Insomnia Wake #Wattys2016

Chapter 4 - It Takes A Village To Raze A Teenager

"Are you guys even going anywhere in particular?!" It was only natural to be skeptical; we had just hopped on a rocket couch soon as Ariel decided we should head out.

"Of course!" shouted Buddy. Those rocket boosters sure were loud.

"Where?!"

"To Selenium city! Right?!" yelled Ariel.

"Yep!" A fake smile of confidence shot across Buddy's face.

He was just flying for the heck of it...

"Hey?! What kind of scenic route is this?! All I can see is trees!"

"Ah yes, a scenic route." He really was just flying without any thought. "Well, I guess it might be too much of a detour, so I'll turn around and head right for the city." He had the vehicle do a u-turn and about sent us flying out off of our ride.

"Wooo!!! This is fun!!!" Ariel sure was enjoying herself. She probably didn't care that we had just wasted time.

I had to admit, it kind of was fun. Reckless, but fun. I suppose the feeling of rushing, not limited by the two-dimensional paths that land vehicles have to follow, through the cool air was entertaining enough to make up for the lack of safety, but I sure wish I had some goggles or something. My eyes dry out quickly in these kinds of conditions, after all.

After sailing around for a while, a city came up over the horizon. From this far away we were just starting to be able to see the tops of buildings, which appeared to be somewhat modern skyscrapers. I guess since we retain our memories from Earth it would make sense that a few people would be able recreate things from their memories.

"Wow, I really didn't expect there to be actual buildings like a city!" I exclaimed.

"Well it is an actual city!" Ariel explained.

A few minutes and one rough landing later we were in the city. At this point I could tell that these buildings were in fact quite different from what I was used to. Upon closer inspection I could tell that while there were normal ones, some were made of rather eccentric material choices. There was brick, concrete, metal, wood, what seemed like plastic, one that was almost a bounce-house, and an incredibly fragile looking glass building. I was assured by Ariel that these wouldn't crash down on top of me, but only after she joked around about how she thought the structures were held up by luck. Her joking face is exactly the same as the happy-go-lucky face that she wields to bring my constant demise.

After a little bit of half wandering, half navigating we ended up at a large, wooden board with notes of all sorts plastered over it and over each other. Other than the frame I could hardly see any of the dark brown wood, and the board must have been a hundred feet long and five feet tall.

"This is this city's Board of Discovery. Most cities have one. People put ideas for adventures, remove suggestions that no longer apply, add public notices, and even put up rewards for tasks! Let's find something that the three of us can do!" In a trail of bubbles she was already on the other side of the board.

"I'll check the middle then, buddy," said Buddy.

"Alright then, Buddy." I looked around, skimming the multi-colored notes for something that might be do-able. I saw lots of weird notes right off the bat, including "Play with my pet dragon - City", "Find some slime in Slick Cave, you know, the living kind - Village", and "Jump down New Angel Falls - Village". I was at a loss on how to handle these, so I went over to Ariel for an explanation. "Hey Ariel, what is up with these 'villages' and 'cities'?"

"Oh those! Those are the approximate difficulty of the task."

I didn't understand, and she was able to tell.