Tuk’s muffled laughter escaped through his fingers.

Rel, similarly, was having a hard time containing herself.

“My mom slapped me so hard, her hand was marked on my face for days!” she breathed, trying to keep her laughter from escaping. “A friend of mine couldn’t even sit properly for a week!”

Tuk howled in laughter and Jul hushed at him.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Tuk said, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. “Crystal! How did you even think of that?”

Rel shrugged.

“I mean, it wasn’t so different from the Wall, so it wasn’t that much of a big leap to try it in the Pile too.”

The three of them walked at the back of the party.

The others had similarly somewhat broken formation.

Gad walked with Viy at the head, and Mul and Cen followed a couple steps behind them. Cen was engaged in a one-sided, excited conversation about aura, to which Mul replied with the occasional nod or shake of the head. Kur and Jul followed after the twins, each focused on their own thoughts or senses, and lastly, the three of them wrapped up the party.

On either side of them, a giant column rose, wrapped in orange Pressure, blocking their view of the distance. Above, the same bright, shifting and swirling mass of orange shone down on them, illuminating their way, casting the occasional flash of lightning upon their surroundings.

“Wait! What’s the Wall?” Tuk asked.

“Oh? That’s just where half of us live? Some on the Hill, some up on the Wall? Is that not the same for you guys?” Rel asked, frowning.

“No! Absolutely not!” Tuk said, in equal measure shocked and delighted. “How do you live up a wall?”

“Wait? Really?”

Rel laughed, covering her mouth to stifle the sound.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nar cast a glance at the archer.

Her smile was easy and her steps carried her forward with an energy he hadn’t seen in her in a good while.

Looks like she did manage to sleep properly.

Thinking about what happened when she had woken up brought a little smile to his face.

I don’t care my ass!

She had been completely red, and had stammered her thanks and shot up to her feet. In a way, he had been happy about it. It would’ve been the normal behavior he would’ve expected, if any of them were normal, and if they lived in a cubeplant.

He had dated before, of course. But such things didn’t usually last long among the Unclean. There really wasn’t much energy to give to another person at the end of a 16-hour double shift. Arguments are easy when you’re tired, and simply ignoring, forgetting and drifting apart was easier.

And there was no way another worker would want anything with an Unclean either.

Nar shook his head.

Why was he even thinking of these things?

Beyond the life and death of the Climb, he had to find a place for himself in the O-Nex, level up, get the right gains, somehow save his dad, then set their life up on the surface… He had no time for those sorts of thoughts or concerns.

Maybe after everything’s done… Who knows, maybe I’ll find someone up there. Someone who doesn’t know about any of this stuff down here…

He shook his head again.

Silly little thoughts like that had no place in his life right now. Probably not for years yet.

Until all was done, there was no point at all in thinking about it.

Where would his partner even fit into his life? How would they feel about him risking his life to return into the B-Nex to go save his dad? How would his dad feel about grandchildren?

He shook his head.

Yeah, best to forget about it. Too much going on already.

He bundled up everything in a messy ball of thoughts, feelings, emotions and doubts, and flung it to the back of his mind. Here and now, he was Climbing, in a room filled with Pressure, and kept safe only by using his newly found aura, which coated his own skin and clothes in a swirling layer of many toned grays. It was as ridiculous as it sounded.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Crystal… I hope I’m not just dreaming, and that I’m about to wake up and realize that I need to go collect my weapon from the Chapel, he thought.

The thought of it, and of having to redo all that he had done, even if in dreams, made him ill.

“So, you have a hill of homes, and I have a hill of homes,” Tuk said. “But then you put the homes up on the walls too?”

“No, just one wall,” Rel said. “The Wall. And we didn’t do it. It’s always been like that.”

“That’s insane,” Tuk said, looking up at nothing, trying to imagine what it must look like. “Did you live up there?”

“I didn’t, thank the Crystal. Can you imagine? You get tired climbing down, and when you come home from work you still need to climb up again?”

“Damn… That would suck!” Tuk said, shaking his head.

“Right? But we would go play up there all the time,” Rel said, smiling, her eyes lost in much happier memories. “It was really fun to climb up the ladders and run around the open homes, and the bridges and the covered corridors up there…”

She chuckled. “The kids that lived up there didn’t like us much though, and they would always try to kick us back down to the floor. They used to call us floor kids.”

Tuk laughed. “That sounds like such an insult!”

“Right?” she asked. “Those little shits…”

“And what did you call them back?” Tuk asked.

“The shits.”

Tuk barked out a laugh and Nar smiled.

“Yeah, I know. It doesn’t really have the same punch as floor kids, but what were we gonna call them, the wall kids? That’s not an insult!” Rel said.

