Chapter 15: Falling Behind

With a final look at the apartment complex he’d lived in since he was a small child, Zach unchained his silver and gold bicycle from the guardrail just off the sidewalk in front of the building, then chucked both the chain and his solar-powered DigiCombination lock into the top pouch of his backpack before zipping it shut and slipping it over his shoulders.

“Ready to go?” he asked the cat.

“Yes! Now we go chase ball!” Fluffles replied enthusiastically.

Zach wheeled his bike onto the sidewalk, then threw his legs over the seat. He reached down to pick up Fluffles and put him in the basket, but the cat didn’t seem to need any help; he simply hopped up into the air in a way that made it seem effortless and landed on his own inside the basket. It made Zach wonder just how high the cat could actually jump.

Probably a lot higher than me, he thought.

Gripping both handlebars, Zach hesitated for just a brief moment as it fully dawned on him that this really was it: this really was the end of his life as a citizen of Whispery Woods. He’d left almost all of his and his father’s possessions in the apartment, and since his dad had been living paycheck to paycheck, there was really nothing of any great value for him to inherit.

Sure, he could go through the process of taking control of his father’s bank accounts but, at most, he knew there was only a few-hundred gold in the man’s savings—if even that much. Retrieving it would take weeks if not months, and he wanted to be far, far away from this place by then. Besides, he didn’t need it, thanks to his unexpectedly loaded science teacher.

Mr. Oren had given him five-thousand gold before leaving with Kalana—and what’s more, he’d even called it “starter cash.” Imagine that! Five-thousand gold as mere “starter cash.” Seriously, just how rich was the guy? This was more money than Zach had ever even seen before. In fact, he’d have to stop off at a bank eventually and store some of this in his account. It was just too much to have on him at once. What if he dropped it by mistake? The thought caused him to remove his wallet and glance inside just to make sure it was all still there.

In terms of quantity, there were only a handful of coins within, but three of the coins were a bit shinier and larger than the others, and on the back of these three was the number 1000, and on the front was the shimmering, dignified image of King Peter II, a man even the enemies of the Guild of Gentlemen fondly regarded. Alex couldn’t help but take one out and examine it with disbelief. It was so rare to see one of these. It was the second-highest denomination after the 5000 coin.

If there was one single thing in this entire damn world that the guilds were actually able to unify and agree on, it was anything that had to do with currency. When it came to anything else, they were basically a bunch of tribes who couldn’t agree on how to tie a knot. But on currency? Not only were they unified, but they were so unified and so organized that human gold was the worldwide standard to the extent that, even in the six continents humans were currently barred from entering, the gold coin standard was still the coin of choice. Each and every year, the guilds unanimously voted to continue funding the independently run coin-minting press, ensuring that humanity had at least one thing it could do right.

My dad worked his whole life for these little coins, Zach thought, flipping it over a few times before stuffing it back inside his wallet and returning it to his pocket. And he left the world with barely any more than he’d had when coming into it.

The thought made him a bit sad, and not for the loss of any meaningful inheritance, but because his dad had lost the love of his life and had spent the rest of his days working and drinking in a meaningless existence that ended simply by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I’m so sorry, Zach thought. I don’t blame you for anything. I love you, dad. Rest in peace, old man.

There was still a blood stain on the sidewalk outside the apartment building’s entrance where he’d fallen, but at least his body had been put to rest. Zach had decided not to hold a funeral as no one would have shown up and it would have only tethered him here even longer, as it would require him to fill out paperwork and begin the whole process of reclamation.

“It okay, Zach,” Fluffles said, as if noticing the stain on the sidewalk Zach was staring at. “Your daddy eating chicken up in the sky. I promise.”

Zach chuckled. “Thanks, little buddy. All right, let’s get the hell out of here.”

Finally ready to leave the world he knew behind, Zach began to pedal. The bike immediately darted forward, and with a surprised inhalation of breath, he took off at a speed that was far faster than he’d intended. The wind picked up and beat against his shirt and Fluffles’ fur as the two of them zipped along the sidewalk, making their way past the four other apartment buildings on his street.

He was going so fast that, before he even had the chance to slow down, he had already approached the four-way intersection at the end of his block. Thank the Gods, however, that the light changed and the crossing barrier disappeared, as he would have slammed directly into the reddish-brown energy field and been thrown off the bike; instead, he merely soared across the road and onto the next street, the bicycle giving a little judder as its front wheel reached the tiny incline between the street and the sidewalk.

