Levels

The Great Lead

"It's closing in on us! What are we going to do now?" Alessa asked, while panic took over her body.

"I don't know, we can't run back the whole stairway is ruined"

How did we actually planned to get down in the first place? Dayl asked himself.

The giant mantis moved further to their position, until it stood in front of the enormous building. For a moment, it just glanced up the wall, but then it started smashing the heavy stings growing as its forearms deep into the metal surface of the skyscraper to climb all the way up to the roof.

Allessa and Dayl lost it, as they stared down at the monster clambering up the sidewall.

Short after the monstrous bug advanced over the middle of the wall the whole constructions started to skew. But that didn't stop it from going further ahead.

Dayl faced Allessa and gave her a "I have an idea, but it's freaking ridiculous" sort of look.

"Listen, I've got an idea but I guess you won't like it that much."

"Just tell me, we don't have much time to waste, has to be better than nothing."

The mantis came nearer with every second they spent talking and the building slant further.

"Before that thing reaches us, the whole building is going to crack in the middle and bend over there..."

Dayl pointed to the construction, which probably used to be some sort of office, at the opposite side from the sidewall the mantis was crawling up right at the moment.

"We have to jump into one of the windows, at the exact moment this roof hits the side wall and make our way through the building."

"This is insane Dayl."

"I know, I'm sorry"

"Let's do this" Allessa said while she clenched her hand to a fist.

The wall of the opposite house came closer every moment and now Allessa and Dayl had to hold on at the edge of the roof so they wouldn't fall off.

An emphatic cracking noise hollowed through the air, as the whole construction divided in two still jointly together clinging pieces.

The mantis was still holding on at the wall now below Allessa and Dayl, while they were clutching on the edge of the roof, waiting for the impact with the opposite superstructure.

With the sound of metal parts bashing against each other the roof the first skyscraper collided with the side wall of the other one.

"We have to let go!" Dayl screamed over the roaring sound in his ears.

They pushed themselves off the roof, directly into the first shattered window they could find.

The moment both of them were up and on their feet again, they started rushing through the building looking for the first stairway out to the ground floor, since they were still on the third stage.

After a few seconds of struggling through the stairway, this time without anyone breaking through it, they managed to get out of the building and across the street where a huge metallic bridge was placed over some sort of dry river.

Two alleys to their right unconscious body of the other competitor was still lying motionless on the ground.

Allessa started to walk near him, Dayl followed though, he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to see someone else suffer.

"Come on Allessa, we can't help him anymore, he wouldn't be able to complete Level 1 even if we dragged him all the way to finish. "

"I know, but perhaps he knows more than we do."

They went to the body and bend over his face. His eyes were closed and blood was streaming over his face. His head was shaved bald, a big nose made his face probably unmistakeable and his clothes were torn of at every edge.

"Hey, you, can your hear me?" Allessa muttered.

No reply.

"Let's go Allessa, we are just wasting our time."

"No wait, just a second."

Suddenly the wounded men started to open his mouth and some incomprehensible whispering came out of it.

"Y...tha.....tow"

"What is he saying?" Dayl questioned Allessa with a confused look in his eyes.

"Find...the ... tower." Every word seemed incredibly exhausting for the men to speak.

Perhaps that is the objective of Level 1...

"So where do we find this 'tower'?" Dayl moved closer to the man's face as he spoke.

The poor guy just stretched out a finger at his remaining hand and pointed at the direction of the bridge.

His mouth closed again and his whole body finally eased, his breath stopped. He was dead.

Allessa and Dayl stood up, both of them in silence. Until they reached the start of the bridge none of them had even spoken a single word.

"Guess we have no choice but to do what he said hu?"

"No probably not, it's the only lead we got so far" Dayl returned.

"Then let's go."

They followed the path leading across the bridge and further on.

 After a few minutes something huge evolved out of the thick fog in their vision.

A giant, metallic tower stretched itself all the way to the top of the clouds dangling from the sky. It was enormous, a whole city could probably have lived in it.

The tower was surrounded by a wide rusty barbed wire fence.

Allessa and Dayl stood there. Astonished. Gawking at the tower.

"Guess we found it..."

"Hell yeah, we did."