"Pain and suffering are the language of those who conquer and reform. The subtlety of the mind is not an option, for thoughts have their own battles, waging between anger, hatred, desire, and grief. You should not follow the path of the last Akro king, Konstin XI. Driven by fear, the man asked for peace but conflict followed. He ignored the mind battles, casting them as he thought they are weaknesses. Hence, it was concluded by Wisemen and oracles that the battles of the mind are necessary. Like a crux of ideology, they revamp logical desire into a mesmerizing conduit."

⸺ Resumption 12:7-14

The mortuary of East Balla Cita spiraled from Kayla's vision like a cursed temple, standing proud with greatness despite its function of storing corpses. Seventy percent of the dead house's residents were Clamberians.

Sickly, the air was. Kayla had to squeeze her nose to prevent her from puking. The grand structural design resembled none of the modern Acronian architecture as it was said to be built in the Year 1940 Post Breakout, exactly a a-hundred-and-six years ago.

But Kayla's attention wasn't on the breathtaking structure. Her idle, terrified eyes locked themselves on the sight of a coffee-brown coffin the color of her eyes.

"I want to see him," Kaia said. Her usually firm voice wavered.

I don't, Kayla thought.

"Ms Arina, I don't think that's a good id⸺"

"I said, I want to see him." She was sterner now.

The mortuary officer, her lean face childish despite her old eyes, nodded slightly. She had seen enough dead people in her years.

The coffin lid gashed open. Kayla shielded her eyes. No one spoke a thing. Not Kaia, and not the lady officer who stood expressionless the entire time. This made her curious, defeating her fear and allowing her to slowly lift her eyes open.

It was a mistake.

She recognized none of her brother's features. His legs weren't attached to his severed body where flesh met bones, swindled by shapeless organs in the form of pancakes. His legs were mushed, destroyed, like when you stomped a slug with your shoe.

Kayla's face grew red. Her throat spiked, and she felt the urge to puke. She turned and ran towards the restroom without her sister stopping her. Kaia didn't even budge, her face stunningly flat, but her eyes trickling with disgust and pang.

Inside the surprisingly modern toilet, there were three women with blue uniforms, their faces strewed and tired as if they'd been hit by a car. They were easterners, and they had rifles slung to their backs.

Kayla didn't care. The existence of other people usually freaked her. But now, she couldn't care less as she strode for the sink and splashed her face with cold water.

"You're the sister?" The youngest of the three asked. Kayla couldn't answer. She didn't know how to talk with strangers.

"Leave her alone, Lovi," countered the oldest. Apparently, these Eastern girls were cleaning Kaif's blood from their palms. Kayla realized who these people were. SEU soldiers. Eastern terrorists. They must've brought Kaif's body here. She imagined them dragging his body inside a shroud, his blood drooling from the side, staining their hands.

Did he die because of you?

"It wasn't the SEU," the youngest spoke as if reading her mind. "We weren't responsible for his death."

"What?" Kayla couldn't believe she'd spoken to a stranger. She couldn't help it, though. She was too curious.

"You may think the SEU did that to your brother. We didn't. We never intended to kill civilians. Those DC scums, though, have no regard for their own people. They murdered your brother. Well, one of them launched a grenade launcher and the explosion chained to a nearby oil tank. Your brother had been unfortunate enough to be in the blast radius."

"Lovi, that's enough," the oldest ordered. "She doesn't need to know everything."

"She deserves the truth."

"He was doing business with you SEUs," Kayla suddenly spoke. She couldn't even hear herself. She just assumed, but from the look on their faces, she guessed correctly.

SEU.

Sovereign Equal Union was a unity of people from the eastern islands declaring their independence from President Artha's iron fist regime. They'd been responsible for most of the attacks on Nevva Island, especially in Artha's beloved sinking capital of Balla Cita.

Their influence was deep within the ranks of poor people, of eastern communities blooming in the region. Kayla knew her brother was involved in business with them because he'd been the leader of one of those communities. He was a businessman and a runner, meaning he could slip and make deals with shady individuals.