So this is what 3 strength and 2 speed can do, Zach thought, amazed.

He wasn’t even using his full strength, either. If not for the fact he was biking through a city, he could likely go twice as fast. He wondered what would happen if he were wearing Mr. Oren’s lab coat. Would he then be able to bike faster than a DEHV at max acceleration? He also kind of wondered which stats actually contributed more to how fast he could move: strength or speed. Slowing down, he decided to ask Fluffles.

“Hey,” he said, shouting to be heard over the general city noise and the wind blowing into his face. His ears flapping, Fluffles meowed in reply, and so Zach continued and asked, “Which stat is more important for how fast you can ride a bike or run? Strength or speed?”

Fluffles again meowed, but this time he added, “Why I know? I can’t ride bike or do human walking.”

With a sigh, Zach decided to revisit the topic later. For now, he kept his focus on the area in front of him, having to swerve around several people who seemed intent on getting in his way. It was around two hours before noon, and the overcrowded city was already getting into full swing. It reminded him of everything he hated about Whispery Woods.

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Since only two-and-a-half weeks remained before the official start of summer, more and more people were getting out and about. It required him to move a good deal slower once he’d gotten off some of the residential streets and began passing the commercial ones. These, unfortunately, were simply unavoidable. In one such circumstance, such as the street he now attempted to amble his way down, there were so many people active that Zach had to actually get off his bike and manually wheel it over and across the pedestrian crosswalk. This, as an avalanche of people cramped him in so tightly that, one after the next, clueless, selfish pedestrians bumped rudely into him without so much as a mumble of apology.

As a general rule of thumb, the closer one traveled to the Bridge of Torment, the busier and more crowded the streets became. In terms of physical distance, Zach guessed that, with his newfound strength, he could bike to the foot of the bridge in under twenty minutes. That was just a guess, of course, and again: that was in terms of distance. But with overcrowded streets and constant energy fields impeding his movement? He’d be lucky to get there in under an hour. And as things were turning out, even that had been more wishful thinking than reality.

I won’t be missing this place, that’s for sure.

The noise level on commercial streets was obscene, with DEHVs honking and drivers screaming, angry customers throwing bread at merchants while claiming it was stale, peacekeeper sirens going off like a symphony, children crying, and music blasting from the storefronts in an attempt to attract the attention of customers. One merchant was even on a megaphone announcing heavily discounted sneakers, while a giant, obtrusive wagon that sold barbequed pork took up half the sidewalk; the smell of the meat wafted into the air along with the smoke from the barbecue. And yes, of course, Fluffles required him to stop for that.

“Pork! Zach, buy. Zach buy now!” he begged.

“There’s like a million of these on the way to the bridge.”

“No! This one. I behaved today! I should have pork. This is best one. Please. I will be a good cat.”

“But there’s literally like ten of these every—”

“Zaaaaach!”

“Ugh, fine.”

Zach didn’t think pork was all that great for cats, so he only let him have a little. Still, Fluffles seemed so happy that it was hard to refuse. Of course, Zach probably should have refused, because by the time he’d waded his way through the crowds to the very next food stand, Fluffles went back to begging for more—the same for the one after that, the one after that, and so on and so on until Zach just learned to ignore it.

“Zach is the same as Peter IV!” Fluffles whined after they’d passed a cotton candy merchant. He meowed angrily from within his basket.

“Are you for real?”

“Yes! Zach the same as Peter IV!”

“From what I learned in history class, I think he did a lot worse than refuse to give his cat cotton candy.”

“Zach and Peter IV the same! Fluffles never ask for anything again.”

“Whatever.”

Despite his promises to the contrary, Fluffles did, in fact, ask for something again, and by the time Zach had managed to power the two of them three-quarters of the way the bridge, he’d actually gotten suckered into buying Fluffles an ice cream cone. For this, the point in dexterity he’d gotten really paid off, as he’d had to steer the bike with one hand and hold the cone for Fluffles in the other. It also helped that he was still basically walking and not pedaling.

Between the hordes of people and slow-to-change traffic lights, the journey out of Whispery Woods was bad enough. But it didn’t help that every time he got stuck behind an energy barrier at an intersection, every child and their mother had to pet Fluffles, who seemed to love soaking up the attention. He’d even called Zach “rude and mean” when Zach started to pretend not to hear the sounds of, “Ooh, look at the pretty kitty!”

