Sound Shifter

Chapter 2

Blood orange, pink, scarlet, you name it, it was painted across the sky.
Interesting theme here with the sunsets, I suppose they're popular. Well, this is Dashiell Arex's world let's not forget, and like his first home world it was a beautiful view.
But Dash being a cross looper now, this was a whole different level of shifting.
Mateus stood in the middle of a street, peering down at a shallow puddle that reflected the vibrant sky colors. He then looked up to see the road lead for what seemed like eternity. This shifter had an infinity complexion as well. Remarkable.
However there was something different about this world, something trippy. In the real world, there's a Horizon, a limit to what we see due to earth's curvature.
Here there was no such thing, and thus this instantly threw Mateus off. He shook his head to get rid of the odd feeling of being in another shifter's world and let out a short whistle.

He did this perfectly timed with the song's beat drop, and like the experienced chromatist he was, it fractured the world immediately. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it. He smiled to himself, his mind was now embedded in the world, and he had the ability to bend. However he also felt the presence of the boy. The one he was after.
He checked to make sure his mixing laptop, his music device of choice, was in his backpack. He felt the cool metal and nodded. It was time to hunt.
The road led straight down the middle of a sprawling utopian city, filled with awe-inspiring architecture and skyscrapers that towered so high they touched the clouds. Mateus knew the boy was on top of one of the skyscrapers. Like echo-location his whistle had bounced him back the boy's hiding place. If he was hiding.
Mateus couldn't help but be amazed at the creativeness and vividness of the world, if he wasn't hunting there would be much exploring to be done. But he had a job.
As Mateus walked methodically down the road, passing grand squares and lush parks dotted with futuristic houses, his right hand fell to his leg, where a 4 by 4 AKAI MPD beat pad lay. He started tapping the different squares and the song began to change, and thus so did the world. Mateus turned the world to night time with the beat, then he paused in the middle of the street, and fell backwards. What would seem like a hard hit to the concrete resulted in a cushioned fall as he landed inside the empty cabin of a speeding monorail. He got up and looked out the window, the roads now far below him. The monorail was tearing across the city on a track hundreds of feet up, taking dips and turns as it navigated around buildings and over hills. The track was simply set in a loop around the city, and at the far end of the cabin Mateus saw a broken screen that hung crookedly above the door, lines of words flashing in and out. He couldn't make them out too well. Instead he turned his attention back towards the vast city, now lit up in a million lights. Beautiful. Another mix to the song, he added in some kicks and a few snares on his beat pad. On cue, the monorail track mended almost seamlessly into a different form, now heading toward the city's skyline, and the strobing lights running alongside the track showed that it would wind around the tallest building until it reached the top. Where his stop would be. Mateus smiled contently and sat back down, switching the beat up a little bit while he waited, resulting in a full moon and a gray cloak around his shoulders, in honor of Jax.
"Started with a touch and now you won't let go."
The chorus drop sure did hit, the instrumental gave him a feeling that was euphoric and hopeful, it was a mix of music that tried to show you a futuristic societal world where anything was possible among the vastness of the city, and its never ending roads. It was surely an appeasing place to be, and Mateus found himself disappointed he would be leaving so soon. Now that he had the ability to bend with the boy, they were both locked in until one of them had their links broken. Only one would emerge into the real world. And he thought for sure it would be him.
As Mateus listened thoughtfully, he noticed a small pile of sand building up near the doors. Interesting. He quickly forgot about it, as within a minute of its climbing loop, the monorail came to a smooth stop, speakers in the corners giving a friendly chime as the doors slid open. Mateus stood up and moved through the open doors, stepping onto the metallic roof of the skyscraper. He looked to his left to see a couple thousand foot drop where the boarding ramp ended. One wrong step and he would be dead. That is one thing no shifters could ever escape. If you die in your mind you die in real life. There was no waking up.
Or so it was thought.