Center of Attention

I Promised That We Wouldn't End Up Like This

     Things did change. Despite the disbelief strewn across the faces of the others, I knew fully well that things were different. Even the difference in the air was stronger now that Dad had gone back and messed everything up. But it wasn't worse. It wasn't just the fact that the faeries were alive. It was a whole other factor, like the fact there were some monsters that were owning businesses and living lives just as well as humans were. Dad didn't know that before everyone was scraping their feet on the hot pavement. He didn't know that people were stealing things just to live another day.
     I had a hard time telling him. His eyes were full of so much pain as people commented slyly or with a grin as we walked closely to him. There were a few times that Viobin had clung to his arm because she was afraid of all the people around, but she had to pull away due to the heavy amount of stares everyone was giving them. I didn't like Ortim, either. I thought it was a city made purely for the deceased to thrive in, and it was merely a whole for monsters that wanted to crawl out from within it. A friend of mine brought me here once. He said that I couldn't save the world if I only knew my side of it. I had thought that Firstien would never have agreed to fixing anything even now as he knew more than the average citizen, but I was wrong.
     He had grimaced way too often at all the bad of the city while his eyes were focused on the one thing that could help him fix it all.

     "There."
      Viobin pointed to a smaller house that blended into the giant skyscrapers. It looked almost like one of the houses from 4025. Hastily, I ran towards it with my eyes aglow, and I was scanning anything around that showed signs of life. A cat covered in different colored spots had been hunting around in the overgrown grass. The grass swayed with all the insects that covered it. Insects. They didn't exist before. When I approached, I saw a wisp of pink that darted through the windows, and I started to run towards it until I came face-to-face with the front door of the house. Just by my many assumptions about Smallik, I knew that pink was a signal. 'Come in,' it told me. 'If I leave, they'll clip my wings.'
     I twisted the knob, and the door slowly creaked open into a room with with nothing but wooden furniture. Strange. The entire house was wooden. They would tear places down like this to salvage the wood out of them, but this one stood upright without anyone saying it needed to be. I wondered if my journey fixed the tree problem. Probably not. There was this feeling at the pit of my stomach that told me otherwise.
     "Boo."
     Smallik came from a hallway in the back of the lower floor. His eyes were glossed over in sunlight. Pulling away from the entourage I brought along with me, I gripped him in a heavy hug, pressing his dragonfly wings into my arms with the strength of what I felt like was a young bodybuilder. I missed him. It was strange to be going on a journey without him. Pulling away, I stared into his eyes in disbelief.
     "You look like you've been searching for a ghost," he teased.
     I tried to keep a steady gaze. "I was afraid you forgot. Or maybe you got hurt. You know I can't save the world without you."
     "Well, you're right." He turned to the door. "If I can remember right, someone is going to do something drastic in a few minutes. A bombing."
     "Bombing?" Sobollum had exclaimed with a sudden shout towards me. "You cannot be serious. Why would anyone bomb anything?"
     "Don't know, but I know history hasn't changed enough to fix that." Smallik had seemed distant, afraid to tell us any more information that he knew of this bombing. I had a strange feeling that he knew exactly who was doing it. "Either way, what are we doing? We've got to have a plan, right?"
     No, I didn't. I just knew that I wanted to eliminate my enemies the fastest way that I could so that I wouldn't have the chance to die. If I even could die anymore. It seemed to work for Smallik because he was upright and full of energy unlike when he had his lungs crushed by that metal pegasus. Flashbacks of his struggling body had flashed through my mind like a sudden jolt of terrible energy. Shivering, I turned my head up to reply.
     "We should work together to figure out what we're doing," I suggested.
    "We should split up to take our enemies down." Sobollum flicked his ears as his voice had hindered the silence. "We can use this bombing as a distraction, and we can go in and take down all the forces that are hurting us."
    "Like Enforcers?"
     "No. Like the Minister. And the heads of the country," Ogillitiy had sighed, clearly shaken by the fact that I had no idea what I was saying. "You should know best that you take orders from someone else."
      Someone else... Boss. I turned to Smallik. "How do you know Vandilliball Kiskos?"
     "That's a start. You and I should go to Vior to kill whoever we can that's necessary. I'll explain on the way there."
      Viobin said that she would keep the portals open for us to hop through at all times in case things had gotten too sketchy. She then proceeded to pull vines from her hair and place them in everyone else's with a smile of hope. Ogillitiy volunteered to take down anyone involved that was going to stop the bombing. Sobollum had only nodded in agreement, but he was more than willing to stay behind with Viobin and support us with his hefty amount of alchemist work. I was glad he was useful for something.
     I gripped Ogillitiy's shoulders before he could walk out with the black book in his grip. "Be careful," I whispered. "I don't need you to die again, okay?"
     "Not gonna happen Dad," he smiled.
     "Your mom wouldn't have wanted you to do anything like this, to be some vigilante or whatever. Honestly, though, I'm kind of glad you're not just keeping yourself in your room and using words as a mechanism to keep yourself under control." He tapped his foot on the ground in wait for me to leave. "Be careful, Ogillitiy. You're the only family I have left, you know."
      "I know." He turned on his heels along with everyone else besides Smallik.
     "Oh, and Ogillitiy!"
     He turned with a frown. "What? I'm trying to help you save the world or whatever."
     "I expect you to read me more than just the first few lines of that story you keep with you." I stared at the black book. "I want to know how it ends."
      He nodded, and he left with the door only creaked open slightly. I had a strange feeling I already knew how that story ended, but there was a part of me that wanted to hear Ogillitiy's hoarse voice read to me like he always had done since he picked up the craft. When I turned back to Smallik, he seemed lost. He was whispering to himself (I was sure it was spirits), and he seemed to be lost in his own little world as his hand grazed the new vine in his hair. I was glad he was here. My mind was elated because I knew that he was someone I could count on despite the fact that he tried to kill me and he was afraid to admit to the lies he spewed at the beginning.
     "Ready?" I asked.
      Something akin to a large tremor had ripped through the ground, shaking the room and making old picture frames fall from the sides of the building as they shattered into tiny glass pieces. The bombing. It continued on for a while, and it kept going on in waves until Smallik finally nodded back to me to leave.
     When we left the building, the chaos was more prevalent. People were running from black fumes that covered the distant walls, and they all seemed to scream out in terror as if it was the most terrible thing. I gripped Smallik to make sure I wouldn't lost him as we walked against the crowd in a sad attempt to see what what really going on. The sun had just risen. This was way too early for something tragic like this to happen.
      To be fair, I was wrong about that. If I was going to bomb a city, I would do it when it was most vulnerable. Seeing as those homeless people had still been sleeping along the streets even as the sun had hit them in the eyes, the city was barely even awake enough to have its morning coffee. Ugh. I knew I forgot something.
     I pulled out my Vigva, texting Sobollum and Ogillitiy the situation at hand as we continued to merely saunter through the running monsters. All of them were somewhat different to what they used to look like back in 4025. Then again, how could they not be? They were held like animals, kept inside by concrete walls that only spurred the imagination for doing bad things to other people. The government. It made me remember how sheltered I was, and then I just shook it all away like it was nothing as we came up to see what was happening.
     It was the capital building in the shape of that castle I had seen in 4025. However, there were no flags. No large towers. It was all one huge building, grey like everything else.
     "You asked how I knew Vandilliball Kiskos?" Smallik had asked.
      I nodded. "He's my boss back in Vior."
      "He staged this. He staged this, the meeting that you had with Brokilna Sobe, and he staged this city."
     "No."
      "Vandilliball is at the top of the list." He turned to me with those speckled eyes. "And he's hiding behind these concrete walls."