Or, “Mommy, look! It’s a kitty in a basket!”

Eventually, though, Zach finally managed to arrive at the foot of the Bridge of Torment, which led across the Leviathan River. It had taken two full hours, and according to his new phone, it was now just a few minutes past noon. With the sun bright in the sky above him on a beautiful, cloudless, late-spring day, Zach noticed that the lights on the giant silvery bridge were either turned off or could not visibly be seen.

Escaping one last slow-moving group of people, Zach navigated him and Fluffles onto the bridge in the bike lane on the right side for those leaving; across from him was a similar lane for those arriving. Filled with two hours of pent-up frustration, he gripped his handlebars more tightly, gave a quick word of warning to Fluffles, and then he took off like a missile, pedaling for all he was worth on what was finally a clear, open stretch of road that began on an incline before leveling off.

The blast of wind was even more intense than it’d been when he’d first started pedaling down his home street. With the sun shining on his back, a rush of pure excitement filled his entire being as he realized he was finally escaping the hell that was Whispery Woods. This was no longer an idea, but a reality. He was leaving and never coming back!

Looking over the railing just a few feet to his right, he could see the clear blue river water far below him that had miraculously remained unpolluted despite bordering such a filthy city. Across the two-lane road and far to his left, he could just make out the reservoir where he and Kalana had discovered the plague biter and toadfeet spawn. Seeing it made him feel just a pang of nervous sadness in his belly, as it reminded him of how much he missed her.

Even as he rocketed the two of them across the bridge, he risked lifting a hand from the left handlebar so that he could point it out to Fluffles. “That’s where we found it!” he shouted. “The spawn point!”

“Why sound so sad?” Fluffles shouted back.

“I’m worried about her. Kalana, I mean.”

“I check for Zach because he give ice cream.”

“Check? Check what?”

Fluffles began to behave oddly. For a reason Zach could not understand, he spoke Kalana’s name, over and over. “Kalana…Kalana…Kalana…”

“Fluffles, what…?” Slightly more than halfway across the bridge, he looked over his shoulder to ensure no other bikes were coming and that he wouldn’t hold anyone up, and then he squeezed the brakes. “Fluffles, what’s going on with—what the hell?”

About fifty tiny, grain-of-sand-sized purple dots were floating above Fluffles’ head, and his eyes were now completely closed. “Fluffles, h-hey!” Zach called. “What’re you doing? Are you okay? Fluffles, hey! Answer me, little buddy.”

Becoming alarmed, Zach thought of shaking him or something, but thankfully, just before he’d begun to panic, the purple dots disappeared, vanishing into thin air, and Fluffles eyes opened. Then, cheerfully, he said, “I find Kalana.”

“You…you what?”

He meowed. “Kalana level 15. I appraise.”

Zach coughed, then gasped, then shook his head wildly. “Wait, wait. Are you sure? How did you do that? How can you know? How is that even possible?”

“Kalana level 15. Zach only level 3.”

“The f…”

How the hell is she level 15 already? That’s impossible.

Even as he denied it in his head, deep down, he had the sense it was most likely true. As much as he wanted to believe otherwise, he seriously doubted Fluffles was lying. Kalana was somehow, through some means, already level 15, and to be honest, it didn’t feel good to hear that. It wasn’t that he was upset she was leveling fast or anything—it was more the sense of dread and the feeling of being left behind. If she really was level 15, then she was now probably powerful enough that she could kill him just by flicking his forehead hard enough. Would she even have any use for him anymore? What if he never caught up to her?

She doesn’t think like that. She wouldn’t look down on me just because of that. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t look down on myself, though.

Zach growled out his frustrations and began to pedal like a madman, literally panting with exertion as he blasted across the remainder of the bridge. Even as his heart began to protest his pace, he continued to pedal with all his strength as he pulled off the Bridge of Torment and then hooked a sharp right so that he brought himself onto the pedestrian footpath that ran parallel to the Blood Rain Expressway. Just a few miles up the road would be the Cursed Grounds, a cute, small little town that Kalana’s dad had taken them to a few times to buy candy from its imported goods shop. It was an important place to Zach because it represented the farthest away from the city he’d gone since arriving here as a child.

Breathing heavily and fueled with unease and disbelief, he gritted his teeth, ignored the muscle pain in his thighs, and he pushed himself onwards.

I need to find that Gods-damned spawn!