YP – B2:UtGoaFN – Chapter 45 (Chapter 91)

202 Days Until Collapse And the Uncertain End (Part 5)

Buildings were broken, cars discarded, bag and clothes thrown about, items scaattered all over the streets. There was food, blood, but no signs of most any body as Heia followed Evester through the city.

“This district has been evacuated.” Lynx looked around. “No casualties.”

“Which is a good sign,” Evester then jumped with the sound of an explosion. Turning back Heia slowed her pace in time to see an Evacuation ship breaking free from the CloudCity. The sound reverberated through the whole of the city. The ship was large and moving away quickly. “My mother will be on that one, with all of the other first evacuees.”

“My family?” Heia whispered. She thought of her own family, praying that they had escaped, and that those who staid were safe.

“Your family was evacuated days ago. They are no where close to here?” Evester reminded her almost reading her mind, and missing it completely.

But they were, she wanted to scream. Her little siblings, five of them, working as EverDanger members along with Evester’s friends, acting like this was a game. 

“Do we know any casualty reports right now?” Evester asked into his headset.

“At least ten, and that’s just in the cloud city.” Uly answered. “Reports are slow. Numbers are being withheld.”

“We’ll be lucky to get out of this with a hundred.” Phil whispered. Heia had a feeling he only meant Valaria and not her Tower. The earth shook once more and the world felt like it was tilting before there was a loud thud and the world was slanted at an angle.

“Fail safes. Fail safes.” Evester continued running along the decline. “We are fine.”

“What just happened?” Heia clenched her shirt trying to calm down.

“Tower collapse.” Lynx answered. “A part of the Tower slipped but the failsafes caught it.”

“It was an explosion that probably knocked out the primary support.” Evester continued on as if their lives were hanging in the balance. A smile was upon his lips, the signature danger smile of The Immortal. How she could have ever no recognized him before, was beyond her now.

A scream erupted on the other side of the headset.

“What is going on?” Phil screamed.

“Put him down!” Uly ordered. “Evester you are going to have to find us. Zeydar just went insane.”

“Where are you?” Evester demanded pulling Heia’s worry with him. She had been scared for her life before, but was even more so now. Zeydar was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

Uly relayed the cross streets and Evester stopped running. He broke a window to a car and opened the door. Lynx got in without a question and Heia followed. Heia watched as Evester highjacked the electric car with his identification card and was driving away quickly. She wanted to ask why he had the privilege to do so, but refrained from opening her mouth.

“Evester we do not have much time.” Uly called out. 

“What is happening?” Lynx asked.

“He’s rocking back and forth saying he can’t stop it.” Phil answered. 

“Keep an eye on him. Keep him focused.” Evester ordered. He sped through the streets through discarded cars and over sidewalks. 

“Why was it a single explosion?” Lynx asked.

“Zeydar probably delayed the others but he can’t keep holding them back.” Evester answered. “Lynx do you have the laptop?”

“I do.” She started to puller her laptop out as Evester drove haphazardly through the wreckage of the city.

“Pull out the schematic of the Tower. I need it now.” Evester demanded as he swerved to avoid people who were moving to evacuate in the sector. “Uly. Can you connect me to Rayblay?”

“Micha?” Uly asked over the headset.

“Yes.” Evester seemed disinterested in which Rayblay he got, so long as he got one. Heia gripped the seat for life, as she watched people bleeding and evacuating. There were people crying, others only able to hold what they could carry. Circles in the stated of X’s, in a panic. Heia felt no joy in their pain. No one deserved to lose everything, even if they were Circles who fed off the suffering of her people.

“Give me a minute.” Lynx pulled the laptop out of her bag, typed quickly, pulled it up showed it to him and then closed it to put it away.

“We are approaching the cross streets.” Kori reported when a second evacuation signaled itself off with a loud explosion like sound. The Tower then rocked and once more they were falling. The car seemed as if it would begin tumbling.

“Out now.” Evester screamed as he pushed his door open. Heia reacted as fast as she could and dove to the ground as the world shifted. Lynx grasped her and the decline became an incline. Lynx held on to Heia and to the laptop, carrying them to safety out of the way. The car tumbled along with others, and rolled to the other side of the street that was far steeper of a incline than the decline before. Evester groaned as he pushed himself from the ground. They were all bleeding now, falling from a moving car. Heia hoped she hadn’t broken any bones but at this point she wasn’t sure she would notice. “Keep moving. Report.”

“Safe. But what was that?” Kori asked.

“Another explosion in the Tower.” Evester answered. “Uly. Kim?”

“We are alive.” Phil answered. “Almost not, but we are okay. Zeydar saved us again. Uly is getting Micha.”

“Kim. Come in.” Evester called into his headset looking to Lynx and then to Heia and back to the path before them. The incline that they had to travel was steep, and more objects were still falling towards them as they hid behind the building that Evester directed them to for shelter.

“—are… — Ev— We — WE ARE OKAY EVESTER.” Kim’s voice screamed loud and clear. Heia watched as cars, furniture, and plants tumbled down the street from the incline.

“Kim you are back.” Evester seemed to breath out in relief. 

“I am?” Kim sounded as if she were crying. “Our path is no longer secure.”

“What is it looking like down there?” Evester asked, and Heia held herself close.

“Please don’t ask me that Evester. We need to stop this now.” Heia tried to hear the sounds behind Kim but there was a deathly silence, void of the announcements that had been ever present in the Tower before.

“Secure us a new route.” Evester began to move again. “We are approaching Uly and the others.”

“Understood.” Shawn answered. “Come on Kim.”

Kim choked back a sob and said nothing. Heia’s heart sank. Her family was safe but someone else wasn’t, someone else was…

“Heia! Move!” Evester yelled at her. She looked up to him knowing then that there was no time to think of anything but survival. If she wanted to live, she had to keep moving.

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