Convinced that the headache was gone, Stefan stood up and started combing through the room again. Nothing.

Sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, he waited. Once he felt numbed and cold, he got up and began banging on the wooden door and then kicking it, screaming to be let out, but no sound came. For how long were they going to leave him there? Angrily, he punched at the wall in frustration.

“You need to keep a cool head in situations like this,” said a female voice behind his back.

He turned around and saw Leonie waving from the outer side of the barred window. Her hands then went to something near the edge of the window; Stefan heard a clacking sound, and the frame holding the bars in place separated from the window. She smiled and made him a gesture to get out.

After Stefan crawled out, she put the bars back in place. He had too many questions, but Leonie spoke before he could begin.

“When I was a student, this is, before the Collapse, I had a weekend job showing tourists around. This trick with the window bars never failed to surprise them.” She laughed. “I don’t even think it’s original. They probably installed it just for show, but, you know, castles always have all these secret passages.” She winked at him. “But they’re meant to be secret, so don’t tell anyone.”

Stefan knew her intention was to lighten the mood, but he was too worried about Franzi and Rosario. He couldn’t bring himself to even smile.

“Alright, Stefan. That’s your name, right?” continued the guard, now in a more serious tone. He nodded. “I want to know what’s the story you guys are hiding. I already know about the cocoons in the valley; I went there this morning.”

“We didn’t mean to hide it!” he responded, worried the guard had the wrong idea. “We came to the town to warn you, but Rosario said she wanted to speak to the mayor first so there wouldn’t be a panic.”

“That’s fine, I’m not blaming you for not telling me.”

“But… how did you know where to look?”

“I took the liberty of checking inside your camper at the shop and found an old laminated map from the tourism office in Wimmis. That was a small village near the entrance to the Valley of the Simme, so I took my bike and looked around. You guy left an easy path to follow, so it didn’t take me long to retrace your path and find the forest.”

Stefan remembered how he and Franziska had used crystals to burn the vegetation that covered the abandoned rail line and roads. The path would have been indeed easy to see.

“So, how did you end up locked up?” Leonie continued. “Night in town got rowdy?”

The teen shook his head. “I don’t know. Rosario and two of the smiths went to talk with the mayor this morning. She didn’t come back at the time we agreed on, and then guards came looking for me and my sister. She managed to escape, but I don’t know if they captured her later.”

Leonie had a serious expression.

“So the mayor was warned, but no one notified us…” she muttered.

“I think they don’t want the guard to know,” said Stefan. “I think some are also been controlled. You see, there is something else we found out…”

Stefan explained about the monster plant that produced the parasitic offshoots. He told about Rosario’s encounter with it at the power facility, as well as the following attack which left their vehicle in bad shape, and then the information Franziska found in the book.

“A parasite that can control people’s behavior?” said Leonie in disbelief after he finished.

“Really, I’m telling you the truth.”

“I believe you. It’s just…” At that moment, they heard the sound of a distant bell, which was suddenly follow by other bells across the town. The guard stood up. “I have to go.”

“What?”

“That bell means our scouts saw monsters in the vicinity. With our luck, it might as well be the swarm, and with the possibility of traitors among us, I need to be up there,” she pointed towards the upper end of the peninsula, towards the double wall behind which lay the buffer zone, loaded with expansive crystal bombs.

“Wait! Please help me find Rosario! She must be here in the castle!”

“Look, if she’s in the castle, then she’s safe for now,” Leonie indicated at the wall behind them. “There is a trapdoor behind those bushes. It leads to a small park behind the wall, right next to the dock. Go there and get on an escape boat.”

He stopped her. “Let me go with you.”

“Stop playing, kid—”

“I mean it! If my sister is still out there, then she probably went to get help at the smithy. You’re going in the same direction, so let me go with you. I promise I won’t bother you.”

*****

By the time Franziska crossed under the gates that separated the lower from the upper town, she was exhausted and out of breath. She was in good physical condition and normally felt full of energy, yet the fear was dragging her down. But she had to keep going, so she pushed herself to continue.

After a moment of running, she noticed the train station was no longer visible from where she stood, and the wall around the electrified pit now towered behind the last rows of houses. She was close; only a few more blocks, and then she would look for the tunnels that crossed under the pit and led to the station. She was about to continue when bells began tolling in a distance, and others immediately sounded closer, as if amplifying the sound.

People on the streets stopped whatever they were doing. Franziska saw them quickly going back to their homes, closing windows, and then leaving with bags and marching towards the docks. There was tension in the air, but most seemed calm.

However, she was now the only one going in the opposite direction, and well-meaning passersby gave her concerned looks. She eventually hid in an alley, to avoid people who could stop her and force her to go to safety. She was about to continue when a series of explosions along the upper wall made the ground tremble.

Large stones and pieces of rubble from the wall above plunged heavily over the streets and nearby houses, breaking roofs, collapsing walls, and injuring some people who were still trying to flee from the scene. In horror, Franziska only managed to get up and run away.

She wandered aimlessly for what felt like an eternity, but probably was not more than a few minutes. The only direction she followed was the sense of going uphill, and after a moment, she found herself in a small park adjacent to the double wall. It was still intact in on that side, as the explosions occurred on the other end. All the residents seemed to have left, but the agitated voices from the streets below still reached her. Trying to orient herself, she saw the lines of the now immobile cable car at a distance, and estimated she was on the eastern end of town; the mall where the smiths had their workshops was probably somewhere above. Without a tunnel or using the cable car, there was no way for her to cross the walls and the pit between them.

As she stood in silence, Franziska didn’t know why, but her eyes were drawn towards a part of the wall covered in a thick layer of ivies. Upon closer inspection, she saw a wooden door hidden behind the creeping plants. It looked old and had a chain around a hole where the door handle should have been. She assumed it was locked from inside, yet when she pushed it, the chain fell and the door creaked open.

Thinking it could be an old access to the upper part of town, she walked into the darkness, holding onto the walls and treading carefully not to fall over uneven terrain. After a moment, she encountered steps and noticed a faint light above. She followed the stairs and arrived at an underground semicircular ramp. It was wide enough for one vehicle to pass, and a rusty parking entry barrier with a broken arm lay discarded on a side. The letters EXIT ONLY were still visible despite the almost vanished paint on the walls.

A series of electric light bulbs had been placed on the side of the wall, and Franziska followed them until she realized she was in the minus three parking garage of the mall where the smiths had their home; she recognized the vats with the miniaturized behemoths growing in them, and behind them was the tent of Emilia’s father.

At some point in the past, the minus three level must have had had an exit that led to the town below, but it had been closed long ago to build the double wall, leaving only that small door as entry. The smiths probably used it as a private access to their workshop.

The girl walked in the semidarkness of the place, illuminated by the dim electric bulbs and the colorful light that came from the vats, until she found herself in front of the tent of Old Man Fritz. Once again, she wasn’t sure why she had gone there, but stepped inside nevertheless.

The place still looked the same as the day before, with one exception: over the worktable in the center lay a perfectly round and smooth sphere, about the same size of the red crystal Rosario left with the old smith the day before. The surface of the sphere was so polished it reflected the outer light, but she thought she saw something shifting inside, and went to look at it closer.

Franziska’s eyes went wide when she realized that, inside the sphere, was a knot of dark and twitching roots, floating on an intense coppery red fluid. The day before, when Stefan and her explored the old road tunnel, she didn’t have a chance to see the root over which the red crystals grew, but she knew these were the same.

A creaking sound made her look up; Old Man Fritz sat in his wheelchair near a bookshelf and seemed lost in his reading. But Franziska did not startle. Somehow she knew he had been there.

*****