Runaway

Chapter Four

As I got closer and closer to the ground, the magnets in my car started to slow me down until I was safely hovering. Where I was though, was way beyond me. I was surrounded by really old buildings, and what looked like tattered up streets. The breather was still in flames behind me, while sunlight came through the hole I left and lit up the area around where I fell through. Looking up through the hole, I could see the police putting up tape around where I fell through, and they definitely had guns in their hands. From here on, I knew that if I got caught,  they would be shooting me on sight. With nothing to lose, I drove further into the darkness, where the only source of light was my headlights. From what I could tell, all the buildings were as old as the ones by the breather. They were run down, and a lot looked like they were ready to collapse and fall apart at any moment. I tried to imagine what this could have looked like during my dad's time, when these buildings were newer.

Could this really be what the world looked like before the domes? I thought to myself. I saw a lot of old store signs and metal towers that had toppled over, and a lot of them had what looked like stuff that people were trying to sell at the time, but I had no idea what any of them were, or what words like "elegance" or "luxury" were supposed to mean. They just looked like pictures of ordinary perfumes and cars to me. It was nothing like what we had in the domes, where all the buildings looked the same, and there weren't nearly as many of these signs around. People mostly knew about other peoples' business from what they were told from friends,or by going into the Directory (which my dad says is a lot like what he used to call a "phone book", whatever those were). Seeing all of these signs and bright pictures was odd, and it looked almost like these cities before the one I live in were run by these businesses. The most common signs though weren't brightly coloured,  full of pictures or anything. They were a bright white, with nothing but a gray square in the middle that said "CUBE".

I guess Cube is some kind of business? I asked myself. But the thought quickly slipped my mind. After driving around for what felt like a few hours, I found a small light in the distance. I turned off my headlights, and starting driving towards it. I would have turned off the magnets too, but I didn't want to fall down a hole or run into an obstacle and destroy my car,especially considering that I couldn't see very well. I carefully headed for the light, which was growing bigger and bigger, hoping that it was a way out. If the outside world was anything like the one I've seen in the dark, it had already got my curiosity.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Oh look, it's an Author's Note!

I won't be doing these very often, and when the story is completed I'll probably edit these out and add them to a sort of "archive" chapter. First and foremost, I want to apologize to anyone and everyone who was following this story for the sudden and unannounced hiatus from January until now. Without going too much into detail, I lost the motivation to write, and I really couldn't figure out where I wanted this story to go. Since then however, I've upgraded my main writing PC (The new keyboard is sooo nice!) And the story is back on track! Where the track leads is a surprise, though!

With that, you can expect lots of new chapters and a big continuation of the story further into the summer.

Thanks for reading!

-Hachiko