The Nightscape

Healed Rift, Broken World

Lyra tapped at the dashboard, nervous and full of energy she couldn't release. Vivian was clearly annoyed, but not saying anything. They had lapsed into silence for about an hour before Lyra started up another conversation. 

"So do you even know what I'm meant to do to heal the rift? Or are you just going to make me stand at the alter and hope something happens?" She demanded, opening the glove box and poking around the benign contents. Vivian reached over and snapped it closed with a warning glance. 

"We know that you have to be present, and touch the alter at the same time as the other six flickerers do." Lyra frowned. 

"So you don't know how I heal the rift, then." Vivian sighed and inclined her head. 

"I don't. No one knows." Lyra slipped into her own thoughts, glaring out of the window. The Dayscape remained that bumpy, dust covered and sun soaked desert for another hour before the sun glinted off of the white marble line that cut through the sands from the temple to the alter. They followed that until the sun was overhead, when Lyra suddenly sat up in the front seat, looking at the sudden drop up ahead that they seemed to be hurtling towards. 

"What are you doing?" Lyra demanding, beginning to panic as Vivian didn't slow down, bracing herself against the dashboard. 

"It's alright, I've done this loads. Everyone buckle up and hold on!" She answered, a small smile playing on her lips as she pressed down on the accelerator. Her heart pounding in her chest, she squeezed her eyes closed as Vivian drove them over the edge, certain she was about to die. 

Then they hit a bump, everyone being thrown out of their seats before the jeep took to the air again. Lyra opened her eyes and screamed. It wasn't exactly a sheer drop, but it was a steep hill with a lot of drops, and Vivian was taking it far too fast for Lyra's liking. The vehicle practically bounced down to the bottom of the massive basin, which was so thickly carpeted with skeletons of plants and fish and animals and humans that the crunching of them beneath the tires were audible inside the jeep. 

"Why are you driving this way?" She demanded, visibly shaken and still braced against the dash. 

"Because I need to follow the line, and going around would take hours. Besides, its fun." Lyra gave her a scathing look. 

"That was not fun. What the hell is this place, anyway?" She asked, looking with distaste at the remains that littered the ground. 

"Unclear. A lot of the records were lost in the split, and this area was pretty much abandoned before them. It's thought that this used to be a lake, and all the water vanished when it became the Dayscape. In the Nightscape, its an expanse of black water that burns you if you touch it, so that wasn't much help. Over the years, its just kind of become a dumping ground for any carcasses you need to get rid of." The jeep drove through something that squished rather than cracked beneath the wheels, and Lyra's face drained of colour. 

"I'm just going to close my eyes, tell me when we're over." She muttered, settling back into the seat and trying not to think about who the bumps they bounced over once were. Finally, Vivian nudged her. 

"You're going to want to brace again." They were coming up to the end of the basin, and there was another steep, bumpy cliff coming up. 

"How can we get up that?" She asked that apprehensively, bracing herself. A quick glance in the back showed her that the others didn't seemed worried at all; they were holding on to the net at the top of the jeep and grinning. 

"With four wheel drive, careful steering, and a lot of gas." Vivian answered, stepping on the accelerator and leaning forward in the seat, squinting as she focused. Lyra found that she couldn't close her eyes, no matter how much she wanted to. Instead, she fixed her eyes on the slither of sky she could see above the cliff edge and set her teeth.