Chapter 1 • The Wall

Laughter of children flooded the lands as the tranquil sounds of the streams running down the soft green earth trickled throughout the valley.

The regular sounds of birds chirping and the southern wind blowing on the villages, providing a cool relaxing breeze for the villagers to endure the scorching heat of the cruel sun.

Crops withered in despair as the scorching rays of the sun touched it. These were the things that were eternal. A normality to the land. Something that will never change.

To the people of these lands, something that will never change in the lands was the gigantic walls of concrete and scrap metal that accompassed the lands.

The walls were the life saver of the people. A guardian against the outside world which was full of unknown vicious and violent creatures from legends.

The walls stood likely a hundred meters tall and was so thick that even nature couldn't burst through it. It provided shade against the heat.

However, the people was cautious to never get too close to the foot of the walls. For several decades, these walls weren't maintained due to the difficulty and lack of materials.

Therefore, the metal that was welded onto the walls naturally began to rust. In the distance, people could see the rusty dust falling gracefully down like faint rain.

It was a spectacle to witness the phenomenon by one's own eyes but breathe in some of that dust and you'd become a cautionary tale.

"What could possibly be so dangerous for our ancestors to build such a formidable wall?"

At the foot of a seemingly ordinary hill, sat a young boy named Rowan. Thinking about the mysteries of the outside world.

"You really like staring at that wall, huh?"

A voice came from behind Rowan.

Rowan glanced behind his shoulder and saw that it was just his idiotic older brother, Kailo.

"Oh, it's you."

"What's with that reaction?" Kailo said, sitting next to Rowan. Picking up a random pebble, he tossed the pebble at a pond in front of them.

"You do know you have quite the reputation? I'm going to get the stares if I stay with you any longer." Rowan said, trying to immediately walk away from his older brother.

"Come on, lil' bro! Even you? I know you're also curious about the outside world! What makes you more different than me?" Kailo rebutted, feeling betrayed by his own little brother. He had always known that Rowan was the same as him when it came to curiosity.

"Well obviously, I don't use a pickaxe to mine through the wall to the outside world. Mine through the wall that could kill you if you breathe a little? I'm surprised you're not dead yet." Rowan said, recalling one of the things that Kailo had done.

"Woah! Tone down the harsh words! You think I didn't know about that? I wore a gas mask while doing that. I was sweating like crazy in there!" Kailo said, explaining to Rowan that he was prepared for it.

"What about that one time that you stole Granduncle's mountain climbing gear to climb the wall? At least ask for permission."

"You know how Granduncle is. Never in a million years would he even begin to think of letting people use his things! You should know yourself."

"Why are you even here in the first place?" Rowan said, questioning the presence of his older brother. Kailo hardly ever met Rowan in a casual manner due to his constant antics of the wall. He did constantly see him due to being forced to stand beside his parents scolding Kailo.

Kailo grunted and took a large breath. He was wearing his trusty backpack and ravaged through it to find something. Finding that object, he grinned.

"Wanna see the outside world?" Kailo said, grinning at Rowan as he held a two gas masks at his hands.

Rowan, glancing at the gas masks back and forth, really contemplated whether or not to see the outside world that he always was curious about.

What was the outside world?

"I know you want to." Kailo said, shaking the gas masks in front of his face to stimulate him even more.

"...Sure, let's go." Rowan said hesitantly. Even though he knew what he was doing wasn't right, he figured that there's no harm in doing this due to the experience by his older brother, Kailo.

Besides, it was the outside world. Rowan couldn't resist the temptation. He needed to know.

"Wait. Before we go, we need to fill up these water bottles first..." Kailo said, stratching his head. He had hyped his little brother and he forgot the most important thing, hydration.

Rowan facepalmed but he didn't feel ashamed of his brother for forgetting such a thing. Rather, he figured that his brother was someone that needed things to be perfect.

In which was an absolute necessity since they were about to head to something that not only protected the people but also killed people.

***

"Hey! Be careful around that corner!" Kailo said in a muffled voice due to the gas mask. He grabbed Rowan's shirt and dragged him into a large hole in the wall. Rowan almost slipped and fell into a lake of sharp steel rods.

The two brothers were in a terrible situation. The portion of the wall they were at was in bad condition, filled with a lot of large holes caused by nature. These holes was like a checkpoint which allowed for the two brothers to rest and shelter in it.

However, they had to stay in one of the holes due to the weather. It was raining cats and dogs.

"Thank goodness, I brought a match and some firewood with me. It made the bag way more heavier than it should be but it paid off in the end." Kailo said, preparing to make a fire for him and Rowan. The weather wasn't going to spare them from hypothermia so he had to act fast.

