The boy kept to the back, shoving his hands into his pockets. He sniffed and craned his neck to the sky. They had been walking for an hour, but still a long way off. That was, assuming his lead wasn't lying. But why would they? They were as confused as everyone when it came to the world they were on.
He had told his fair share of lies, and most of them were to increase his chances of survival. Lies wouldn't serve anyone apart from those who tell them. In an ideal world, everyone should survive. Because it included him too. Being selfless was easy if one had a foot in salvation's door.
The sun had taken a turn in the sky, bringing the light out with it. Everyone stared out into the mess of bricks, glass, and concrete. In the dark, the boy lost count of how many times he tripped over an exposed root of some grass network and gnarly tree or a chip in the pavement and in the asphalt. The tip of his boots glowed white against all the plaster and mud they traversed even in the dim moonlight.
They wove around clear alleys that were smaller and darker. Toppled buildings covered most of the wider ones, the sight oddly reminiscent of a child's playground with towers made of blocks. The only difference was the buildings' sides jutted out towards the sky like hungry hands craving to be pulled from the ground. In the darkness of the night, their silhouettes likened to sleeping giants. Or fallen ones, the reinforcing steel rods protruding from their "bodies" resembling the weapons that slew them.
"This way," one of the boy's companions said, waving a hand over her shoulder to beckon them. Her blond hair bounced against her back. "Keep an eye on each other. This is a tricky road."
The boy had stopped paying attention after the third left after a long time of taking only forwards and rights. The blond girl couldn't have found this by luck. She must have spent a long time getting lost within this concrete maze.
The queue stalked towards a timely facade of a house. Residential, judging from the lines streaming in and out of the windows on its sides. Those could have been used for clothes, for drying. Some of those clothes had slipped from the wires, piling over each other on the immediate ground. What a waste of laundry.
The spaces between houses were alleys in themselves. Whoever owned land around these parts enjoyed a bounty. They drew closer to the door. The blond girl stepped up the porch lined with pots of dessicated succulents and gripped the knob. It twisted with ease. The boy eyed the hole punched through the glass window to the door's left. She must have unlocked it from the inside the first time she went here.
The dried plants bore witness to everyone's entry. Brittle leaves rustled against the gentle breeze blowing from the west, standing tall in their plastic boxes mounted on the fence guarding the house. White paint peeled off the planks, taking the splinters along with them.
They better find something here. Something they could use to get out of this place.
He swallowed against the dryness creeping into his throat. Water has come and gone, and they have been walking under direct sunlight as early as the first light. The best course was to ignore, especially when they piled into the foyer and interesting details popped up.
Framed pictures hung on walls, showing frozen images of people either from ages past or the current era. Most were faded, hiding behind glass panes rimmed with ornate wood carvings. Dust and wisps of cobwebs hung from the sides and carpeted the edges. Speaking of carpets...
His boots crunched against shards of porcelain on his way past the narrow ante. Coats gathered grime from the ceiling and the particles swimming in the air from the pronged hanger in the ante's corner. The others dispersed into the rooms beyond, each one taking a different route. Another boy with dark hair and brown skin came up a tall shelf by the thin, lacy curtains covering all the windows in the adjacent walls. He braced his hip and looked up at the dusty trinkets and dated books.
Six cushioned chairs—all moth-eaten and flaked with dark splotches—surrounded a white, ornate table like little soldiers ready to defend their territory. The blond girl pulled another girl away to check out if there were backdoors and to check the sheds.
The second floor sounded more alluring, so the boy continued past the dining room in search of stairs. The facade had two rows of windows. A set of stairs should be present. The dim part of the house betrayed two doors. Opposite them were the wooden steps. He kicked the doors down to reveal comfort rooms. Untended comfort rooms. The water had long dried up, leaving a dusty chunk of marble in the middle. The ceiling had also caved in with time, breaking into moldy planks on the floor. Stairs, it was, then.