He'd been too close to the war, intertwined beneath the layers of complexity, and now he died because of it. If he hadn't any business with the SEU, that explosion wouldn't even be close to where he was.

Fear was growing in her mind. She suddenly realized how uncertain the future was, and how fragile her world could be. The SEU, the DC, everyone had their own agenda and if one were to be trapped inside it, then lives might be shattered.

Fear. A simple word. Kayla had a past of fear.

"Doesn't matter who dropped the bomb," the third soldier finally spoke. "People die regardless. Friendly advice, kid. Go away from the Clamber immediately. Grab your savings and go to Central Balla Cita... or Coral Terra or somewhere. Pacha would be a better choice if you have a passport, though I doubt you do. The Clamber is a sacrificial lamb, a black sheep orchestrated by Artha's government to be a wasteful shield. They don't fucking care about the people living in it. You will never be safe here."

She wanted to. In fact, Kaif was doubling his shift on being a runner just to gather enough money for them to flee. He promised her a month before his crunched body ended up in a wooden box.

"The Clamber isn't habitable anymore. President Artha doesn't even care who dies and who crumbles. I promise you, little sister, that we're getting out of this place in a year. You just have to trust me, okay?"

She restrained her tears. She tried, but she failed. It was embarrassing to cry in front of these rebels who saw death every day.

"We need to go," the older soldier spoke. "They might find us here. We need to report back."

"Right on." The young one patted Kayla on the back. She winced at the touch. "Take care, kid."

The sun finally rose when Kayla and her sister finished their businesses in the mortuary. There were a lot of papers to be signed, mostly about where his body would be burnt and where should his ash be sprawled.

For some reason, the government had a law for cremations, that family members weren't allowed to see the procession until it was finished. Supposedly, it was based on a tradition popularized by the Marais religion, so Kayla couldn't complain. Anything in her goddess' scripture was an unquestionable rule.

"You're not going to school anymore... not ever." Kaia wiped the remains of her tears. She walked with that bloating mannerism, her feet striding with ego, unlike Kayla who ushered like a shy goose.

"Why?" Surprisingly wasn't as shocked as she should have been.

"You want to get out of this hellhole?"

As she said that, an MRT wormed through the holes inside those crowded skyscrapers. When the train passed, the sight of the Clamber took place. It was appalling, illuminated only by digital billboards and portable lights. Designed to be off the ground to avoid constant flooding, the Clamber had to exist beneath a network of elevated roadways.

"Yes," she answered.

"Good. You'll help me work. The two of us should be able to gather enough money to escape the Clamber in five years."

Five? Kaif promised a year!

"What?" Kaia noticed her sister's disappointment. "Is five years too long for you?"

Kayla gulped. She didn't answer. Weighed by the loss of his brother, her mind was overwhelmed by the screaming thoughts of never-ending insecurities.

Finally, she shook her head. Behind her back, her fists were clenched.

"Good. We'll start tomorrow morning. Kaif's employer wants a replacement now that Kaif's dead. We'll fit in for the work."

Kayla shivered again. Her mind couldn't accept this change⸺ this decision by her sister. She barely made any friends at school, and now she had to be a runner. She had to travel through alleys in South and West Clamber, the worst parts of the already poignant area, meeting the worst people whom she feared most.

Not good.

She had to escape. Once they returned home, Kaia grabbed her ImmerseWatch and went north to the market, leaving the little sister to sob by herself, alone.

She tried to go back to sleep, to just shut her eyes and hug Lilith and just empty her mind. But she ended up out of breath, freaking out. The tears wouldn't come anymore, and now she forced herself to cry... to no avail.

But then, a knock. The metal door clanged as someone poked it, sending a shocking dread through her chest.

"Kayla." A male voice spiraled through the door. "It's Nesh."

She didn't answer. She preferred quietness for now.

"I know you're in there. I can see your shadow through the window."

That damn window.

Begrudgingly, Kayla paced for the door and yanked it open. The face of a male no taller than her took form. His skin was a darker shade of tan, if it was possible, and a ruffly hair designating to his ingenious brain. His blunt eyes stared directly towards Kayla like a confident person. She could never look someone in the eye. It felt like they were judging her through every stare.