“It’s not!” Tuk cried, in between laughter.

“Why didn’t they let you up there?” Nar asked.

Rel shrugged. “Beats me. To be fair, we weren’t supposed to be there. It was really crowded, and you could easily fall off. And people did all the time, both kids and adults. My parents always told me not to go up there and I always lied when they asked if I did.”

“Why did you go then?” Tuk asked.

“Where else would we go?” Rel said. “The factory took up a whole side of the plant, and no one wanted to go there. The Pile was fun, but it was really dangerous. Kids died in there, plus your parents would destroy you if they knew you were messing around the Pile. Not to mention, sometimes the managers in the Pile would just get mean, and get you to work the shift if they caught you messing around. So that left the Wall. It was different. It was fun. It was… Easier to breathe up there. Somehow. It just felt like a different place.”

Tuk nodded slowly. “I understand, I guess. I wish we had a place like that, growing up. Would’ve been so much fun.”

“Yeah, it was fun,” Rel said, with a distant look in her eyes.

“It’s crazy, when you think about it,” Tuk said. “Of course, we all know that there are other cubeplants out there. A whole lot more of them. But I always thought everything would be the same for everyone.”

“Me too! But then I… I met Climbers whose cubeplants were completely different to ours!” Rel said. “At least yours and mine is still basically the same thing, but some of these people didn’t even have a Pile!”

“No way!” Tuk gasped.

Nar leaned in closer to hear their conversation. Unless he was on watch, he rarely used his enhanced senses, letting Jul fulfill that role and allowing him to conserve stamina.

“Uh-uh! For example, imagine this… Instead of a giant pile where trash falls into, they have a massive section of the wall that is just filled with tubes,” Rel said.

“Tubes?” Tuk asked, drinking in her every word.

Rel nodded. “And every day, without stopping, without season, these balls roll down in lines that never end. You take one out, and the whole line shifts forward, and a new one shows up on the other side.”

“No seasons at all?” Nar asked. “They didn’t have a quota then?”

“Of course they did! Everyone has a quota!”

“I feel like that’s worse,” Tuk mused. “At least with the pile we get to see it go lower and lower. It feels like you’re getting somewhere, and we get to celebrate at the end of the season. But if it's just a never-ending line like that, then… That just sounds harsh.”

“Lines,” Rel said. “There were dozens and dozens of them. And these balls were all huge. Bigger than you!”

“Ufff,” Nar said.

“Yeah, they are heavy,” Rel said. “But the worst part is that they’re usually broken, and covered in glowing poison. It can knock you out pretty easily if you’re not resistant to it. Even burn you.”

“Crystal…” Tuk muttered.

“Sometimes there would be so much left-over stuff in them that workers just died,” Rel said, grimly. “Right there, or on the way to the factories, carrying those poisonous things.”

“So they took them to the factories?” Nar asked. “Like we did, with the trash?”

She nodded.

“That’s it, really. You just have to get it into the factory and then you process it as normal. With aura machines.”

Rel looked away from the two of them, and Nar wondered if she was talking about a Climber her party had met, or a Climber they had lured into cannibal hands. Either way, he didn’t ask, and neither did Tuk.

They walked a couple steps in silence, but Tuk’s curiosity was impossible to satisfy.

“So, did you guys also have a Chapel? Was it at the floor level, or up on the Wall?”

Nar left them to it, and stepped a bit sideways, to give them some space.

Do you hate me?

He still did not have an answer to her question, but he had just been reminded of where she had been, just a few months ago.

Where we all were, less than two months ago…

He couldn’t quite make his mind.

He had easily accepted her into their party, and even cherished her presence and her fighting prowess. But the reminders of her life always left him wondering if he was doing the right thing by simply accepting her.

What would the Climbers she had betrayed think?

They’d probably want revenge. He would too, right?

But what was he supposed to do?

Kick her out?

Kill her?

That didn’t seem right either. He could barely stomach the mere thought of it. Like it or not, she was one of them, and he was inclined to like it. But her past was heavy. Guilty or innocent, he couldn’t tell.

Maybe it’s not up to me to decide that. The Crystal will, I suppose.

However, the thought of a potential punishment coming down her away somewhere up ahead of them, left him feeling even more uneasy. And what if the Crystal decided to punish them too, along with her?

In the end, like Kur had told them back then, all he could do was follow his heart, and hope it wasn’t in the wrong.

However, considering his bloody hands from two nights ago, maybe he shouldn’t rely on his heart so much anymore. More and more, his heart seemed intent on pulling him way from the path of redemption and forgiveness, and away from the Crystal altogether.