When he tried his weight on the first step, the planks creaked, whining like old ladies under the sun. He gritted his teeth and gripped the handrail. Tight. If the wood failed underneath him, at least, he'd have one last salvation before he hit the floor. Hefting his body through the steps, he winced and flinched with every painful note ripping from his boots. Relief flooded his system when he reached the landing, safe and sound.
He braved the brief corridor and came across a hooked corridor and another peeling to a hallway right above the kitchen and the dining room. Four rooms in total, including the one at the end of the hooked corridor. A square window stood parallel to the stair's landing, giving him a barred view of the city outside. Aside from the ornate facades of tower-like buildings—at least those who still stood up—vast landscapes of premium-cut land and eroding villas bled into the horizon.
Perhaps the rooms would have the coveted clues. He peeled into the nearest room and pushed the door inward. It was open. A four-poster stole his immediate attention, the lacy canopy betraying the general characteristic of the room's owner. A vanity with a shattered mirror stood next to it. All kinds of half-consumed cosmetics and beauty paraphernalia populated the desk, all unkempt and laid bare, as if discarded in a hurry.
He strode towards the bedside table and plucked a lone picture frame. Unlike the ones on the foyer, this one sported less dust on the glass. Less color bled out of the image, and a bright-eyed girl stared back at him. Large, doe eyes, hair coiffed at the shoulders and parted in the middle, a simple white blouse, and a red lip. This couldn't have been in the same era, much less, the same century.
The frame thunked back to the table. He crouched and started pulling out the drawers underneath. Nothing but endless stacks of crinkly, yellow papers full of inked handwriting. Letters, more like. Dumped inside a dark, abandoned case without thought. Love letters, perhaps? Cheap. He plucked one but gave up trying to read through the loopy font. Whoever wrote this must be mad. Plain mad. And whoever received this must have been driven insane too.
The other parts of the room were uninteresting. The chest at the foot of the bed showed him more of those blouses and skirts. He pulled out a trunk from under the bed, coughing at the storm of dust it stirred up. More clothes, just folded and ironed neatly. A few books joined the case opposite the vanity proving just how little this girl enriched her mind. He flipped open some of them only to shut them immediately. They were in a language he didn't understand.
He sighed and trudged out of the room. He was about to check the opposite one when a loud thud echoed from the first floor. A faint mechanical whirring ticked in the whole house. The boy sped down the stairs to see what the commotion was. He found the other boy on his rear, staring up at the shelf as if it had transformed into a monster.
Looming beyond them was a chute leading to the dark. Underground. More stairs peeled off the hole on the ground, revealed by the shelf skidding across a rusty mechanism.
He didn't wait for everyone to get there, trudging towards the stone steps and tackling the stairs on his own. The others scrambled in his wake, glancing at the ebbing light every now and then. Together, they strode across a hidden corridor leading deeper into the darkness.
The darkness was thick after a few minutes of walking forward. Hushed breaths and light sniffs echoed behind him. He counted the footsteps. Still the complete set. He put his arms forward. With him leading the group, he should be able to tell if they were about to run face-first into a wall. After a while, his fingers pressed against a cold surface. Metal.
The boy felt around, for some latch or a lock. His fingers came across a groove, then later what seemed to be a panel. His palm ran across it. Green light flashed overhead, drowning them in its eerier glow. The metal gave in underneath his hands. Something hissed, like hydraulic pipes releasing tension. Through the greenish tinge, he spied the doors swing inward, revealing a more spacious room. Underneath the heart of an old, abandoned city, something like hydraulics shouldn't exist, much less biometric sensors.
As if sensing their presence, the entire room whirred to life, starting from the spread of screens at the far end. A familiar symbol emblazoned in the middle greeted them, and a series of recognizable letters flashed white beneath it.
The doors slammed shut. Before he could turn, a gun cocked behind his head.
"Move a muscle, and I will shoot." A voice bled into his ears. "I've just about had enough of you."