The morning light had a softer touch than I expected. It was a warm light-orange color that swam over the far landscape of rolling hills that laid beyond the city. It was peaceful to look at and for a moment I wanted to stay and watch the sun reach high into the sky. Most of the clouds of the previous day had drifted off with the wind leaving a wide vision of an empty horizon. The eye of the Great God was also absent. Off to watch another part of the world.

“Ward,” Tala said, tapping me on the shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah… I’m fine. Never seen the sunrise is all,” I said.

Tala turned to look out through the large glass panel. Her eyes suddenly ablaze in the rising light. I could have sworn I saw her smile. My father taught me to always enjoy the little things in life. We didn’t have much in the Quarters and what we did have was usually shared with others. All the food we had was either farmed in one of the basement gardens my dad had created or brought in from scavenges by the Outriders. Any clothes that we had were most likely hand-me-downs from the older generation. Even the shirt I had on was an old band shirt that used to belong to my dad. The main logo on the chest had faded away and all that was left were peeling flowers.

Birthdays were something that was hardly celebrated as well. The only one of note was usually the sixteenth birthday and that was because of the Trials. Gifts were scarce, birthday cakes non-existent. Whatever gifts we did receive were more one of service or of simple memories. However, there was one item that was solely mine. It was given to me on my eighth birthday. My father had asked one of the Outriders to keep an eye out for it on their most recent travels. A leather baseball glove.

I kept the glove hidden under my mattress and only pulled it out on rare occasions. Which was almost never. It was a bit small now for my hand and I didn’t have a baseball to use with it. Instead my father used rocks that we found in the old subway tunnels to play catch with. He said that he wanted me to have one childhood memory like that of his own. My father played baseball up through high-school but dropped it after a bad knee injury that he got working construction. A job he had picked up to earn some extra cash to make it through college. Those plans ended when the world did. Despite the end of the world he still wanted me to have a few good memories as a kid.

Theo came walking up and noted that we needed to get moving but stopped as he watched the sun. He then said, “My father says there is still beauty in the world. Says that there are faraway places with green hills, blue skies, and fields of wildflowers. Swears he’s seen them personally. Used to talk all about them. Bedtime stories, tales for kiddos, you know… stuff like that.”

“Yeah I remember those,” I said. “He hasn’t done them in a while.”

Theo turned heel and started towards a door with the sign “Stairs” posted on it. He pushed the door open with a loud creek and let it close behind him.

“What was that about?” Tala asked as the two of us made our way to the door.

“I’m not sure. Just realized that I hadn’t heard his dad tell stories in a long time. I thought it was because I grew up and that he was only telling the younger kids about them but… Now that I think about it I don’t think he shares them at all.” I always thought of Lupin as the Midnight Ranger. The tough as nails, strongest survivor, and pseudo-leader of our colony. A stern, quiet man whose focus on survival and following the rules always came first to anything else. Hardly ever smiled, left on every single scavenge run, and never showed his true skills. But he wasn’t always like that. I did have one or two memories as a kid where he was laughing and smiling with the other colonists. That was ages ago.

I pushed the door to the stairwell and let Tala enter before me. I took one last look at the rising sun as its cheerful tangerine light was darkening to a crimson blood. With the door shut behind me, I found myself reaching for the handrail in the dark. There was only the occasional flash of green light from overhead exit signs above each of the doorways we passed. There were no windows, only blank concrete walls that stretched upwards endlessly. I never suffered from claustrophobia, I lived in a cramped broom closet, but something about the swirling steps made me nauseous. I don’t know if it was the continuous left hand turns, the rising temperature and humidity or the way the walls seemed to sway back and forth, but it was beginning to affect me.

“End of the line,” Theo called from the landing above me. “We’ll have to find another way up.”

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

“Ugh… how many more floors do we have to take?” Tala said, resting her back against the wall. I took a few more steps to the next landing. There were no more stairs, just another blank door with a flickering green sign.

“Looks like we made it to the thirtieth floor. Over half way?” I asked, pointing at a small black sign with the number 30 in thin white letters.

“Twenty-one,” Theo said.

“What?” Tala asked.

“Twenty-one more floors. Checked the elevator when I first got into the Tower. Fifty-one floors in total at least for the north tower,” He let out a deep breath, the pair of scissors still in his hand. “We must have hit the top of the southern base of the building. There should be a skywalk that connects over to the north side. Let’s hurry. I don’t want to end up staying another night in the Tower.”

