I'm tired of playing the brave, confident one. Who was I kidding I'm a nerd who spends most of his days in a dusty old library, dreaming his life away. I can feel Chelsey's hand on my back and just ignore it. I can't bear to meet her eyes and what's the point? It's not like I can get us out of this mess anyways.
I feel Chelsey get up, and after a little bit I can hear her feet pacing threw the thin layer of straw strewn on the ground. The pacing falls into the background of my thoughts as I dream of how this could have gone better. That if I hadn't gotten caught I'd probably of gotten across lake Mirari and been halfway to Moncivis; the Mountain City.
Next thing I know I've been knocked to the floor and something quite heavy is sitting on my back. I glance back and see wavy blond hair shimmering like gold in the sun beam. It's Chelsey, big surprise. "What... what are you doing?"
"I'm trying to reach that window, come on give me a boost."
She stands up and hauls me to my feet.
"I don't think you'll be able to fit through that."
"It doesn't hurt to try," she says as she takes me by the shoulders and nudges me closer to the window.
"Okay now put your hands together and hold them steady." There's a kindness in her eyes that eases the tension in my shoulders and so I do as she says.
On the count of three; "one, two, three." Before I know it she has both her feet on my shoulders and I'm struggling to stay standing. Then I feel the weight lift and I turn to see her sitting on the window ledge with a smile on her face but I can see in her strangely brown eyes that she's scared out of her dreamer.
Come on, there's a nice sized ledge out here for us to climb onto the roof from. She reached a hand down for me with the other on the outside holding onto something else.
"Are you sure about this?"
Of course I am, now come on I don't know how much time we have till the guard comes back."
I take a deep breath and grab onto her hand. Using the uneven rocky surface of the wall as foot holds I make it up to the window sill and cautiously out onto the foot wide ledge that seems to stretch all the way around the building. I push as close up against the wall as I can and feel it's jagged rock pressing into my back.
The view from way up here is amazing, I mean I always knew the capital city was built on a mountain, but I never pictured it quite so... mountainy. We were nearly at the highest point of the mountain with only a few crooked towers soaring above us. When I say crooked I don't just mean that a few stone blocks were a tad out of line but that they were literally zig zagging up into the heavens. The main road below us wound up the mountain in a corkscrew. There were a bunch of shops everywhere. Each painted in a variety of bright mix-matching colors that ran down onto the road like the owners had simply taken whole bucketfuls of paint and just thrown it on there all at once.
I'm glad the people at home just didn't have the money for such bright paint. If they did I think I would of gone blind from the brightness of it. The people milling about from shop to shop were just as brightly clad as the buildings they were going into, you could almost say they matched except none of the colors were exactly the same shade. This is what happens when the main way of making things is through dreams. While some just wore colorful clothing and lots of jewelry, others were a bit odder. From where I was I could see what looked like a tail on one person, horns on another, and something that looked like a trunk on another. I'm sure that if we were to get down to eye level with these people we'd see things a lot more interesting than that. Then on the other side of the wall I hear a click and a very long Eeeek. That could only mean one thing. The guard is back, and the only thing between us and him is a rock wall. I get as close to the window as I can without being seen. "They've escaped!" Is all I hear before I scoot back from the window and see Chelsey staring down at the city like her brain is fried.
I gently nudge her shoulder; she shakes her head and just stares at me with her eyes glazed over. "Hey, you okay? We have to keep moving now." She nods her head and slowly starts to scoot down the ledge. Looking down makes me dizzy and her knuckles are white from gripping onto the little cracks in the wall. We butt scoot onwards until we finally reach the corner of the building and slowly maneuver around it to keep going.
One second she's right beside me, the next she's fallen through a window and onto the floor below. I look down and see her sprawled out on her back, knocked out cold. By this point I don't think I have much choice and jump in after her. Immediately I smell strong chemical which remind me of when all the boys after school would burn the branches of rubber trees to see how much of the smoke they could take before getting dizzy and passing out. The only light in the room comes from the window; the rest of the room is in darkness. Every little sound I make echoes as though I'm in a large cavern.
I kneel down next to Chelsey and can see a crimson liquid glistening on her forehead. I tear a long strip off the bottom of my shirt and tie it around her head where the blood is coming out. I try to shake her awake but no matter what I try, pinching her, taking her shoes off and tickling her feet, I can't get her to wake up. What should I do? I can't just sit here helplessly until we get discovered, no matter how nice and refreshingly cool this room is. But I also can't drag her back onto the ledge. I'm stuck with no way of escape. I start feeling a weight of hopelessness crushing down on me again. Why did I ever think I'd be able to survive on my own in this big crazy world? Was I off my rocker?
A blinding white light fills the room; I wheel back up against the wall. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest as little multicolored lights float across my vision. After a bit I start to make things out, but what I see makes no sense. All around the room are long tables that shine like dull silver. Each table seems to be filled with something different. One has a bunch of thin finger sized glass bottles all sitting in stands. Each seemingly filled to the brim with a unique color of the rainbow. Another table has this huge black box sitting on a stand with a window of glass on it and a bunch of multicolored cords sticking out the back. The ceiling is lit with long cylinders of pale fire that seem to give off no heat despite their brightness.
My eyes linger on them for a long time dazzled by their pale brilliance. Until I hear someone clear their throat not too far from me. My heart skips a beat and panic fills my thoughts. My eyes land on a short man, as thin as a rail, with the puffiest bright red hair I've ever seen and strangely intelligent grey eyes. He stares at me, his expression blank, like I am some mysterious puzzle he is trying to figure out, but can't.
Till finally he says, "Do I know you?"
"W... what?"
"I feel like I've seen you somewhere before and who's your friend their?"
I've never seen you in my life, and if you haven't noticed my friend is hurt. Is there anything you could do for her with one of your strange contraptions?
"Oh, oh yes of course."
He walks over to the table with all the different colored liquids and picks up a light green one with smoke rising out the top.
"This should do the trick." He says as he kneels down next to Chelsey and passes the bottle under her nose. For a second nothing happens but then her eyelids start to flutter and next thing I know her eyes are as wide as saucers staring up at Mr. Red Hair. A fierce light suddenly shows in her eyes, she pulls up her leg and bam. She kicks him right where it hurts most, and so fast I can barely see it. She gingerly gets her legs underneath her and backs into the wall beside me.
