--------Updates will follow, this chapter is not compete------------
Tuesday
I sat there, my head in my arms, in the middle of a wheat field. I was still a large freak, but my anger had subsided. I looked up, my strange skin dripping with water. The rain smashed down, turning a lot of the field to mush. I looked up at the floating islands, all held together by a series of rope bridges that swayed in the wind.
My knowledge on the Negative Zone was surprisingly little considering I lived there. I knew that we were miles away from other life forms, in some sort of unexplored area of space. I knew that we had some kind of atmosphere, but there was something drastically wrong with it. You know on earth, there was that theory that all the continents will eventually crash into each other? Well basically, our atmosphere was getting closer to the ground every day, and it was coming fast. Rumours are that it was getting closer to the ground by about a mile every three days. That meant we didn’t have long before we were all crushed. I knew I had to escape.
I studied the floating islands in the distance. They were all inhabited bar one. Word around the town was that there was some kind of beacon, emitting reports of our daily activities back to the Alliance. I knew that if I could find the beacon, I would use my scientific skills to reverse the beacon and teleport myself away.
It was a crazy idea, crazy with a capital C. But it was the only idea I had. And besides, it was either try to escape, or get crushed by an atmosphere. I stood up. I had made up my mind. As quietly as it was possible, I crept towards the rope bridges. As I neared, I silently cursed. I had forgotten about the guards that stood at tolls at the entrances to the rope bridges. On most of the habited islands, there were resorts and camping sights, and it was where we all went if we wanted a holiday. I leaped into a large ditch. I studied the comings and goings of the guards all day, mentally storing a note of the interval each guard was on duty, and I also took note of the amount of time between rotations.
Later that night, I knew I had to go sooner rather than later. No doubt the elders would have sent out a search party by now. I had to move fast. I waited until the guards had walked away back to their homes, and then I got up, stretching my stiff muscles. Crouching, I went over to the first bridge. That was when I realised there was a flaw in my plan. I did not know when the next pair of guards would arrive for their shift. I panicked, and wasted valuable time calming myself down. I saw torches cutting through the darkness. One of the beams fell on me.
The man looked in surprise at me. I turned and fled. The man, reacting swiftly now, pulled out a shotgun from his belt. He aimed and fired, but he was a rubbish shot. The pellets flew wildly off target. I ran onto the bridge, it swayed and creaked beneath my feet. The man fired again, and this time he was closer. The pellets hit the boards behind my heels. I pushed myself harder and harder, desperate to get away.
The dark space cast a shadowy gaze around the eerie twilight, and the milky red belt that stretched across the horizon provided a steady glow, adding to the artificial light we had installed up in our atmosphere. The man fired again. I saw the pellets tear through the rope handrail on one side. The bridge tilted wildly to one side. I grabbed the handrail that now acted like a roof. I hung there, suspended in space, literally. I pulled myself closer to the island, using the rope like monkey bars. More shot’s echoed through the night. The guard was not alone. I felt a sharp stinging across my shoulder blades, my vision blurred. I realised that I had been shot.
