The sight before me after leaving the diner left me feeling unbearably hollow. The wall was smashed to pieces. Full sheets suspended in mid-air by the thick black crystal, including the gate. The gate that not even Cody could take down. But there it is; dangling far above my head like a piece of meat on a skewer. It even swung slightly in the light breeze.

I limp forward a little, the cat seeming to be content at the snail pace I was attempting to hobble at. Another step. Another step. I bite my lip, supressing the waves of pain that rankle my body.

The tiger’s thoughts form almost coherent words, Continue? Confusion. Hurt. Pain. Why?

I tighten my grip on its fur, I need to keep moving. If I stop, I won’t move again. I need to go forward.

Irrational. Foolish.

Just as I was about to say something back, something shiny hits my eyes. I look up. And there was the goddamn blade. Again. It is seriously turning into the proverbially ‘bad penny’. This time it was sticking out of what I presumed to what was once a wall. I should just leave it there. My tongue clicks as I reach for the damn thing. Curse me and my sentimentality. I hate this thing. But I’m probably going to need it. It saved my ass a few times. The blade slides out of the concrete easily enough with a hiss. I couldn’t even hold it up as the point hits the ground with a dull tink and I find myself leaning on it like an old man with a cane. My hands shake, remembering last night. It was so easy to kill. Don’t think about it. I feel like I’m going to be sick.

I lean on the tiger a bit more, pressing my head into its shoulder and shut my eyes to fight the wave of nausea rising from the pit of my stomach. Quite frankly, I feel like I was going to vomit blood. It hurt so much. But I need to keep moving. My feet seem to have a will of their own as they slowly take me towards the wrecked monstrosity of what was left of the wall.

I look up the street that lead into the once called ‘haven’ from the outside world. A place that was supposed to be paradise compared to out here. A place that threw us away. I could barely see the skyscrapers and streets. All in ruins. The crystal pillars shooting out everywhere. But I was curious. What was so special on the other side?

Feeling a little dizzy, I still manage to take another step towards the place that had been ‘forbidden’ to us for the last ten years. My heart is seriously ponding wave after loud wave of pressure in my ears. It was a place that everyone outside desperately wanted to go. It was a place that everyone inside wanted to keep locked up.

Walking up to the gate, both me and the cat manage to squeeze past the thick obsidian crystal through to the other side. And what greeted us was something that was a replica of the first Disaster. The entire city was at a standstill. Fire still burned some of the buildings, cars littered the streets, some crashed into each other in a panic. Stores destroyed and glass and debris spread like glittered reflections of tiny stars in the morning sun. Towers of crystal jutted out everywhere just like outside. Walking down what I could only guess be a main district I saw a huge plasma screen spanning an entire building’s side that was still working, despite a crystal poking out the middle. But it only reflected black and white static. Despite all the destruction and panic that I had assumed only happened hours ago, it was quiet. Like the dead. And there weren’t any bodies either. I even check a crashed car with a glance; abandoned, the keys still in the ignition.

“Just…what happened…?” I mumble as I find myself being pulled down the street. Yeah sure there was a storm but this sort of destruction doesn’t just leave no bodies behind. I find myself walking passed something that I had always wanted to play as a kid; an arcade. But I didn’t feel any pull towards it, instead I still trudge down the street. I see traffic lights ahead that where still functional, showing a bright red glow the flicks green within a second.

Something was terribly wrong. I mean…not just the missing bodies but…even with all the debris and fires and sirens going off, it’s far too…freakishly quiet. The air is stale. I could taste dust, like it was only just disturbed. I frown, how is any of this possible? Did something happen here? But Jack mentioned contacts.

No. Even if he did, that doesn’t mean it was real or he kept in constant communication with them. Besides, with the military being all anal about this place… Were they trying to keep this place contained or something? But then the others wanted to get in? It was strange that they knew exactly where to find us now that I think about it. I mean, who comes after a bunch of kids in the middle of a war? ...I feel like my brain is overheating.

That was when I feel like I see something shift from the corner of my vision. My heart lurches. Please tell me that’s my imagination… When my head snaps in that direction; of course, nothing. I grip both the tiger and the sword-cum-walking-stick a little tighter. I so don’t need this right now.

Next I have the cat in my head and from the emotions and colours it was emitting at me I think I could understand it was saying; ‘Should move. Leaving is good.’

But something was still pulling at me in here. And like any shitty horror movie idiot, I listen to that tiny feeling nudging me on. Turning down a wrecked street, I almost gasp at the huge golden thing that is, I presume, in the very centre of the city. It looked like some sort of sparkly gold and crystal tower-thing with weird-ass look wing things at the very top, encircling it like they were half opening to protect some weird structure at the top. What is that? I feel like I stepped into something really weird. At the base of this tower (that was amazingly untouched) was black crystal but it was strange, like a wave caught frozen as it attempted to take the tower but was unable to touch it.

This is just weird.

Weird-ass tower. Weird-ass crystal. The pillars all stop to encircle what I imagine the water feature moat that surrounded the area the tower was in; sunken into the ground. What was once and immaculate symmetrical park surrounded even that. But the grounds were untamed in the time it had been abandoned. The lawns now over grown with tall grass, the flower gardens all struggling with weeds, the bushes and trees had branches sticking out every which way they were supposed to. Just…This place is really giving me the creeps.

This wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Other than the weird-ass gold crystal tower thing, this place looked so…normal. I was expecting something taken out of a futuristic space-age film –all metal and neon lights. But it was…warm. The morning sun tinted to world golden. This place that was shut off from the horrors of outside. But what was happening in here to make it like this? I mean excluding last night’s events, no one was here. No bodies. Nothing. It’s disturbing.

I want to know what that tower-thing is. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I want to get closer.

Another flicker in the corner of my eye and again when I turn to see it; nothing. I try and focus on moving forward again.

‘Something wrong.’ The tiger stops, its ears flicking to the left.

I turn my head in that direction. Nothing.

What is it?

‘Something wrong.’ Bad dream. Dread. Corrupt. Should not be. Should never be.

I shake my head, the tiger leaves a fuzzy feeling in my head. Or maybe that’s the exhaustion..or the dehydration...or the blood loss. How the fuck am I still standing?

That was when I heard a hiss like growl and my back goes rigid. A shuffling noise, like it was carrying something too heavy to hold follows. The sound of glass rubbing against stone.

I bite my lip as I look to the left. A Hexer.

This city was infested with Hexers. Evolved Hexers to be exact. Which means that this place hass been infested for a while. At first you’d think ‘zombie’.

“Zombies with super powers,” I muse to myself as I see another coming up from a main street just down from the other one.

Evolved Hexers have chucks of crystal growing out of them. The first one had its entire shoulder bulging with crystal spikes and lumps, taking over its arm as a giant over-sized shiny black claw that was too big to carry normally, making it limp and drag it over the ground. The other was missing a part of its face behind a black clump and spines of crystal growing from its back in random spots. The greyish skin and freakish black veins were heavy, especially the flesh around the crystal clumps.

…I’m now understanding why there weren’t any bodies...

Then…that Hexer that attacked us a few weeks ago at the farm…

I’ve just walked into Keystone territory…and nest.