"I⸺" Nesh never lost his words. This would be the first time. "I'm sorry... I heard about Kaif and I⸺"

"Fine. Thanks."

Kayla was about to slam the door shut, but Nesh struck and hold it. "Uncle Halma's asked me to help him with the turbines. Come with me. There'll be food."

Kayla was famished, but she couldn't bother to meet anyone. Uncle Halma was indeed one of the gentlest persons she'd ever met, maybe even more than Nesh. But he was still a human, and humans scared her. She also wasn't in any mood to be journeying up top.

"I'll pass."

"Unfortunately, I insist. Aunt Marina's stew is an artistic masterpiece. You know this."

She sighed. Her stomach growled. She nodded. "Fine. Let me get my watch."

He smiled. "Yay."

Apparently, Nesh was right. She did need a companion. He kept talking on and on and said nothing about Kaif which she was grateful for. It was a necessary distraction from her busy mind.

But the world around her was a constant reminder of the bliss she lived in. The afternoon was dark, as it was every other day. Sunbeam stroked through the layers of pollution but hazed off as it got higher into the afternoon. The air, hollow and warm, filled the atmosphere with more misery than it should.

Kayla and Nesh's boots stomped through hallways of mushed containers, their clanks drawing too much attention for predators living among the shades. Walking through the Clamber always felt like a risk. That was why she always wore that worn-down black hoodie Kaif bought her not so long ago. She felt clustered and protected, hidden from the potential danger of people's curious stares.

But the sound of their footsteps no longer became a problem when they climbed to the twenty-first level, where all the Tank Gangs grouped out, marked by the smell of poignant weed in the air. Loud music blasted through her ears; an arrangement of sounds so disgustingly primitive. Instruments of computer-generated tones with random beats and basses.

"...and she grabbed her freaking mug and poured it over Hasan's face! It was hilarious." Nesh had been telling this story since they began climbing, and she's paid him almost no attention. She appreciated his voice, though, weaving through her clustered mind like a radio in an empty home.

"Look," Nesh sighed. "I know this is hard for you, and things won't be the same anymore. I understand the feeling, Kay, I really do. But... but that's just life, you know."

A thirteen-year-old speaking about the harshness of life. That was the world they lived in, and they were the better-off people, to say the least. Many Acronians suffered under the hunkering rule of President Artha, and the war between the government and the SEU really didn't help.

And how did their friendship begin? It was rather an odd thing, considering one was an overly-shy girl and one was an overly-active Zitumi-derived boy who always got the top rank in their class.

Fate. Both of them had the same shade of skin color. Both of them were eastern islanders, from the same municipality as those terror-hungry SEUs. Both of them were bullied, despite Nesh handling it better. But easterners had to stick together.

"You're right," She caught her words. Nesh patiently waited for her to continue. "You're right that things can't be the same. I can't go to school anymore, Nesh."

"Yes, you can," Nesh commented, not knowing that she meant it literally. "If you need time, then do take it. But I will help you get through it, alright?"

"It's not that. I can't go to school anymore. Like, I'll drop out. I have to."

"What do you mean?" The dawning realization started hitting him.

"I⸺ Kaia... she... wanted me to quit."

The genuine shock was painted across his face. "What?"

"Kaia asked me to work with her. We'll be replacing Kaif to be runners for his previous employer. We don't have a choice."

"Yes, you do!"

Kayla stopped on her track. The narrow, metal hallway which led them to the twenty-second level was dark and empty. Filling this tentative tension would be Kayla's sudden urge to scream.

"I want to get out of here, Nesh! I want to go away as far as I could from this place and I'm willing to do anything to achieve that. I can't live here anymore. Being a runner is going to speed things up. I do not want to die in this forsaken place!"

Sighing, Nesh approached Kayla carefully. Her eyes gleamed downwards.

Being a runner... will tear me apart. The Clamber will break me, ripping me into pieces... and Kaia won't be able to help. She never does.

