my trance by a loud crash coming from another part of the room. “Please, tell me that was you!” I shout as Shadow comes galloping around the corner sliding to a stop with a face that screams, ‘I did not mean to do it’.
“You nearly gave me a heart attack, Shadow.”
Shadow chirps at me, and I head over to the part of the room he just scurried away from. As I round the corner, I find that Shadow has really made quite the me
ss. “You were looking for food, weren’t you?” I see that he has torn two cabinet doors off their hinges and left a trail of small tubes behind him as he ran away from the scene of the crime.
I bend down to pick up one of the tubes that he tossed on the floor. “Did you try and eat this stuff?” Shadow will not look me in the eyes. “Remember the last time you tried to eat something in a different universe? Most all your hair fell out, dummy.” Shadow growls at me, and I pop him on the side.
I open the tube, and when I squeeze it, a green gel oozes out from it. “I hope this isn’t what they eat.” I look around the room and find a table floating in the middle of it. “I guess this is their kitchen and dining room.” I smell the gel, but I get nothing from it. I really contemplate tasting it, but then a flash of bald Shadow runs through my mind. I toss the tube of gel over my shoulder saying, “Let’s keep looking around.”
I make my way into the only other area of the apartment we have not explored yet, and I am caught off guard the moment I cross through the doorway. “Whoa. I think we found the bedroom.” Shadow accompanies me as I approach what looks like a floating cloud that has another one of those metal footballs sitting on it. I cautiously touch the cloud-like substance. “This is just like the cloud world. Come check this out.”
Shadow follows me as I approach the football-shaped object. “There is a cable running out of the side of this thing.” I follow the cable and see that it is dangling from the side of the bed. “It looks like this thing plugs into the wall over here.” I pull on the cable to discover that the end of it matches the pattern on the wall. “Should we plug it in? I think we might be able to get some answers if we do.” Shadow growls at me, but I ignore him. “Don’t be so scared, Shadow. We can handle whatever comes our way.”
