The Dead Scout's Handbook of Afterlife Survival

Chapter 45: The Tinfoil Town

Cayden awoke several minutes later and Sergei helped him upright. He remembered the pain balancing him on a knife's edge between consciousness and darkness while the voice of a disoriented elderly woman mumbled incoherently to him. Sergei suspected that after someone dies, any residual memories and thoughts decayed over time.

Not wasting any time, prior to Cayden even walking properly, Sergei grabbed him, and with a sprint and a leap, they soared high into the air. Underneath them, the world bled into one solid white streak as grays, greens, whites, reds and browns passed below. With a hard brake, a reflective, silver mass shone below with two expansive glowing pools flanking it.

The indigo shield flashed in front of them, breaking the smoke as they plummeted into a transporter room quite similar to that in Cody. Screams and explosions echoed beyond the ceiling while Cayden's ears adjusted from the roar of wind.

"What were those green things?"

"They are glowing lakes behind dam."

"They built a city between two lakes?"

"Yes. Hydromancers are not of the making-sense type."

"Why do they glow?"

"I believe it is called fox fur essence."

"Magic!" Cayden marveled.

"Yes, I believe it is. I am sorry. I have not more time for the questions. I will return with others." Sergei leaped over the guardrail and dashed around the track before disappearing into through the ceiling portal, leaving Cayden alone in the darkness.

#

Every ten minutes, Sergei returned with company. Martha came, followed by Rebecca, then Jessica, and finally Sam. They remained silent, the shouting and rumbling crashing like waves into the walls.

"We g-gotta g-g-leave, now. I think The Four saw us come he-here." Sam barged past everyone and pushed open the steel doors exiting the building.

Stepping outside, Cayden shielded his eyes as light blinded him from all directions. As his vision adjusted, thousands of droplets trickled and a river rushed far beneath his feet. Polished and shimmering metal surrounded Cayden as he pressed himself against a railing overlooking Idaho Springs, at least four-hundred feet below.

On each side of the tower they stood on, unpainted steel structures rose on step-like hills climbing hundreds of feet high in both directions. The roofs of every structure slanted to the middle of the valley, and the base of the transporter, where a large stream flowed down a groove. The entire city, every road and every roof seemed to shift and wave in the light. High above even the top tier of the Idaho Springs homes, a metal wall stretched skyward and continued in an oval around the entire city, sinking to the height of the transport tower on the town's most downhill aspect. A narrow, chrome bridge crossed from the transport tower to another skyscraper, a few hundred feet away.

"Let's go!" Sam pointed across the suspension bridge. The group jogged atop the narrow metal strip, and Cayden found comfort in their solid footsteps, which never rattled or rang hollow. They shoved through a set of doors on the opposite end, entering into a stairwell with a glass wall exhibiting the rest of the building ahead. It appeared to be a ticketing center though Cayden couldn't be sure as they dashed over durable plastic stairs. The steps had random color patterns across their surface and wound down the stairwell, spiraling into wider and wider circles as they descended. After an eternity and a few buckets of sweat, they reached the bottom. Cayden turned up to admire the spiraling, multicolored cone of stairs spinning above him. Another set of steel doors rattled as Sam burst out into the sunlight. Cayden followed.

Millions of raindrops pattered into the sheet metal surrounding them. Below Cayden's shoes, water trickled through thousands of tiny grooves, cut into the sloping floor of the entire town. The level they stood on stretched 500 yardss in either direction to the stair steps comprising each level of the city and about 1 mile to the walls at the termination of the slope. At the bottom of said far slope, a waterfall cascaded over the edge and into a pool resting beneath everything. An explosion boomed in the distance and Cayden squinted at a funnel of smoke twisting into the sky halfway up one half of the staircase city.

"Move it, kid!" Sam called, as Cayden stumbled to catch up with the group, already crouched behind the first row of polished houses. Water streamed from the roofs in a delicate, uniform blanket extending to each end of the city then split into the small grooves in the ground. Thick, round windows lined the houses and stores, stretching a mile to the far downhill wall.

"Alright, so they're up on the eighth s-step. We n-n-need to figure out who t-takes which of them."

"I want War," Rebecca said.

"Alright, b-b-but you may need some s-su-s-help there. He may be the t-toughest."

"Fast versus fast," Sergei said.

"Would have b-been my suggestion, too. You s-s-said you saw the D-Death's...death. You killed him?"

"Yeah," Cayden replied. "It was a luck. I'm better with the bug lady."

"I d-don't d-doubt it, but I'll be good against Pestilence, and not against a healer. It t-t-takes a huge or very p-precise blow to kill one. I d-d-don't think I c-can deliver that. You're probably better for a one hit kill. Wha-What do you say?"

"I'll give it a shot."

"I'll round up survivors with Jessica," Martha said. "Keep the enemy distracted."

"Might as well. I can't control the soil, rocks or sand when there isn't any. What a boring way to join a battle."

Sam sighed. "Alright, I g-guess that will do."

Another fireball roared on a higher level as sparks and metal shavings sifted through the smog. "Let's go!" Sam ordered, sprinting up a set of corrugated metal stairs between two, identical, square homes. After ascending to the third street, a gust burst through the road. To their left, an expanse of thin, foil, grass blades stretched the width of a football field, extending to the tallest wall. Similar to everywhere else here, the open area tilted toward the center three stories below. Four swings creaked and swayed while a metal carousel spun in the distance. Chrome trees with foil leaves crinkled in the breeze and a larger channel gushed under a silver walkway. The leaves rustled again as a gust blew Cayden back.

Sergei grunted, shoving Cayden aside as a sharp scrape scratched out and a deep, red groove in the wall. Sergei sidestepped again as another flurry of wind blasted them. This time, Sergei stuck a leg forward. With a crash, Famine's black cloak tumbled along the ground prior to rolling to a stop.

"There is my girl!" Sergei said. Sergei's hand shot up in front of Cayden's face to clutch the jagged, rusted arrowhead inches from Cayden's face. "Is that yours?"

A translucent cloak of swirling mist loosely draped over the figure overlooking from one of the roofs. "Yeah...yeah looks like it. Also seems he traded that stupid scythe for something useful."

"I'm guessing mine's where the smoke is," Rebecca said.

"That's not s-smoke," Sam pointed at the rising, dark cloud high on their face of the valley. "Move out."

Famine placed a hand on a windowsill to assist herself to a stand. From his perch, Death slid down the roof and crashed into the park with the crack of bone snapping. Death didn't seem to hear it.

For a moment, they stood still, and the earth shook them. Sam and Rebecca's pattering footsteps echoed softer and softer as Cayden turned briefly to the opposite stair-step hill where Martha and Jessica darted between households and guided those that answered. A soft and steady creaking called to Cayden as Death slowly drew the bowstring. They all met eyes, time froze, and Death released the string with a snap.