Something warming, almost scalding hot drips onto my check and I bolt up like I was a vampire coming out of the coffin. My eyes open to a sky on the brink of twilight, the stars scattered about the blue, black, and burnt orange rim. I feel another scalding drip land on my hand this time as I look up, expecting something like rain but instead I see only stars…but they were melting and dripping like wax.

I should be used to dreamscapes by now…but I’m not.

I don’t know how I’m even here…Only thing I remember is a building about to collapse on me…am I dead?

Nah, this isn’t my dream.

I look around as I try to stand up and see I was on a dirt road, leading through some distorted forest.

Trying to hold in a sigh, I look up and down the freakishly white sand road, expecting another helpful hint as to what I’m supposed to do now.

Nothing.

Really?

All the times I get voices and shit, I get nothing this time. Not like it’d help.

Thanks for nothing. As always.

A tap of water hitting a leaf snaps my attention into the treetops of the dark forest and I see the faint light from the star…wax? Hitting it before disappearing.

The sound of slow thick raindrops resounds out as I bring it into focus. It was the stars. Dripping candle wax and I fixate on the stars; they were literally dripping, running wax like blood; bleeding trails along the night, onto the Earth.

The Dreams are dying.

Ah…great…that was more my own thoughts rather than a voice in my head…so I’m stuck inside a Queen again. Fuck my life.

So follow the yellow brick road, or rather, follow the questionable sand road down towards scare jump lane. Which way though? One seems to follow the side of a lake towards a bridge while the other way went deeper into the forest which led to basically nothing.

Like the dead zone of Zoe’s forest, kind of ‘nothing’.

The bridge it is.

If there’s a troll ready to jump out, I’m gonna tell it to take a hike, the real troll’s in town.

As I step closer to the bridge, I feel an anxiety accelerating my veins. It burns. Am I going to have to do the same thing again? Every time I’ve met with a Queen, I’ve had to kill them. I don’t know if I’ll be able to face it again…or know what exactly I’m supposed to do.

It feels like something’s missing.

Yeah the stupid ass riddling voice in my head.

My thoughts stop anyway when my feet hit the bridge. I was expecting something like the bridge to explode or to swallow me whole. But instead, all I get is that it was crossing over to an island.

After a noticeable twenty seconds of walking on the bridge’s asphalt path, it hit me. The bridge was never ending. The slow dripping wax hit everything around me is the only thing that’s. changing around me As I continue along it, I saw that the other side wasn’t coming any closer. It still looked to be the same distance, even though I was leaving the side I started on far behind.

Ooook….now what? I didn’t want to go back. I don’t think I’d be allowed to, I will probably get the same problem I’m having now. Stuck eternally walking through the same spot with no flipping end.

It’s funny, It was kind of like what Siem said about the city…always the same not matter what time of year it was…was that important? Why?

Speaking of, I try to look over in the distance passed the darken forest and across the giant ass stagnant lake which had no waves. No wonder the island looks so familiar. This was outside of Bolin. As if to confirm my thoughts, I could see the faint city lights in the distance. The City of Hong Kong without the Tower looming over it.

So this would have been the island bridge that Seth ‘accidently’ destroyed.

Hong Kong not Bolin.

My thoughts racing. This was important but it slips my grasp just as I think I have something.

Thinking is becoming harder.

Anything…outside of what the dreamscape wants.

Anything new. Anything different.

Nothing can be changed. It needs to be the same.

The dreams were harder to see through…

Fog rises around the base of the bridge, covering the stagnant lake but as it did..I could hear it. The soft water lapping at the columns holding the bridge up and at the shore of the island that looks to be far far away but didn’t sounds like it anymore.

But as if the dream realises I’m seeing the cracks in this casing of suspended time, it yanks back, the sound suspending as if were the illusion.

So…seeing is believing?

I close my eyes, feeling stupid that I’m actually taking this literally.

As I close my eyes to dream’s truth, I do my best to walk forward.

I swear if this works-

My feet feel the ground shift from harsh tar and gravel to something softer like grass and when I suddenly open them, I’m standing on what is supposed to be grass but surrounded by the mist… atleast it’s different…?

I’m not amused at all here. I wanna go home.

Where is home?

Shut up. I don’t need to fill in the voice’s role with my own thoughts right now.

The air’s flow of time shifts dramatically. The greying mist feels a bit lighter like I’m facing a damp morning covered in fog rather than the melted stars of dusk.

Looking around, I see a single lamp post, still brightly fighting the dark and being the only point of reference, I can use. As I walk towards it, I see a park bench and table…one that looked surprisingly familiar.

