In front of Gorbach was a towering gate, the bars woven into a beautiful pattern of lily and hydrangea plant, with many figures walking through the field of metal flowers. In front of the gates was a flat area near as far as the eyes could see, and at both side of the gate stood a 3 stories barracks, with twenty slit large enough to fire solar gun through on each building. At the top of each of them stood a guard in black and gold armor, who was eyeing Gorbach and his protector suspiciously as they came.

As they realized that Gorbach and his guards were approaching the gate, the two aimed their solar guns at him and shouted out a warning “Back away! The hall of leader is off-limit, even for a noble!”

Gorbach gave out a sigh; of course they didn’t recognize him, with so few guards and so simple clothing, not to mention he would most often alerted them first before coming to visit, which he did not done this time. Gorbach grabbed for his pin and showed it to them, and after the two black guards saw a glimpse of it, they knelt down immediately.

“Pardon our ignorance, your leadership.” One of them said, her voice shaken, for she probably knew what punishment she would receive for the mistake she made. Gorbach shook his head from the sight, though black guards were part of the order of the guard as well, they were of a lower lot, being assigned to protecting or operating one particular area rather than serving as a bodyguard or a watchman. But since the leader hall’s black guard was the highest rank they could rose, it was strange to see one of them made such a simple mistake.

‘I suppose everyone can screw up horribly from time to time, I shouldn’t fault them for it.’ Gorbach thought.

“I might overlooked your transgressiom…” Gorbach told them “As long as you two pick me a banquet of flowers from the hall’s garden as a sign of apology.”

“At once, your leadership.” They replied at the same time. Each guard flicked a lever on their side, and the gate slowly started to swing outward, letting Gorbach and his retinue through.

After he stepped inside, Gorbach took a good look around the area, even though it had been only a month since the last time he had been at this place. At the center was a large flower bed, growing with roses of many different colors, ranging from red to yellow to black to pink and to many more. Behind the beautiful patch of flowers was a large limestone fountain, with small statues donning around, carved into the fashion of each occupations. And standing high above all was a bigger figure, the platform he stood on spewing out water that washed over other statue before gathering upon the pond.

‘I wondered if it supposed to mean anything…’ He thought rhetorically.

Gorbach shifted his gaze along the multi-color brick that served as flooring for this sacred place to its circumference, where the things that gave its name stood. Each atop of giant stone slap, rose metallic statues of every singles supreme leaders before him. Some stood near as tall as the wall of the city, while some only as tall as the leader they fashioned after. Some was made of iron, some of lead, some of bronze, some of silver, and there was a few that made of solid gold. The arrangement was orderly, with each supreme leaders lined up in the order of their reign. At the foot of the each statue lied the entrance to the leader’s tomb, an underground hall designed according to their wish, where their body and treasures would lie for the rest of day.

After Gorbach received his banquet of flower, a beautiful collection of black roses, he dismissed the black guard and made his way to his father’s tomb. As he went though, he could feel the statue’s eyes following him, judging with what felt like unapproval, as if he had tainted their legacy.

‘They are just statue.’ Gorbach told himself, as his spine shivered from their metallic eyes, ‘And of dead men at that.’

Finally, he arrived at his father tomb. Looming over him was an iron statue fifteen feet tall, make of the likeness of his father when he was little more than thirty years of age, but with smaller belly and straighter stance. His cold face seemed to look down on Gorbach in judgment and disgusted, like the thing beneath him was nothing but a disappointment. Over the platform which the statue stand loomed a dark oak door lined with gold. There was also a finger scanner next to it as well, so Gorbach proceeded to press his thumb on the device and the door swung opened, revealing the steep stairway to his father’s resting place below.

But before Gorbach entered the tomb, he gazed to the slab next to his father’s, which had no statue over it just as yet…

‘One day, I will be in there.’ Gorbach thought, the head of constructor had been begging his audience of late to design his tomb, which was sparely decorated at the moment ‘One day, I will rot away into flesh and bone, and the only thing remain of me will be the metallic statue they made for me. But until then, I will live.’

“I’ll be going in alone.” He told his two guards “You two waited here.”

