lie to me → s.d.

.25 | play this game

          "Marco!" called Theodora. She was still for a long moment, waiting for her shout to travel down, down, down, far below.

Nathan's holler answered her a minute later. "Polo!"

Nodding to herself, she tilted her head back up and continued on her way. The lookout tower had to be at least half a mile high, a spiraling, sky-scraping building built with arches embedded into the sides and bricks holding steady against the past few hundred years. Small, curved windows allowed her a glance inside at the staircase leading upwards, but none of them were large enough for her to wiggle her way through. So, she continued up.

If someone were to squint hard at the tower from a distance, they could have possibly mistaken her for a monkey having lost its way, or maybe just smudge on their binoculars. No human would ever risk climbing that high unaccompanied or without a net, so what on earth could it have been?

Theodora's hands and arms strained, her knuckles scuffed and pale, as she maneuvered her way higher up the tower. Beads of sweat were forming on her temples despite the breeze cooling her skin, and her nose was giving her grief with a slight throb as she hopped upwards to the next window sill. Gripping the grainy stone with one hand and planting her feet firmly against the wall, she leaned out in a sort of Spiderman pose and took in the view for the first time.

From where she was, some several hundred feet off the ground, she could see the entirety of Libertalia. She could also see miles upon miles in every direction around the island, which was bigger than she really believed it to be. Jungles flush with unimaginable greens and emeralds called back to her in the form of tropical birds cawing and monkeys howling. She thought, for a moment, that it reminded her of the city, so broad and wide and filled with the unknown. Perhaps she wasn't as far from everything she knew after all.

Theodora shimmied around the tower slightly, hands threatening to slip when she passed over a patch of moss, and turned her gaze to the other side of the tower. There, small in the distance and just barely peeking over the treetops were the roofs and spires of the founders' homes; a rich neighborhood dubbed New Devon. She noted a few landmarks on the way leading to the mansions, then looked down and began to plan her way back to the ground.

"Marco!" she called. She waited. There came no reply. Thinking perhaps she was too high up for them to hear her, she cupped a hand over her mouth and shouted again. "Marco!"

A fizzling, grill-like sound caught her attention and her ears pricked, head lifting in attempt to find the source. It was getting louder and louder, and her heart had only a moment to pick up before something struck the side of the tower. Her grip almost faltered when the building rumbled angrily and a furious cloud of smoke and fire rocked the stone a ways beneath her. Crying out, she raced to chart a course down as the tower's top began to shift on the broken foundation. It was falling.

"Motherfuckers!" Theodora shouted, because there wasn't a doubt in her mind Shoreline was watching her at that moment. Scrambling around the side that would be topside when it fell, she gripped the window sill so tightly it cut into her hands and felt her body brace itself for the sudden death coming up fast now that the tower was leaning toward a group of rotting wooden houses. Wind whistled in her ears as she descended, the rooftops hurtling closer, and she didn't dare letting go for even a moment to wipe the tears springing to her eyes. When it became clear the tower would miss the houses, she made the split second decision to aim for those instead.

For just a second after she leapt off the falling tower, she felt weightless, like she had when she jumped from the cliff back in Scotland. But instead of being greeted by a freezing ocean, she crashed a through vine-ridden roof and landed inside the house, by some god-granted miracle tumbling through a mess of cushioning sheets and blankets.