It was nearly impossible to maintain a consistent grip. Every time Ember adjusted his hands to accommodate his weight, sharp pain shot through his body, his injuries straining against gravity. He’d taken a pretty hard hit from the crash in the race and then again on the hotel roof when one of those things tried to munch on him. Although he managed to avoid teeth, their feet were pretty stabby as well, according to the wound on his arm.

Tollindo City didn’t take half measures when it came to monster outbreaks. Hidden weapon stores were scattered throughout the city, just in case of emergencies. ‘Just in case’ happened pretty frequently. Agafra was one of the weakest points in the galaxy; An unexpected dimension tear was always expected. By the time the twins had reached the roof fully armed, the militia were already mobilised in the street below. Conveniently, most of them were already present in the area to watch the race. 

Finding the creature’s weak points was easy enough, but they’d been overrun almost immediately. If someone hadn’t blown the roof out from under them with a ballista, they’d probably be worse off… sort of… 

One of Ember’s hands slipped off when the bar shifted under his weight, threatening to come free from what little concrete remained. The bar was slowly tilting further and further down into the chasm. Under his other hand, the metal whined and groaned. He could feel the bar loosening every second.

Sucking in a deep breath, he willed the pain into the back of his mind as he tried to pull himself back up. Grabbing on again was the easy part. The bar shifted again, his legs flailing wildly in the air as both hands nearly slipped straight off again. Ember needed to do something, fast.

Swinging his legs, he tested the distance between himself and the ledge the offworlders were on. Not likely. The distance wasn’t that far, but the height… He would have had to fly upward somehow before he went horizontal. Physics probably didn’t work like that. It would have been cool, though.

“Hold on!” the older offworlder called.  

Ember looked up at his hands, frowning. What else would I do? 

The blue-haired guy was awake now, too. He looked like he’d been beaten up pretty badly, based on the dusted blood on his face. Ember knew the feeling.

He considered just letting go, but there was no guarantee that the fall wouldn’t break his legs from this height. It was almost guaranteed to. Or worse. Those monsters were everywhere. It wouldn’t surprise him if they were in the buildings as well, by now.

A bigger concern was that there was still no sign of his sister. The dust below was still circulating, obscuring details. It looked deep. Really deep. The lower floors had been knocked down to the point where the light eventually disappeared. There was no sign of the bottom. There was also no sign of Echo in the dark gloom.

“Echo?” Ember called into the void below. There was no response. No glow from the mana gauge in her mask. He should have been able to see it if she were at the bottom. Her mask wasn’t working, or she was under the rubble or…

She wouldn’t die that easily. He smirked to himself at the idea of his sister falling to her death. A ridiculous idea. That would never happen. The sirens were still wailing, along with everything else outside, so even if she answered, he wasn’t sure he would hear her without an earpiece. 

“Hey!” The grumpy offworlder shouted. He was swinging something over his head. It looked like a bunch of colourful fabric tied together. It was a make-shift rope!

Ember grinned and launched himself into the emptiness as the cloth sailed past him, plunging straight into the hole in the floor. His fist closed tight around the fabric as soon as his palm made contact, but he didn’t stop. 

Gravity on Agafra was different than it was in the asteroid mines. You fell a lot faster on a planet. The rush of the air surged past him as he plummeted down, down, down. It suddenly occurred to him that he didn’t know how long this ‘rope’ actually was. There was still a good chance he would splatter his brains out at the bottom. 

The rope pulled taut under his hand. It felt like his arm was nearly torn out of its socket. Gravity tore him down further, the cloth burning his bare hands as he fought to catch hold of it with both of them. They snagged on the larger knot at the very end, but the rope lurched under his weight again. This time it was from the floors above. The guys at the top were struggling to hold on. He couldn’t blame them. The blue one of them looked like he was already halfway to the grave.

With nowhere else for the momentum to go, the rope swung under the ledge of a collapsed lower floor. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Ember braced himself when he realised how fast the wall was approaching. He smacked hard into the solid surface before stumbling backward on what was left of the floor. The surface was uneven and difficult to get his footing. No matter how hard he flailed for balance, he was headed straight back into the hole again. 

His backward fall was cut short again by the cloth in his hands. It jerked hard, but kept him in place, his toes barely perched on the ledge so that he was balanced precariously over the drop yet again.

It took a good moment of silence for him to realise that he’d stopped falling. He hollered a triumphant laugh that reverberated through the remnants of the building louder than the siren screaming outside. Whichever floor he’d landed on, the outer walls were still intact and only the internal structures had collapsed. 

“Foi incrível!” Ember yelled up to the two men waiting at the top. There was an overhang obscuring the view, but he was sure they were still up there. With the stairs caved in, the only other way was down. There was still another drop before the ‘bottom’ of the hole, but at least he could see where that was now. Below him was a particularly nasty-looking piece of metal. If he hadn’t stopped falling, he would have been skewered before he even hit the floor.

He managed to pull himself back onto the ledge again through what felt like sheer willpower. Ember wasn’t quite sure how many miracles he had left before his luck would run out, so he pressed himself against the wall while he examined the lower level.

There was still no sign of Echo or the breather mask. All he could see was a mountain of concrete, debris, and rubble. Bits of furniture, some obscure bits of metal stuck out of the pile, but nothing noteworthy. There was still a smaller hole that hadn’t been completely buried under the collapse. It was still too dark to see what was further below. 

He was about to jump down to check it out when Blue suddenly appeared in the corner of his vision, dangling over the drop. Ember took the offworlder’s hand and pulled him onto the narrow ledge beside him. 

“I thought you were going to die up there,” he beamed.

“I thought you were going to die down here,” Blue retorted, pointing to the piece of metal directly below them.

“I am glad you were wrong,” Ember laughed.

“Me too.” There was a slight smile on Blue’s face as he turned his attention back to the rope.

Profanities filled the air from above. The make-shift rope went slack. It was falling. Neither of them had been holding onto it.

As fast as lightning, Blue grabbed Ember’s wrist in one hand and shot out over the drop. The sudden movement almost pulled Ember over the edge. He only just managed to plant his feet hard enough to stop himself falling. Only just. Mãe Terra! Blue was a lot stronger than he expected. It felt like Ember’s wrist was about to be yanked clean off. His feet nearly slid out from under him completely.

Blue caught the rope in his free hand the moment the other offworlder passed them in a blur. Ember was tugged off the edge this time. He grabbed at the floor, but the loose debris offered no assistance at all. 

All three of them fell.

The next thing he knew, he was sprawled out on his back staring up at the red-orange sky. He was still alive. A little winded and bruised, but still alive. The other two were unharmed as well, both lying on the rubble next to him. The older offworlder had missed the jagged metal piece by a hair. 

Somehow, against all odds, everyone was still alive.