They nodded, and after taking a deep breath, Gorbach entered into the resting place of his father, Musol Godlead.

As he closed the door behind him, it was as if the entire world had fallen into complete darkness, for the light that had peaked in with him had disappeared. Remembering, Gorbach fondled around by his left and grabbed one of the lanterns that were placed by the entrance, the light inside lit up as soon as he touched it, illuminating the pitch black corridor once more. Then steps by steps he descended down, deeper and deeper into the dark tomb.

“Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five…” Gorbach counted the steps, if he remembered correctly; there should be exactly one hundred and sixty steps before he reached the bottom. As he went down, he let his hand brushed over the stones bricks along the wall, which was mostly still intact. His father’s tomb was still relatively new, him only perishing not so long ago. Gorbach had for several occasions visited the underground grave of many of his forbears, some might still be navigable, but most had crumbled to complete ruin from the inside, burying the body of the supreme leader once more.

When he was two-third of the way down, he found a found a dark figure crouching by the stairway. She was draped in a plain black dress that covered her from neck to feet, her face and hair covered with thick veil that only let out a small slit for her eyes to see through, Gorbach judged her to only about seventeen, so too young to be a tomb keeper, but forced to be it regardless.

The girl startled when Gorbach approached, trying to hastily stand up and bowed to him, but she stumbled from her hurry and lost her footing. Before she fell down the stairs, Gorbach, out of instinct, caught her by the wrist and pulled her back up.

As soon as the draped girl stood back up once more, however, she retracted her hand away immediately, backing away to nearby wall. The girl tried to say something, but only able to give out a crooked voice under her veil. A moment of silent passed, and the girl started to cry.

‘This is sad.’ Gorbach thought. It is said down in the city that courtesan is the worst occupation a person could have, and he believed every words of it. As per tradition for century after century, courtesans that had laid even once with the supreme leader must joined him in his grave and served as his tomb keeper, taking care in his rest in death as same as in life. Over his reign, his father had laid with hundreds of courtesans, and all of them were here now, having their life completely turn and forced to live the rest of their day in darkness, locked away from the outside world forever.

“One day, I will let you all go.” Gorbach tried to reassure the crying girl in front of him, and he was determined to make good of his promise “One day this horrible system will end, and you shall emerge to the surface once more. Until then, please wait.”

He could not know what the girl thought about what he had said, for her expression was hidden under her dark veil. And neither does she speak, for her tongue had been cut away as part of her conversion. So Gorbach had no choice but to leave her there on the stairway, both of their days worse than before.

After a short while, Gorbach finally complete the flight of stair and arrived at the main part of the tomb, the burial chamber. In front of him was a sudden opening to a large hallway. The ceiling, the floor and the wall built entirely of bricks made out of black ash, the stone roof that was near thirty feet above gave this underground complex a strange airy atmosphere, which was even further by its length, which stretched as far as the eyes could see.

Gorbach shifted his lantern to let it illuminate by his side, neatly place along the wall was his father’s worldly belongings. Lining from his cloths, silverwares, furniture, and taxidermied animals, like lion, giraffe and giant shark. All along the wall was also various tapestries and painting, displaying vivid and strange images. His father, if anything, was quite a profound art collector and displayer of grand wealth. Gorbach shifted his lantern to the other side, where the same sort of relics could also be found.

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Gorbach strode onward, descended to the end of the grand hall, with a lantern on one hand and the banquet of flowers on the other. As he moved along, he found more and more tomb keeper scattering along the hall, cleaning off the dust on the treasures and repairing the hall as best as they could, but none of them carried a lantern, for they were forbid not to, and were forced to adjust to the complete darkness. The tomb keepers all stopped what they were doing as he passed by to make a bow like everyone he met. But the eerie silent and dark atmosphere made their sign of respect felt so terrible. But Gorbach regardless pressed onward, for he had business to attend to.

It was not long till he reached the end of the hall, where the lines of treasures abruptly ended and instead the hall raised up a platform ten feet tall with a staircase leading up to it. Gorbach climbed up along the path, and the only thing he found was his father’s glass coffin, with his father’s remain still inside.

