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Chapter 2
Someone’s Fault
Frost ran up the stairwell and got Free back onto his feet as the horde rushed forward and pursued them. Any guards which tripped or slowed were trampled over by the others, like they were in a mindless frenzy.
“I think there’s an openin’ at twenty-six,” Free wiped is eye. “We can fly down to the Camper from there—maybe.”
“Maybe?” Frost asked.
“We need to make some distance between us and those guys before then.”
“Understood.”
When they reached the nineteenth floor Frost kicked the wall next to them and took a chunk of concreate from it, then hurled it at the horde—collapsing the ground beneath it.
“Nice!” Free said.
“Thank you,” Frost replied.
The duo made it to the twenty-sixth floor in short time, and as Free thought, there was a massive breach in the stairwell wall that led to the outside.
“Alright,” Free manifested long hair then parted it and flicked it the side, each strain expanding out before twisting into themselves like yarn. In a split second, his hair transformed into huge bat wings, “Ready, you?”
Frost nodded.
“It’s a long way, but we’re lucky there’s a straight path from—”
Frost kicked a hand that emerged over the breach’s edge, making a hearty crunch on impact, “look again.”
The hundreds of guards were climbing up the skyscraper—and thousands more surrounded the entire city. Each one directly stared at the duo.
“How the—whatever, new plan,” Free ran to the next floor. “We’ll keep goin’ up till we reach whatever’s making that green light! Maybe that—”
The sounds of footsteps descending the stairwell made Free turn around and run back to Frost.
“It seems we will have to fight through,” Frost brandished their knife.
“We don’t stand a chance, let me think of somethin’,” Free looked out of the breach and something caught his eye. A few floors below them, a steel flagpole poked out of the skyscraper; it looked well secured. Then, he noticed that right above was an exposed pipe ready to burst.
“Got an idea—we’ll dive down and use that flagpole as a spring, should rocket us up high enough that you can use your ice to burst open those pipes—Which’ll give us enough height to make it to the roof.”
“Are you confident in that plan?”
“Naw, but better chances then fighting our way up, I’d say it’s a one percent verses a twenty-five,” Free extended his hand to Frost.
“Alright,” Frost grabbed Free’s hand and got onto his back.
Free jumped down and dove straight for the flagpole, grabbing it and then rebounding—soaring upwards at extreme speeds, passing the pipe, “Your cue!”
A cascade of snowflakes expelled from Frost’s hand. Each landed and melted on the pipe before it exploded into a geyser of water and ice—acting as an updraft, making Free’s ascent even faster. In only a few seconds, they crested over the rooftop then overshot it by a few yards.
Free beat his wings, intending on slowing himself down, only to rapidly descend into a dumpster full of trash bags.
“You alive?” Free poked his head up.
“Mm-hmm,” Frost poked their head up as well.
Free climbed out and helped Frost down.
“The rooftop was flat and barren, at its center was the light pillar—It cut a moon-sized hole in the sky. Free couldn’t take his eye off it, he was curious what it was for and why it didn’t hurt to look at, oddly dim and dark now they were up close. Then the thought crossed him, maybe it wasn’t light.
Free walked over to it and poked It with a strip of cardboard, the substance flowed through it like the cardboard wasn’t there.
“We are on borrowed time,” Frost said.
“As always,” Free dropped the cardboard and turned to Frost, “I’m thinkin’ is that this is somehow connected to those guards, maybe if we shut it down they’ll stop.”
“What is your theory behind that assumption?”
“…Both are green.”
“Sound theory,” Frost nodded. “How shall we go about shutting it down?”
“Chuckin’ bags of trash down it should do the trick—”
Hrrgggrugh.
Something had emerged from the pillar, a figure akin to the guards with heavier armor and a white spiked mace in its hand.
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