Franziska scampered away along the rooftop as fast as she could. Tiles broke under her feet, yet she continued, hearing the voices of the guards running on the street below, clearly faster than her. Some steps ahead, a roof window opened and two guards emerged, but instead of stopping, Franziska turned to her right and leaped over a narrow alley to a lower roof. Her pursuers did not follow.

She quickly made her way over this new row of red rooftops, desperately thinking what to do. They had taken Stefan to the castle. Rosario and the two crystalsmiths who went with her to see the mayor that morning were probably prisoners, too. That meant there was only one option left: she would have to make it to the smithy on the upper end of town, and get help there. She looked up towards the train station, visible at the top of the bay; it was so far away.

A guard climbed onto the roof in front, and she heard another one behind her. The streets on each side of the building were too wide to attempt jumping over. Surrounded, she slowly walked towards the nearest edge of the roof, and with relief saw a balcony down below. She flung down and onto the balcony just as the guards were about to reach her, and without delay leaped to another balcony one floor below, holding onto the railing and sending some potted plants to crash on the cobblestones of the street below. Using the clasps on a drainpipe for support, she made it to the street. The guards would be after her at any moment, but luckily, she noticed a crowded street right past a short alley, and reached it just in time to blend in with the crowd.

With some relief, she walked and then ran, dodging the residents, most of whom were going downhill towards the docks, where most of the commerce of the town was located. The rail station still seemed distant, and she hadn’t even reached the Old Wall, which marked the halfway point.

Now that she had moved further away from the docks, there were fewer people on the streets for her to blend in. Afraid of being discovered, Franziska decided to go through the alleys, making sure to check her surroundings every few steps. Everything seemed clear until she turned around a corner, and a hand on her shoulder made her stop. Feeling cold, she looked up and saw Leonie, the guard who had guided them into town the day before.

“Hey, Franziska! I’ve been looking for you and the others. I went to the smithy, but they told me you…”

But the girl didn’t listen, gave her a kick, and ran away.

Leonie frowned as she watched her go.

 

*****

 

Rosario woke up to the feeling of something crawling on her skin.

Despite her soreness, nothing seemed to be broken; thankfully, it hadn’t been a long fall, and what felt like a pile of hay saved her from any major injury. It was pitch black, and Rosario didn’t know how long she had been unconscious. Worried about having hit her head during the fall, she slowly sat and then tried to stand up. Other than the disorientation that came from being in total darkness, she didn’t feel unwell.

The hay she had fallen on was damp, and the air felt heavy and humid. She touched her arms and felt some bumps on her skin. Only then did she realize the crawling wasn’t just her imagination: small slippery things about the size of a fingernail were all over her arms, neck, and face. She immediately started slapping them away. They felt like slugs or leeches, but in the darkness, she could not tell. Whatever they were, they didn’t seem to bite or hurt her in any way, but the sensation was still unpleasant.

She was trying to calm her breathing when irregular footsteps echoed in the distance, becoming louder until they stopped nearby, and a key turned in a lock. A heavy wooden door creaked open, and light shone in, blinding her.

Shielding her eyes with her hands, Rosario thought she recognized the mayor standing in the doorway and watching her. She was about to say something when a movement caught her attention, making her realize she hadn’t been alone there.

The pile of hay lay right below a trapdoor that connected the keep with a cellar directly under it. Old wooden wine barrels and discarded furniture lay rotting around, and near the wall opposite to the door where the mayor stood, was a large creature that Rosario immediately recognized as a more developed form of the monster artichoke she encountered at the power facility the day before.

This one was at least twice the size, fatter, and with a series of stems pointing up from the top, each carrying what looked like a seed pod. Back in the power plant, she remembered the monster having a dark green color with white specks, but in the semi-darkness, she had paid little attention to it. Now she realized the lighter marks were not coloring but small, creeping creatures that resembled maggots; they were all over the plant and the cellar, and over her skin just a moment ago.

Rosario wished the horror ended there, but right below the plant lay two bodies, and she recognized them as Emilia and Noah, the two crystalsmiths she was supposed to meet that morning, but had entered the castle before her.

Panic washed over her. It was just like in the machine room at the power facility, where someone had fed a deer and a fox to the monster artichoke. Would the mayor end her there and feed her to this creature? Maybe he was armed and would shoot at any moment. She turned towards him at the same time her head began throbbing. Black spots covered her field of vision, but she wasn’t going to just stand there.

Expecting to be hit at any moment, Rosario ran towards the mayor, noticing he held only a flashlight in one hand and a crutch on the other. Good. An old and frail man would not stop her; she would push him aside and find her way out of the castle. But then her foot stepped on water, and the darkness was replaced by a bright white light that came from everywhere around.

Rosario stopped in her tracks and looked up at a sky as white as a sheet of paper. It was blinding, like a snowy landscape on a clear sunny day. Below the sky, and for as far as she could see, everything was covered in a layer of water that reached up to her ankles, the surface so calm it reflected the whiteness of the sky like a mirror. Because of this, she could only distinguish what was below the water in her immediate surroundings: an old stone floor, made of white slabs that had no algae growing on them, despite being fully submerged. This landscape extended as far as she could see. There was no breeze, and no feeling of temperature in the air or the water.

Her headache had vanished.

Bill Cornwell now stood in front of her, calmly stashing the flashlight in his coat pocket and holding the crutch as if he didn’t need it anymore.

“What is…?” she started, but didn’t know how to continue.

“Is this really your first time seeing it? Well, if so,” he made a gesture with his hands, indicating the place around them, “Ms. González, I welcome you to the Convergence.”

*****