Musolin Godlead looked nearly the same as he did on Gorbach’s coordination ceremony, which was done just outside the hall of leader. His grey and gold coat that hid his large belly was as straight as ever, and his hair still remained neatly trimmed after so long. His expression still was the same calm and resting, the way the healer had made it. Though it would seemed that his muscle had tensed up, for he had lost his grip on the cane and now it had tumbled to the side, and a strange smile was formed on his lower lips, giving him a strange look that seemed to imply that he enjoyed being dead. Gorbach brushed his hand over the glass coffin, and felt that its surface being cold, due to the machine hidden inside it that preserved his father corpse. But it could not do the same for anything else, it would seem, for the flowers scattered around his body had now all shivered up and died.

Gorbach pulled one black roses out from the banquet and dropped it over the coffin ‘He deserve that much, at least.’

After that was finished, Gorbach climbed down the stair and turned to his right, where another set of doors had been placed among his father’s belonging. It was Gorbach’s true destination, and he had been dreading to reach it ever since he set foot onto the hall of leader. With one more deep breath, he pushed the door opened and walked in.

The place he entered was smaller than the main hall, not to mention with lower ceiling, but it hold more meaning than that room ever will be for Gorbach. The only feature of the room were several standing slab of stones, arrange in an orderly line among the brick floor at both sides of the room. Every one of them had a deepen hole in front of it, some of them covered.

Gorbach made his way toward the corner of the room to one of the first few slabs. One of them had a plac on it, read ‘Adola Godlead, wife to the supreme leader, perished at 25’.

“Mother, I’m…come to pay respect.” Gorbach told the grave. This room was built to be the tomb of the supreme leader’s loved one and loyal servant, like advisors or any nobles who had been most useful to him during his reign, so they could all be with him for forever in the afterlife.

Gorbach shifted his weight nervously; he had always been awkward on the topic of his mother, since he had never really known her. She died when he was only three due to poor health, resulting in him having no memory of her. Though Gorbach had heard other noblesthat his father was very a different person before his mother’s death, rarely sleeping with courtesans and always charismatic to his court, though Gorbach could not bring himself to believed that. Regardless of that, unlike his father, he felt an obligation to love her, and to be a good son.

Gorbach plucked three roses from the banquet, and gently placed it upon his mother’s grave. He then closed his eyes, trying to remember what she looked like, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not form her face in his head. The only thing Gorbach could recalled of her were her eyes, beautiful and sparkled, filled with warmth…the warmth he barely remembered...

Gorbach gave a stiff bow to his mother and moved onward, turning around from grave to grave of advisors. Until the found the one he was looking for.

‘Elizabeth Godlead, daughter to the supreme leader, perished at 13’.

“Hello sister” He said to the tombstone, placing the rest of the banquet over her grave “I know I had just been here last month, but…I needed to talk to you again.”

The grave didn’t answer.

Gorbach shook his head and placed himself between the tomb and the wall “Here, I got you something.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a handful of honeydew candy “It’s your favorite…”

He laid the gum beside the flowers “There were supposed to be one more, but I gave it to a friend. I hope you don’t mind, which you shouldn’t be. You being…” Gorbach gave out a sigh “…dead and all.”

Gorbach shifted his seat and started to tap on his medallion “Today I finally administer a policy to provide food for the city’s minors, there will be less starving children in the street from now on. I hope you are proud of me, sister.”

The grave didn’t answer.

Gorbach sighed “Elia, how I miss you…” He yanked the silver medallion off its chain and carefully turned it by the corner. After he heard a click, he pulled the lid of it off, and hiding inside the hollowed out medallion was an old picture.

With shaking hand, Gorbach picked it up and unfolded it. The picture revealed a boy of fifteen and a girl of thirteen, standing next to each other with a wide smile on both their faces. Gorbach felt a sharp pain in his chest, since it still hurt even after so long. After all, this picture was taken in the same day her death was seal.

The memory of it still haunt him at night, ten years ago, Elia has repeatedly asked their father for his permission to see the world outside the city’s wall, and after a month, he could bore the annoyance and allow her to do so. Gorbach remembered her asking him to come with her on the journey, even taking this picture when they were waiting to pass through the gate.