Both of them knew what runners had to do. They had to be inconspicuous, threading the underworld of the Clamber with fragility. DCs would hunt them down, and the punishment for being a runner would either be a life sentence or death in certain cases. But the salary was good, probably one of the best in the Clamber, because passing drugs from one criminal to another was always a tough job.

Kayla was not made for this.

"I'm sorry. I... I was being selfish. I underestimated your circumstances."

"It's fine. It's just five years. I'll be long gone right after. I'll leave this wretched place as soon as possible."

Nesh sighed. "Then I'll make your five years bearable."

There was a tinge of sadness in his voice as if she would leave him permanently after those five years had expired. His mouth formed a forced sympathy, an offer for the help of relatability. But beneath the layers of kindness would be a pain.

Kayla considered responding. She considered saying something... anything... to her best friend who did and would still be making her days bearable without her own realization. She even considered hugging him.

Instead, she changed the topic. "Let's just go. Uncle Halma's waiting."

So, proceeding from the twenty-second level of the Clamber would be the winding, thin-layered stairs spiraling upwards to a hole on the side of Highway One. There would be nothing between the stairs' handles to the inevitable height of certain death. Kayla had no fear of height, but she did imagine herself slipping a few times, her body tumbling through each of the twenty-two levels of stacked metal platforms before hitting the constantly-flooded ground below, her blood pooling on the brown water. Her head crushed open, her brain spewing, turned into mice food.

"Just... don't look down," Nesh said to himself, his voice faltering. He crept awkwardly up the stairs, his body a perfect crux at the center of the staircase, his feet tremoring as the wind breezed through his skin.

Kayla suppressed her laughter. It was funny seeing him like this, cringing like a little kid, fearing nothing but the mind-numbing sight of direct fall.

"Ah, we're here." He sighed, relaxed now the hard part was over.

Cars and trucks wheezed by, dampening the loud post-rock music beneath them. It was always an odd sight. Kayla rarely went up here, but it was still a mesmerizing panorama.

A unison of flow. Trucks, buses, and cars, all racing towards two different directions. One from Balla Cita and one towards. Kayla admired the vehicles' complicated concepts; codes and programs acting as brains to command the electrical engine so the wheels could spin and the engines would rev.

She imagined the passengers, all with different agendas, some probably richer than others. It was such an amazing fantasy, thinking about what business one car took its passengers into.

Highway One was probably the loudest, most dangerous place in East Balla Cita. It was technically passed by thousands of people every hour, but the utter ignorance of every individual felt like freedom to Kayla's mind. It felt so peaceful, almost strangely so, like no one would harm her in a sense. There was an atmospheric safety of being on this elevated highway.

"Through here," Nesh said.

He nestled between three layers of concrete fences half the height of his body and walked around a quarter mile on the side of the road into Kilometer 35. Every two hundred meters of the road would be a vertical wind turbine stapled on the concrete fence. It was shaped like a normal wind turbine, just that its rotor faced upwards, and from the side, the curvy blades looked like an onion. When the wind moved the turbine, electricity was produced, and then the generators would direct the energy towards Clamber homes, powering stoves to fridges, and directing electricity for those gargantuan screens and holographs.

Kayla, being an artistic-minded fellow, frowned at the shapes of these turbines. She rubbed her head, her mind wavering through the early ideas and concepts, and how people came up with the vertical turbine in the first place.

"Four-thousand-eight-hundred-and-twenty-one of these bad boys had been installed, the latest being at the start of the elevated highway. Uncle Halma installed that one, see?"

Nesh pointed to the next turbine, though a shadow trailed beside it.

"Uncle Halma!"

Nesh and Kayla walked faster. Uncle Halma, his stature big and fat, half his face covered by a mask, shook his head at the sight of the two.

"Where are your damn masks?"

Nesh and Kayla lived in the Clamber all their lives, and dust or smoke would be air to their lungs. Though Highway One would be tall and windy enough for the unhealthiness of unnatural particles to get into their lungs, their lives had always been at health risk since birth.

The Earth was like a car on fire, and the wheel remained driverless.

