Toivo groaned from exhaustion as he grabbed a magazine from the messed-up stack of papers, books and magazines. "We are never going to find anything!"
"Don't be so pessimist!" Galena snapped as she crumbled and threw another piece of paper behind her, which Flubber caught and started to chew on.
"Sunrise means to wake up with the thought of visiting Ye Old Tasty Inn to eat delicious waffles?" I read aloud the lines from an advertisement poster of some inn before throwing it over on the wooden table. "Are we ever going to find a proper clue to this thing"?
Fortunately, Toivo had a whole collection of useless papers, posters and everything else shoved inside one of the treehouses. Though it seemed like by the time we would be done going through all the papers, Gregory would have already died of mortal death.
Chirp...Chirp
Suddenly, we heard a loud and clear bird's chirping noise coming from somewhere near the entrance hole.
Galena's head shot up, "What was that?"
"Probably a random annoying early bird" I droned.
"That's weird, birds are rarely found nowadays" Toivo commented.
A wide grin spread across her cheeks as she gave me a look, "Do you get what that means?".
"Uh..." I pondered before gasping as I realized who the chirps belonged to. We dashed up from our seats and climbed up on the giant pillow as confused Toivo followed us. We squinted our eyes and raised our heads, looking toward the end of the tunnel.
"It is the same bird!" Galena exclaimed, pointing at the red-yellow bird which flew above the tunnel.
But it flew away as soon as it realized we saw it just like it had done the last time.
"Toivo! Quick! How do we get up there?!" I asked.
"By jumping on the pillow," He answered, confused, "But why though?"
I didn't waste a moment more and jumped on the pillow like on a trampoline though, I didn't realize it wasn't a trampoline until I was shooting up from the ground at gods-knows-how-fast before landing straight on my butt on the dry grass near the whole.
I groaned from pain as Galena got out with Toivo and Flubber following behind her.
"There it is!" Galena said, pointing at the red-yellow bird who was flying among the rotten branches of trees, and yet again, it flew away right after being seen. We sighed and sprinted behind the bright bird as it dived through the spiky-branched forest.
"Why are we following that bird?" Toivo asked.
"That is the same bird that brought me here," I answered in a panting voice, turning around another dying tree.
The bird flew up to a cliff before disappearing in the blinding sunlight from the sunrise that was directed right behind the depressing city of Mikellar.
Tall buildings with architecture similar to modern world skyscrapers and Gothic and Medieval designs crowded the whole city. Streets and alleyways lurked in the darkness of the buildings, and roads were filled with zooming hovering cars with no wheels.
Galena gasped, "The sunrise is the clue! It's the mainland!"
"Finally!" I sighed in relief.
"Alright. so, we have found our first clue for reconquering Mikellar." Toivo noted, "Now, what?"
"A disguise," Galena replied.
"Disguise?" I tilted my head quizzically, "Why would we need a disguise?"
"Well...do you think we are going to just enter the Mikellar like this? We would easily get recognized even by a four-year-old by the amounts of wanted posters there will on every wall of the buildings. We can get caught-perhaps even killed-there will be many assassins out there looking for us. Hence, we will be needing a disguise to camouflage among the people." Galena explained.
"Oh!" Toivo and I babbled in unison.
"I never thought of that!" Toivo added.
"So, umm...does anyone wigs and stuff?" I suggested.
"Do you think wearing some casual accessories and wigs, is going to disguise you from the super high-powered cams of Mikellarian streets?" Galena remarked.
"So, what should we do?" I asked, "You've got a better idea?"
Galena took out a wooden crest box from her satchel and opened it up.
"Woah!" I exclaimed, looking towards the bronze techie interior of the box with several red and green buttons attached to a bronze panel and a screen which showed what was in front of it like a smartphone does when you open the camera.
Galena pointed the box lid towards Toivo and his image came on the screen "Toivo, could you please stand still".
"Sure", Toivo said and stood as straight as he could with a dazed and awkward expression. Galena pressed two green buttons and an electric beam of light got out of the hole on the top of the box and hit him, creating thick white clouds of smoke around him.
Toivo started to cough as he fanned the smoke away and came out. The smoke faded and disappeared and but instead of Toivo, there was another random boy, probably 7 or 8 with brown hair and blue eyes instead of the deep black hair and eyes of Toivo, the only similarity they had were their dresses. "Why in the bloody hell did you do that?" The boy asked Galena with an annoyed face.
"Wha-Where is Toivo? Did you just-?" I stuttered as I slowly processed what just happened.
