Anya fell to the ground, her palms sinking into the sand. The jump was rough, her stomach churned a little. “The sand is gray here too,” she thought “though a bit purple-ish this time, not like the first place.”
She rose to her feet. Miles of desert stretched ahead of her, all of it tinged a magenta hue. Above her the night sky was a deep amethyst and in place of the clouds there were wispy streaks of blues and whites that seemed to glow softly, projecting paths of light all across the land below.
Throughout the desert were patches of cities — their buildings crumbling and overgrown by twisting blue vines. Above each city was a floating island, and on the underside of each island was a perfect mirror of the city below. Yet where the city below was desolate and war torn in appearance; the city above was pristine and familiar.
Anya checked the pouch the campers had given her. There were three small pills, two pink and one yellow. She had just taken a yellow pill. She swallowed one of the pink pills using a drop of water from the canteen the campers had also gifted her. Only then did she realise the air was neither frozen nor scorching like one might expect from a desert, it was an unusually comfortable temperature, and unsettlingly quiet.
She picked the nearest patch of ruined city, and started towards it.
She walked along the paths of light and found that they were slightly warmer than the surrounding air. The desert was mostly flat, with the occasional small mound or two that needed some extra effort to climb. Upon cresting one of these features, she spotted something on the path ahead. It was like a small blue light bulb, twisting and turning in the air. Suddenly there were two, and then three.
As she approached the flying point of light she saw that they were in fact pyramidal in shape, with proportions that shrunk and grew with the movements of their flight. One of the entities flew over to her, zipping through the air like a dart before stopping abruptly in front of her face. It made a low hum as it hovered, She felt as though it was inspecting her.
It began to move again, rapidly speeding away towards one of the cities. The other two flying pyramids followed closely behind, and in their wake the path of light bent to match their movements, carving a new glowing trail directly to the city.
Somehow the city felt even quieter than the desert. She peered up at the mirrored city above. Its streets were clean, roads in perfect condition, pavements unbroken — but there were no people, not in either of the cities.
She continued walking down the empty streets, reaching what seemed to be a boulevard of sorts. Rows of bushy blue trees lined the pavements, shedding leaves that fell twirling directly to the ground below.
The buildings seemed to be made from a mix of some kind of purple sandstone and concrete. Where there were surviving windows — shattered or intact — the glass was usually stained in an array of colours. Anya approached one of these designs. It depicted a colossal spear that reached up from through the clouds to strike an upside-down city.
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There was a rustle in the nearby vines, and a sound of clattering wood from inside the building. She stepped away from the window and continued down the boulevard.
The sound started low, yet it soon grew higher and louder. A siren. Suddenly it was echoing down the streets, coming from directly ahead of her. “People — maybe.” The ground shook; lightly, but noticeably. Then again, and again.
She darted down the boulevard in the direction of the siren. The shaking grew in intensity each time it occurred. She thought she heard something in the trees, or perhaps the vines.
Something leapt out in front of her, knocking her back. She caught no sight of it as she raised herself back to her feet, but could hear that it made a creaky scuttling sound as it crossed to the other side of the street.
Reaching the end of the boulevard, she stopped to listen for direction of the siren. It sounded from the left, she turns to begin in that direction once more.
In the distance, towering over the buildings — she saw it. A mass of concrete and brick in the vague shape of a person. Chimneys spewed smoke from its back, giant gears churned between its joints. The ground shuddered with every step it took towards the city.
Back down at street level, she saw a crowd of people rushing inside one of the buildings. Running to join them she saw a banner draped over the entrance depicting a golden spear pointed skywards.
More people appeared behind her and she became a part of the crowd. They huddled into the building and down a wide staircase. It lead down, and down, and down. Sinking into the violet earth. The stairs became a corridor — a long sloping corridor. They descended further.
It was then that she noticed the guards. Uniformed in the colours of the sand above, they held long spears with tips that glowed a deep blue — alighting the path ahead. They wore strange pistols too, holstered on their belts, though many seemed to attempt to hide them beneath a jacket or cloak.
As the end of the corridor neared, Anya saw what looked to be doctors tending to patients. The doctors wore feathered caps, and they had metal exoskeletons that ran along the backs of their limbs. There was one doctor who had no visible hands, yet nonetheless seemed to hold a bottle of medicine anyway — floating just in front of their sleeve.
The patients had no recognisable ailments. There were glowing eyes, wounds that seemed to ooze levitating blood, skin that had turned to iron and was now rusting away.
The guards closed in from behind, funnelling the group through a large steel door. Through it was a wide but low-ceilinged room lit by small blue lamps. Some small flying pyramids like the ones that Anya had encountered earlier were also in the room, directing the crowd to separate them into smaller groups. At one point she saw one of them appearing to convene with a guard. Whether it or the guard was in control, she could not decipher.
A deafening industrial roar came reverberating down the corridor and into the hall. Anya could see a group of the guards running back up the corridor towards the stairs. The door to the hall was sealed, and the room was plunged into a blue tinged silence.