"Thankfully, I've been mindful enough to bring backups for you, ignorant babies."

The two small-sized protective masks were synthetic-made with two snots of filtering components. The shape reminded her of medieval muzzles.

Uncle Halma landed his eyes on Kayla after she'd tied the mask's knot. Sympathy was drawn there, though the last thing she needed was more people pitying her. Pity wasn't tolerable in the days of the Great Mother.

"I heard about... about your brother. I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

"Tell you what? Stick around with me and Nesh long enough and you might earn yourself some money. I'll give you twenty-five percent of what I get every month. You'll help me fix these things and probably learn a couple of mechanical terms along the way."

Halma offered Kaif a job once, but he declined because the profit was less than a quarter of what he earned as a runner. It also required massive skillsets in engineering and physics, both of which Kaif did not have.

This time, Halma's offer was a charity. It was founded on pity, not need.

She respectfully declined.

"Sorry... I⸺ Kaia got us a job and I... I got to stick with her."

"I understand." He did. He knew exactly what the job was from the look on her face. "Well. At least accept this then."

It was a thermos with hot stew inside. She could smell the wafting scent of mushroom and pepper nailed into the reddish water. The texture was odd, almost thick and moist, but after gulping several chunks of it, she felt rather satisfied. The stew was rich in flavor.

"Good?"

She nodded.

"So," Nesh hailed. "What's happened to this bad boy?"

"Glad you asked. The gearbox busted. But thankfully, it's a pretty simple fix. Help me fetch that screwdriver, Nesh."

It was two hours until everything was finished. By then, sweat plagued Kayla's body, drenching her with grease. Still, she refused to take the jacket off.

"And... we're done." Uncle Halma turned the drill off, then packed everything in his slender bag and stood. He drank a weird juice of dark yellow and burped. Nesh openly laughed.

"Come with me. I have something to show you two."

Walking through the boringly straight path on the side of Highway One was oddly peaceful for Kayla. No unending punk music, no blinding screens showing half-naked women, no welding machine working all day, and no constant tremor of speech from other people she didn't know.

She throttled slowly on the back, her hands tucking in her hoodie pockets. She felt the zephyr tracking through the vehicles to her right.

Staring at the dust-filled sky, she could see nothing but the faint smile of the sun above the umbrella of greyness. She wondered, what would be up there?

Does the world end the higher you get? Are those skyscrapers higher than the sky?

According to her holy Scripture, the Great Mother Mara once cast a thunderous storm towards the tallest tower at the time, striking the tip with a hundred lightning bolts. Heathens built that tower, decorating it with ornaments of fire symbols. The symbol of breakthrough. She punished those makers for being blinded by atheistic purposes, claiming they were higher than gods. In the end, thousands of people were deafened by their own language. They could not understand each other.

The Great Mother punished those who consider themselves god. But around her, there were dozens of skyscrapers with no end in sight.

Would they be punished? Were her days numbered? She hoped so.

She repeated this imagination. She thought of the Great Mother casting her magic down into Acronia, punishing all the people in it. How beautiful would that be?

"We're here."

Uncle Halma stopped in his track only to admire the concrete structure forming in front of him. He ignited a cigar and exhaled, the stream of smoke disappearing like a quenching fire. Kayla was too busy with her wavering mind that the tower in front of her never entered her vision until now. It was a thin thing, its hexagonal shape jutting upwards toward the sky, and she couldn't see the top.

"What's this, unc?"

"Used to be a watchtower to regulate flying cars' traffics... you know, before they were banned. Now it's abandoned. Fun little playground, this place. Has all the toys and all that jazz. Let's go."

It looked like a fancy rod with flailing paint, but the inside was fancier, though gloomier, than the outside. LED lamps glittered when Uncle Halma flipped the switch, a surprise that the facility still had running electricity in the first place.

There was a lift sitting at the center, though it looked barely fitting for three people.

"Are there stairs instead?" Nesh asked, his teeth gritting with panic. "You know... for alternative measures."

"Behind that door. Can't trust the lift anyway."