"He is Toivo," Galena replied with a sly smile on her face.
"Yes, I am Toivo. Why does it feel like...I am short? What had happened to me right?" The boy whom Galena said was Toivo, mumbled panicking as he looked at his hair.
"How did you do that?" I faltered.
Flubber started to bark loudly at the kid and bare his teeth at him. "What happened, boy? Calm down", the boy raised his hand and gently placed it onto Flubber's head and rubbed it making the angry dog calm down and confirming the fact that he was indeed Toivo.
We too disguised ourselves using Galena's special invention which she called Real Spy's Disguise.
Galena transformed into a blonde-haired girl with brown eyes, looking older than me. I-into a black hair chocolate skin-girl with black eyes, probably 10 or 12. And Flubber was transformed into a corgi dog.
Toivo suggested that the best way to enter the Main city is by sneaking into one of the Outlander security bus's trunks, Galena suggested that we should use the invisibility hood for extra protection and I suggested following their ideas.
The Outlander's security base was near the forest line between the main city and the forest, and they would patrol the entire forest 24/7, though sometimes they chose to be lazy and less observant, other times strict like the Soviet army.
Once as we were sneaking to the base, we almost got caught when Galena stepped on a broken branch, alerting one of the soldiers that were patrolling near us, but luckily, we were able to quickly sprint into hiding behind a giant rock before he could see us.
Soon we sneaked and hid between the pile of boxes and luggage in one of the bus's trunks and the journey began.
Everything was dark because of the lack of light inside the trunk though, we heard and felt the bus bumping over the uneven forest ground as it moved forward
Out of nowhere, I started to feel a strange feeling impale into my head: A dark, depressing and anxious feeling.
Toivo somehow felt what I was thinking and said "That happens when you enter the Main city."
The bus entered the main city, the air not only filling with strange feelings but also the voices of hundreds of people sobbing and shouting, children crying and metal clashing and humming. It felt as if there is no escape from the fist of this eternal darkness that we have just dared to enter. That maybe it was a bad idea to accept this quest.
The trunk's door opened, and we somehow sneaked out from behind the thrown luggage.
As soon as I stepped foot on the dry, lifeless land, the suffocating feeling dropped into my throat, making it as dry as a dessert. The view was even more terrific and depressing.
A bunch of people were being forced to work to construct a huge pillar, they were sweating and some were even injured and bleeding. A young woman fell to the ground from exhaustion, she seemed like she hasn't eaten for days, but as soon as the site manager saw her, he beat her with an electrocuting rod, forcing her to work again.
The buildings around were tall and blocked any slight sun rays or wind entering the grey city. A little kid ran towards a basket full of bottles of water and quickly picked one bottle to drink from, but right when he was about to take a sip from it, an old fancily dressed woman grabbed the bottle from his hand and shoved him away, making him fall on the ground.
"How dare you grab these water bottles?! They are only for the prestigious, not filths like you!" The woman shouted as she kicked the boy away.
"Please! Please! I have not drunk water for days!" The boy insisted but she just spilled the water on the ground.
"You don't have any right for such a precious thing, little boy!" the woman hissed, leaving the kid on the ground with a sly smile as he silently wailed.
My eyes were filled with flames of anger, my fist tightened and I sprinted towards the fancy woman but Galena grabbed me by my wrist and stopped me.
"We can't do anything, we are not in much power now," Galena said, giving me a cautious look.
I sighed heavily and regretfully stepped back and walked away, getting lost in my thoughts, questioning the fall of humanity.
"Kyrah," Galena called worriedly.
I zoned back in, "Uh...Yes?" I replied.
"We were talking about our hideout place here. You were listening right?" Toivo asked.
"Yes, I was, why wouldn't I?" I lied/
"So, it is Toivo's brother's camp then?" Galena asked.
"What? Umm...Sorry, I didn't hear you?"
Toivo sighed annoyed and explained that his brother has sent him a water message (like the message that we received in the cave from Galena's mother) about coming to the secret camp that he has created for people who are eager to accompany us to defeat Greg.
I agreed thinking that it was probably a good idea as we didn't have any other option before getting lost in my mind again as we walked down the dirty alleyways of the city.
Sometimes, I feel bad saying that I am a human.
Humans have forgotten their humanity. They have become wild and crazy-using their minds for wrong deeds which will not only affect others but them too.
And we are more foolish to believe and fear those who bring fear and negativity, not the ones who will bring hope and positivity.
How did a once civilized creature turn into something like this? Or was our ultimate potential destruction?