It was only the two of them, for Elia wished it to be with a brother sister experience. They set out late in the morning on a car designed to navigate such a terrain, with twenty royal guards serving as their protection. Their retinue went out through the northern gate, crossing the great weeping rush into the farmland, so the two could view the plantation and livestock of the city before entering the outside world.

When they were many miles away from the city, they started to see why it had been named such a way as wasteland. The ground was so dried that it cracked apart, most of the trees had shivered up into dry husk and seemed to have died for decade, and any sign of civilization they met had all completely collapse and were very near the point of disappearing into the landscape.

Gorbach had thought that the wasteland was a terrible sight to behold, and from being in it alone made him nervous and heavy breathing, but Elia had said that it was beautiful in a way. That was the type of person his sister was, seeing the beauty in everything, no matter how little there is. When Gorbach asked her to why she thought that she replied “The land is so damaged, but it can still be brought to life, if we put our mind into it. It’s the beauty of potential, Gorbach.”

“You had such a wonderful mind, Elia.” He told the grave, but bitterness also filled his voice, for it was such a trait that led to her death.

When they were awhile away from the city, they chanced upon a beast along their path. It was a scrawny little thing, resembled the hounds that the castle kept in the pen under the castle. The royal guards were going to drive it away, but Elia told the retinue to halt and went to observe the dog. Gorbach had warned her against it, but she just wouldn’t listen. His sister gave the beast a chunk of meat, which it tore to immediately. But when Elia tried to give it a pet, it snapped back and bit her in the arm.

Everything for Gorbach was a blur after that. He remembered Elia screaming, holding on to her wound as blood started to slowly spew out. He remembered the dog being shot in the head by one of the royal guard as another tried to wash and bandage Elia’s wound. After that they quickly put his sister back into the car and drove her back to the Last Stronghold, seeking medical aid from the royal healer. As they went, Gorbach was left with his dying sister; her wound gotten worse and worse as second passed by. As she cried into his shoulder, the only thing Gorbach could give her was words of comfort, and bad one at that, for he was as terrified as she was.

When the retinue reached the castle, however, the healers were not much help. During the time for them to get there, the bite wound’s color had turned into a disgusting green, and she suddenly gained a burning fever as well, making everything worse. Not to mention no matter how much medicine they gave Elia, she did not get better in the slightest.

His sister was bedridden for weeks after that, and Gorbach always stayed by her side, comforting Elia on her dead bed. They would just talk, about their life, about the world, about their father, anything to distract her from the growing pain she feel every days. He would feed her, helped the healer washed her wound, and comforted her when she burst out into tears. Their father, Musol Godlead, on the other hand, had never come to visit, drowning himself in wines and women to keep away either the sorrow or the guilt. Though he did come once though, thirty-five days after the bite. When he arrived at the door, seeing his son by the bed and his daughter wasted away to her sickness, her arms near rotten, their father spoke but a sentence before leaving, but it had stung than anything Gorbach ever heard…

“You have my leave to die.”

Though Gorbach and his father had already had a falling out with each other, this was the moment he decided that Musolin Godlead was not a man to be respected.

Two days later, however, it seemed that Elia was getting better. Her fever had cold down; she managed to eat a full meal without retching for once, and was energetic enough to ask for a walk around the back garden, which Gorbach happily obliged. Afterward he tugged his sister back to her bed, spoke their good night, and went to sleep together.

When Gorbach woke up, however, Elia was dead, passed away in her sleep. And the last words he heard from his beloved sister was “Good night Gorbach, see you in the morning.”

Gorbach, back to present day, gazed out into the door that led to this chamber “I blame him for your death. The healers were developing the medicines, and if you managed to hold on for a few more day, we might…”

He shook his head, what does it matter, they’re both death now, and he was the only one of them that left.

“I really wish you’re still here, Elia.” He told the grave “You would have made an excellent heir, and we could have ruled together…”

Gorbach gave one last look at the picture, to remind himself what Elia looked like, with her long beaten gold hair and lovely blue eyes, her face so round and soft. She looked like a little angel sent from heaven, she looked like a princess from a fairy tale, she looked like a girl you could trust…

She looked exactly like Sophia.