"When are we going to see the outside world?" Rowan said. He was quite excited to see the outside world but the journey to see it was just exhausting and terrible. He figured that at least for now, it was manageable.

"We're halfway there. Unfortunately, this portion of the wall is the widest part of the wall. This part of the wall isn't made out of concrete. It's made out of bricks and other materials. The ancestors probably made this part of the wall way more wider due to their lack of materials." Kailo said.

"How do you know this?" Rowan said. He had hardly ever heard of stories of the predecessors that constructed the enormous walls.

"From Granduncle. The walls wasn't made in a day, wasn't it? It took a lot of years to build this, I assume." Kailo said as he continued to make the fire.

"Granduncle?"

"Yeah, him. Strange, doesn't it? He's crazy on documenting things. He says that every day is history and needs to documented. I can't really criticize it since people in the future deserve to know what happened in the past." Kailo said before shortly continuing his story.

"Just like how we're curious about the past. Specifically, our predecessors."

Upon hearing that, Rowan felt the need to ask his granduncle about the ancestors. There was a gut feeling in him that his granduncle might know a thing or two about the topic.

"You really get philosophical when you're focusing on things, huh?" Rowan smirked.

"Yeah, I guess." Kailo grinned, finishing the preparation for the fire and burning it ablaze.

"Hey. Wake me up when the weather is gone." Kailo said to Rowan, grabbing a pillow from his backpack and lied on the floor crossing his arm on his head.

"Since when did you get a pillow? Also, the rain's already gone." Rowan said, looking at the clear skies and water trickling down the wall.

"Ah, I always keep a pillow on me so that I can sleep wherever I want."

"Wait. What did you say?! Come on, what use is this fire now? We've exposed our position! The villagers might know we're at the wall! We're dead." Kailo said, realizing what Rowan had just said and immediately woke up to put out the fire.

"Isn't it fine? They don't have the guts to go to the wall anyways!" Rowan said, reassuring Kailo.

"You think I'm the only one that has ever tried to see the outside world? There are villagers that used to be like me and they absolutely know how to get two people at the wall" Kailo said.

"Come on, we need to move fast. I'm not letting them take away your chance in seeing the outside world." Kailo said. He didn't want those villagers to disallow Rowan from witnessing the outside world.

When Kailo saw the outside world, he felt as if he had completed life. It was beautiful and he didn't want Rowan to not at least see a glimpse of it.

"Be careful around this corner. There's moss that's really slippery here. Grab onto this rod sticking out." Kailo said, sweating heavily.

"You're right! It is slippery. Woah!" Rowan said, almost slipping and falling down the murky waters below. In the last second, he managed to grab onto the said rod.

"We're almost there!"

"Didn't you say we're halfway there?"

"We're taking my shorter path. It's faster but more dangerous. I didn't want to take this path but there's no choice left."

Kailo quickly ravaged his bag to get a hook and rope. The moment he found it, he tied the rope with the hook and latched it onto a certain wooden platform

"Climb this rope and you'll see it." Kailo said as he climbed up onto the platform as fast as he could and held the hook in place.

Rowan's hands were sweaty but he was determined to climb the rope.

He gripped onto the rope and felt as if he could slip off any moment. However, he didn't let this hold him back and climbed up the rope.

Rays of sunlight made contact with Rowan's skin but it didn't feel scorchingly hot. It felt warm and inviting.

He stood up and there he saw it.

The outside world.

He saw that the world was vast. There were huge rivers of water that made the tiny streams that he knew writhe pathetically and saw enormous hills that made the height of the wall pale in comparison. Most importantly, he saw a vast lake that stretched endlessly to the horizon with mysterious fish-like creatures jumping up and down on the lake.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Why could possibly be so dangerous for us to be stuck encased by a wall?" Rowan said, admiring the beauty of the world.

All of a sudden, a huge bird-like creature bursted out of nowhere shattering huge pieces of concrete like nothing. Its legs looked human but the rest couldn't be said the same.

Its feathers seemed metallic and had jet black colors. Not only was it metallic but it was truly metal as its wings stratched the wall, creating sparks and an intolerable noise.

The most disgusting part was its head. All of its head from the front and the back was filled with tiny eyes the size of a marble.

It didn't have a beak. Instead, it had a metal drill for a beak and it was spinning incredibly fast.

"What the hell is that?!" Kailo shouted in shock.

"I don't know! All I know is that we need to run!" Rowan shouted. They were in a way more terrible situation than before.