SCRATCHED

Chapter 31

2020, Woodland.

Where his eyes now rested, a city once sat. And it was fascinating how a walk through bright blue buzzy particles would show him how this city once looked, how it would revive everything, put the broken pieces of this place back together.

Henric had never been to Woodland, even though they didn't live too far from it. And now, when all he could see was a city under a cloud of smoke, rubble, and the remains of people's sanity, he wanted to know how it looked like before all this.

Aiden was asleep. Or was he half-asleep? He couldn't tell. His eyes seemed to only be half-closed. He would have described it, told him how the streets and houses looked like when they weren't ravaged by space monsters.

Woodland was the largest county, but most of it was like the name-wood. Forest. The main city was like an island, only not surrounded by a sea of water, but a sea of trees. It was small, a fair proportion out of the total landmass. It was no surprise the creatures were now making it their home.

It also happened to be the least populated and one of the oldest counties in the region, supplying wood to neighboring counties and countries for a good part of a century. Wickerstone was said to be the oldest, but that was probably because of the Stone.

Suddenly a team of archaeologists say the Stone is close to four hundred years old, people say Wickerstone is four hundred years old.

It was the smallest too, divided by the Stone into an upper and lower part because of the slope, and because, miraculously, the Stone being where the slope originated. It was said that it was dropped from up above and fell with so much might it shook the entire town, and has been that way ever since. People from the lower town called the upper town the 'other side'. While those from the upper town called the lower town the lower town and still told their children stories about how people from the lower town were there because they were cursed by the Stone.

Henric knew all that because he had been there, and hardly knew a soul who hadn't. But never to Woodland. And now that they were here, he wanted nothing but to turn back. Besides the hungry roaming aliens, he was expected, out of the little he knew, to lead them to an underground lab where they would gobble down what remained of the future's hopes. It was another irony; destroying the world when he had clawed his way through time to save it.

They needed to be fast, which meant he needed to be precise. He needed Aiden. He could feed him the scraps of places he remembered and Aiden would lead the way. But he was still asleep. It was peculiar, how he was able to sleep so peacefully with all that was going on. Then Henric remembered that he had trekked from the Foyer to Wickerstone. He still has to wake up though.

It was said to be north, which, according to the map, was where they were about to enter the city. They had to shorten distances. The name of the street and institution where the scientists had been found he could not remember. Five years was a long time. But he remembered a wood factory being mentioned, close to an old university. The problem was Woodland having more wood factories than houses.

"Aiden, wake up!"

Uncle Mike pulled over close to the large sign towering several meters over them. The strong iron holding it was crooked, and it had what looked like dried blood all over it.

"This is as far as we can go in a vehicle. Even for someone living alone in the middle of nowhere, I know how bad things are down here." Uncle Mike spoke in a low voice. Uncle Ben looked sick, disturbed, but Henric figured that was just him dying to smoke a cigarette.

"Aiden!" Henric nudged him again. His eyes twitched open. With heavy eyes, he drank in his surroundings, then proceeded to close them again.

"Wake up!"