As I touch the lamp post to get closer to the table I feel a sickening pulse. It makes my body shudder. The sick hot sticky feeling I’ve had since I got into this city was very much real. It was hard to breathe.

At the same time, the mist disappears and I’m back in the night. The lamppost still feels very real as I look at the same spot Seth had taken me to eat burgers by his brother’s car that he “borrowed”.

Still false.

Stuck yuck.

The lamppost’s lightbulb’s light was the most real thing here.

Strange as it was.

Now that I think about it…was this here when Seth took me?

“It’s the lamppost that was outside my house when we were kids.”

The voice made me jump out of my skinsuit. I think I’m gonna have a heart attack. Looking back at the table, I see someone sitting on top like Seth was all those weeks ago.

“I used to wait underneath it so that we could walk together to the parks.”

Now that I see the figure more closely, I see someone about Seth’s age watching the water.

He was dressed head to toe in black. Black jeans, black hoodie…he had black hair that was messy. Both ears pierced with silver.

The only thing that was contrastingly different is his eyes are a brilliant deep blood red.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here…but…Are you Bolin?” It’s time for the game of guess who.

He smirks, his attention finally on me, “What gave it away?”

“Your fashion sense.”

He cracks a smile. “I haven’t really been called that in a long time.” I don't think he means as a city...

“How…are you Bolin?” I find myself asking. How is he the city? How the fuck does anyone become a city?

“The Tower.” He looks back out over the lake, towards where the Tower should be. “When I was placed there the Tower took on what I…the Battery wanted as reality. I liked the idea of futuristic technology. Flying cars, holograms, virtual reality, you name it!”

“You could have picked a better temperature than ‘drowning in boiling water’ humid with a dash of monsoonal rain summers.”

“You have a way of describing things,” he states calmly. “Well, not that it matters. At least, not anymore.” He laughs but it was painfully bitter, like if he didn’t, he’d cry instead.

“It was a hot summer night when the rain wouldn’t stop that I noticed Seth was missing.”

Oh goody. It’s monologuing backstory time.

“Seth was my only friend when we were kids. Then suddenly…he vanished. But he wasn’t the only one though -many children started disappearing…Even I did. But my disappearance was different. At least as the Tower, I could find him -and I did. I couldn’t save him directly, so I left hints for his brother to find him. But as he was saved. I had nothing. Nowhere to go or do. I haven’t even seen the sun in over a decade now. All I see is what the Tower sees but not me. Not Bolin who used to run around and wait for Seth to walk to school together…I felt forgotten when he was rescued but I wasn’t. With that…I dunno -I was hurt that Seth didn’t know I helped…that I was forgotten as his friend. So…”

“Your physical body reflects a time from when you were part of a reality that involved you as a person outside the Tower’s?”

He turns himself properly to face me. “Looks like it.”

Fuck that. …”Are you saying that all Towers are like you?”

“I…wouldn’t be surprised. I suppose it’s the biggest secret for each City. Hell, the only reason I know is because the Tower knows…it’s an odd symbiotic relationship to be fair.”

What’s more odd is that I know what this guy is saying. I don’t know any Cantonese. Unless I have an auto-translate like I do with Lady. I’m not seeing subtitles on the base of my vision either so I’m running with that. I’m drifting aren’t I?

So…now that I’m connecting the dots… “Then how am I dealing with you then…?”

“How am I Hexer Queen?” He asks back in English but it sounded like my voice.

I hate dreams, I've decided.

He disappears from his sitting spot like smoke only to now stand in front of me, looking down with his bright red eyes intensely staring at me.

Please blink and take a chill pill.

“I had enough. So I let others in. Only, I didn’t think much about what they were planning to do. In a way, I killed my own city.” His voice was completely dissociated. Like he commented on not wanting to deal with cleaning his room. He didn’t want to do any more chores.

“I’m tired. Seth is ok now but I’m tired, Kae. So I decided on…change. Not particularly caring about the results.” He laughs again. “I was fine but then I found you…I realised that you could help. I saw the data. Oz might be good at covering his tracks but I’m faster. So I was interested. But I didn’t think things would work so quickly.”

-“Ok slow down buddy.”- He’s talking a mile a minute while stepping towards me.

“I’m so tired, but you can make it stop. This madness that’s so consuming…living every day…like a husk, watching a boring game of city development while politicians pretend they know how to run a city but in reality they just argue and grasp for power like children. I’m tired. So very tired. Make it stop Kae. I didn’t consider that what bugs I was letting in were going to turn around and accelerate the city’s death. But this is good. I can sleep faster. Set me free Kae. I know you can.”