During the climb, Kayla scanned the rough texture of the concrete walls. Following them along the handle would be a fascinatingly intricate neon lighting, with its line uncut from bottom to top, illuminating the staircase with minimum and conservative energy.

Uncle Halma opened the top door and empty air rushed to meet them. Kayla jittered, expecting something to crawl out from the dusty room, perhaps a creature from her worst nightmare. Nothing welcomed them, though, except the sheer amount of spider webs and broken glass. The tip of the tower, where they stood now, was surrounded by a three-sixty view with its interconnecting windowpane. Miraculously, they could even see Highway One and the Clamber since the glass leaned downwards. It also wasn't high enough for the dust to cover everything in their eyesight, making it the perfect place to relax, to be lost in the sea of silence.

Kayla could cry finding such a remarkable place. If only Halma and Nesh weren't here, though without them she wouldn't even know this place.

"This is incredible!" Nesh said, breaking the silence.

"Some of the glasses are broken. Don't get too close."

"I sure won't," Nesh answered.

"What do you think?" Uncle Halma asked. He could see her doping eyes, buzzing in the dampened excitement of a twelve-year-old.

This is the greatest place I've ever been in. This is what the heavens are like. "It's perfect."

"Well, wait 'till you see what's on that cabinet."

Behind some abandoned control panels would be three sets of grey cabinets. Nesh pulled the drawer Uncle Halma pointed towards and extended his arm to reach something. His eyes glimmered before showing it to Kayla.

"It's an Immersiveboard!" Nesh shrieked.

Kayla's eyes grew wide. With a calm demeanor she approached Nesh who smiled at her.

"Does it work?" Kayla asked.

Nesh took this as a cue and began flipping the rectangular tablet. He strode to the nearest terminal and plugged the extension cable into the portable charger, and the screen of the Immersiveboard blazed onto their excited faces.

"The true wonder of an Immersiveboard is the pen," Uncle Halma added.

Kayla knew that. She'd been staring at the holographic advertisement near Clamber's market since she was a kid, admiring the constant changes and updates to the model.

The tablet part of an Immersiveboard is basically a screen that you can draw on, but the pen was another story. Kayla picked the skinny piece of plastic from the convenient slot next to the tablet and pushed the tip of the pen until the little dot in the center glowed purple. Then, she pushed the second button near the other tip until its glow turned white.

She waved the pen around. Holographic sparks of lines appeared in front of them like a flying tint. She then spun and started creating patterns in the air, her hands wiggling up and down to draw what she had in mind.

The trail of lights formed what seemed to be a flower. Lily. She then changed the color to yellow, then to red, and lastly to purple. The light image stayed for twenty more seconds before it slowly disappeared. Kayla couldn't suppress her excitement and chuckled in delight.

She didn't realize Nesh was looking at her, glorified by the fact that she could be happy, that she hadn't always been the pessimistic, fearful girl from school.

Nesh couldn't help to laugh with her.

"There are other gadgets in this place, too. They must've left in a rush. Those boards are worth nothing to the DCs anyway." Uncle Halma took a chair and sat there with his feet lifted. He ignited another cigar and smiled.

"Thank you for showing us this," Kayla responded.

"Pleasure. You can keep them in here. No one's gonna take 'em. It'll be a bigger risk if you bring them back home."

Kayla nodded.

The two of them played with the pen for a long while before she tried the board itself. The applied software for drawing tools was so wide with expansive catalogues of colors, programs, and mods for them to explore. It was truly a wild thing for such an artistic person like Kayla.

Suddenly, a beaconing alarm rang and shook both Kayla and Nesh. Kayla's watch blipped, and the screen displayed an incoming call from her sister.

She took it.

"Where the hell are you? Come back home quickly! Our new boss wants to meet us today."

Kayla sighed. She wanted to cry, to just swear to her sister and throw her watch through the broken glass. But she nodded. "Okay. I'll go back."

"Be quick!" And the screen went blank.

All good moments must come to an end eventually.

___

Source of Picture Cover: https://id.pinterest.com/pin/358810295324761360