By The Moon's Blade

2. Fleeing the City, Two Years Ago

We walk down the dim streets of Starmill, the only light coming from the moon and stars hanging in the sky. We try and keep the sound of our cart low, which is immensely difficult for wooden wheels on a cobblestone track. With every slightly loud bump of the cart, my mother will lift her arm in front of us, gesturing for us to stop as she looks at our surroundings. What she aims to find in the shadows, I do not know.

After leaving the center of our town, with its residential buildings and stone streets, we finally make our way to the grassy path out to the lift. This lift in particular is rarely used, mainly utlized to transport materials from the bottom of the mountain to the top during the establishment of Cloudridge.

With the lift in relative disuse for a number of years, each adjustment to the chains and pulleys making an echoing creak. My father wheels our cart carefully onto the lift and my mother starts lowering the lift manually down the mountain using a variety of levers. I think about helping but with my lack of knowledge on this older lift, I decide to keep to myself and turn around to look out into the mountain range below.

The purple hue of dawn has begun settling in the horizon and now the mass of trees at the bottom of the mountain range are becoming slightly visible, like ants gathering around a dropped crumb. I look directly down into the abyss and begin to feel the wave of nausea hit me again. But it's not the heights I'm afraid of.

I look back up to keep from heaving, then glance at my dad, who is sporting a somber gaze, realizing that there's nothing more that he can do. I'm sure his heart feels like an anchor sinking to the bottom of the deepest ocean. I know mine does.

"We'll be home soon. I'm sure of it," I whisper as I stand next to him, staring out into the horizon.

"I wish I could agree with you. But, my inclination is to believe that this is it," he concedes. He takes a big breath as he rubs his salt-and-pepper beard in his hand.

"What makes you so sure?"

My dad glances back at my mom, continuing to pull levers and ropes in order to keep our lift moving. He quickly pulls his eyes back to the front.

"Your mom and I talked for a bit as you were pulling some of our bags out into the garden. She isn't budging. For a second, as I was talking to her, I thought I saw a look in her eyes that wasn't hers. But as she spoke to me, the urgency in her voice felt... pure. I believe her."

"So... this *is it*, huh. We'll see about that."

"I sure hope I'm wrong."

He turns on his heel and goes over to my mom, encouraging her to take a break as he takes over the pulley system driving our lift. I look back out and note every single crevice, crack, and cave in the mountain range. Just in case he is right, I want to remember every moment. I want to remember what it looks like before it crashes down on me, burying me in the rubble.

I turn back and try and see Starmill, but it's already gone. We've gone too far. The sparkling streets, white oak homes, and glowing brightstream is out of sight. Tears well up and single drops of sparkling tears fall to the fur around my neck. I want to believe that I'm right, and that this nightmare will end at the drop of a hat. But every part of my body knows that my father is right. And this is it.

I look at my mother, peering out over the treetops below. I can't see her face but a certain tension has caused her shoulders to seize up and I see anxious, rapid tapping of a foot below. Like mother, like daughter. I want to walk over and comfort her but my feet are stuck to the floor, like a fly trapped in honey. My dad rubs the small of her back and as I turn back to the encroaching treetops below, the prior nausea evolves to a dry heave. I can't bare to look at the trees anymore, like a certain spelling of doom, so I turn to face the grey mountaintop as we continue our descent.