The Place Before This

"A place before this? Yeah... we went to a jail cell, and I had my leg broken with a pretty serious wound. That's when they gave me this prosthetic," Solstice told me, pointing to his right leg.

The same one as mine.

"Who broke it?" I asked him.

"A friend or somebody I thought was a friend. Her name was... Chi-Chi, or something like that. That innocent personality really threw me for a loop. That girl kept talking over her, and I got fed up in front of the Queen. After that, Chi-Chi broke my leg and I was thrown into jail with my brother, sister, and cousin," Solstice explained.

It looked like the events were aligning almost exactly down to the same point... we had been betrayed, through and through. I wanted to be able to trust the two of them, but I realized that due to our different environments and goals, we could never be friends.

The next time I saw Chi-Chi, I would most likely have to fight her as well.

"The same thing happened to me. That's where I got mine from. Something isn't right though, why would we be put through all of this?" I asked everybody as we started to make the shovels.

"Your thought is as good as mine, Charlie," Orion suggested, tightening the last of the twine on his shovel before he plunged it into the cliffside.

I wish I could at least have a hint as to why we were put here, or why I was thrown into so many different locations within The Tower. The stairs, the levels, and even the insane scenery kept constantly changing. All of this was so confusing and it was starting to irritate me.

"I hit something! Something tough!" Alex shouted out, pushing his shovel in sporadic directions while uncovering a metal doorknob.

"I'll be damned, you were right, Charlie!" Alex shouted again, happily pushing dirt aside with his hands.

"Solstice, Zenith, Clementine, and Stark, you're more than welcome to follow us through this tower... but you should know, that we won't stop if you get tired. We have things we need to do and will push further no matter what happens," I told the group of four.

A small part of me didn't completely trust the group due to Chi-Chi and Asoh's actions, but if I didn't trust anybody, then I didn't have a reason to keep Orion around anymore. This was a strange crew of people, but I welcome more rather than less.

"Of course! We'll follow you the best we can, and I don't expect you to wait up for us. We'll do our best to make it out, together," Solstice said, slowly pushing his weakened body up.

His resolve was solidified, but his body couldn't physically keep up with us.

"Clementine, what's wrong?" Zenith asked his sister.

Clementine was staring at me with a strange gaze... it almost felt violent, as if I could read her thoughts.

"Nothing, let's continue," Clementine said, pushing ahead of all of us, squeezing through the small hole Alex made, and opening the door.

Once she opened the door, it was revealed that the staircase we once traveled down was in front of us once more... but this time, it was leading upwards.

It was physically impossible for the stairway to lead upward since it would interfere with the cliffside completely and start to shoot up into the sky... but my eyes weren't fooling me. It really was leading upward.

"This is so odd... let's follow it, everybody goes in first," I told them.

Solstice and his family walked through, then Alex did.

As soon as I was about to join them, the door slammed shut and the dirt moved on its own to the position we just dug out, blocking the entrance completely.

I heard Alex's screams be dragged away from our position, through the dirt, and through the door... and eventually, nothing was left.

"DAMMIT!" I screamed out.

"What the hell? It's not supposed to separate so fast, is it?" Orion asked with an equally concerned tone, putting his hand on my shoulder and peering at the cliffside with me.

"This isn't accidental anymore, somebody is watching us and manipulating the tower, they have to be!" I shouted again, looking all around the sky for a hint of a person. They could be hiding in the trees, or even in plain sight.

"It's just us, let's start looking around, maybe down south," Orion said. He was so okay with the fact that we were split up, and wasn't worried at all... how could he even act like that?

Alex has split apart from me, stuck with a group of people we didn't know. He could be in serious danger... and Orion didn't care. Maybe it was because he didn't have the bond that I had, but it irritated me.

"There does look like a bountiful forest at the very least. There are berries around, animal tracks, and the scent of urine somewhere deep in the trees. There is animal life here... but I hope it's not carnivorous. Tell me, how far did your survival prowess get you on that beach?" Orion asked me, wiping his finger in the dirt around us.

"I'll get to making a bow. I was pretty good at hiding, from your soldiers that hunted us, of course," I told him.

"I remember when I sent Raven after your group. I didn't expect him to fail. Who ended up killing him?" Orion asked me casually, following a trail that he caught the scent of from his dirty fingers.

"Sky did. Decapitated him with his own katana. It was his first kill," I told Orion, and he chuckled.

"Tell me more about your leader. I'd love to learn what kind of man he's become," Orion asked.

"Where do I start? Since your fight with him, he really has become a force of nature... it's kind of a long story, but I can see that we have the time. I'll get started," I said to him, following in his footsteps.