The three of us took the final door in the stairwell that led to a large open seating area. It spanned two separate floors with the lower opening up to the second, connected by several escalators. The glass panels in the area rose twenty feet and viewed out to a wide garden area. The plants had grown considerably from their planters and earthen pots. Many of them now stretched far up the panels like worming statues. Standing in the central dias of the garden was a marble angel whose bare skin was broken with verdant lightning. Her eyes glowed emerald and her chipped wings fluttered slowly with life. The angel’s arms pointed toward the red sky as if awaiting the second coming.

Beyond the garden I could see the north tower. It stood tall and proud among the fallen remains of the buildings that stood by. Its unbroken wall of windows reflected the wide clear sky that let it almost blend into the world. Its pristine visage was marred by an unnatural cloud of purple that hung over its pinnacle. That was my final destination. It was calling out to me in some strange underlying way. Not as a whisper but as something even quieter. A subtle static in the air that brushed my subconscious. We all gathered by a short glass railing that looked out over the lower seating arrangement and watched the swirling cloud above us. We all felt its call. Trinity was there and it was waiting for us.

“Look!” Tala said, pointing. “There’s the skywalk.”

Beyond the garden’s reach was a long metallic walkway that stretched from our southern position to the center of the northern tower. Its edges were reinforced with concrete, and its windows, like the northern tower, were unbroken. From where we stood, we should have been able to see directly through the skywalk and to the city beyond but it was dark inside. At first I assumed the glass surrounding the walkway was deeply tinted, but inspecting it longer showed to me that whatever was blocking our view, came from within.

Tala must have noticed it as well as she turned to look at me. Her brows were furrowed and her eyes wide in puzzlement. She voiced the same thought I was thinking. There’s something in there. The next step in our challenge.

Theo took charge, huffing his way to the end of the seating area and to a set of side-by-side doors. They both possessed clear glass with no markings or opaqueness to them. They were as clean as the sky was empty. Yet, nothing came through. It was like the darkness of the world had converged into this one hallway and formed into a swirling mass. The darkness itself was not so much a cloud of blackness but more so a pool of inky water. It stood whole and solitary.

Theo hesitated for a moment before reaching for the door handles and pulling hard. He braced himself for the torrent that was sure to come, but nothing happened. The abyss stood. Unbroken, unchanged, and unmoving.

“What is it?” Tala asked.

“I don’t know. Theo take a step back,” I said.

In defiance to my command Theo took a closer step. He was inches from the wall of shadows, eyes wandering the dark stillness. “When you look into the darkness, the darkness looks back.”

“What was that?” Tala asked.

“It’s something my father told me once,” Theo said.

“Sound advice. Maybe take a step back,” I urged.

“He had another saying,” Theo continued. “When you have no other choice, you stare down the darkness until it looks away.”

“I don’t think he means that literally, Theo. Let’s just hold on for a minute. Let’s think about this. My dad had a saying as well. There are worse things than monsters in the Fallen States. Unknowing things.” I put my hand on his shoulder. Theo twisted around, grabbed me by the wrist and yanked my arm behind my back.

“You got lucky with that Abomination. If we fought, you know I’d win,” He whispered. He then pushed me away, looked at Tala and said, “I told you guys. I was going to make it to the top first.” He rushed into the shadows. His entire being suddenly sucked away into nothing. No motion, no swirling smoke, no puff of air. Nothing.

I clenched my fist, felt the scar on my lip again, while also giving Tala a look of indecision. What should I do? Do I enter the shadows? Should I find another way around? No! It would be too late by then. Theo would have gotten to the top before I could find another route. But… What about him? He could need my help.

“Ward?” Tala asked as she took a step back. “What do we do? I don’t really want to go in there.”

“I don’t think we have a choice. Besides… Do you really want to back track and find another way up?” I asked.

Tala looked out the windows and down to the streets below. We had come a long way so far and I didn’t want to waste time backtracking. Something that could take another whole day. I needed to finish the Trials quickly and get my Class Pathway. But I also needed to make it home alive. I made a promise to my father. I made a promise to myself. “Tala, I have to follow. I have to do this.” I rushed in after Theo.