Several days passed before their supplies began to run low. One night they stopped at a farming village to get what they needed and to get a good night’s rest. From there, they travelled for two more days before Auksand came into view. To Arvin’s great relief, the gates were still open.

“Monti, Matthew, I want you to come with me into the city. Breanna and George, stay outside the entrance and help to get people out.”

“Ok.”

“Good luck,” George and Breanna said before the groups split and Arvin closed his gas valve, allowing him to descend towards Auksand.

“Hey! Stop! You are not permitted to enter this city!” A policeman shouted as aeronauts descended past Auksand’s gates. “Auksand is in quarantine!”

“When do the gates close?” Monti demanded and the policeman made a small whimpering sound. He wasn’t used to seeing aeronauts, let along engaging with them. He glanced at his watch before he looked up at Monti and straightened his posture.

“In an hour.”

“Right! Down!” Arvin shouted, and the trio of aeronauts descended into the centre of Auksand. Crowds quickly began to gather around the glass as people were filled with awe, curiosity and shock. To many of them, aeronauts and their airships had just been characters in books.

“Go! Get out! They’re going to permanently lock the gates!”

“You’re going to be trapped in here forever! For your own sake, get out!”

“Seatle is real! You’ll die from poisoned air if you don’t leave now!” The aeronauts called and the people turned to one another and asked things like,

“Seatle? Is it true? The gas killed all of those people?”

“Are they really going to close the gates?”

“I thought that aeronauts weren’t real, and now they’re telling us that we need to leave our homes?” Most continued muttering while they watched the aeronauts descend deeper while others realised what they had meant and began moving up the tiers. As the aeronauts got deeper, the response changed. There was less murmuring and more movement as people began to surge upwards, towards the surface.

“Arvin!” Yelled Belmont and he turned to him.

“Belmont! It’s good to see you again friend! Can you find Talia for me and get her out!”

“I can’t. She’s been locked up on tier 14. The prison bars are on your side. I’m sure that you’ll be able to pull them off with a rope and some force. I will help people to get up to the surface and out.”

“Thank you, Belmont!”

“It’s my pleasure, and it’s good to see you too friend!” Belmont called before he helped to usher people up the stairs. Arvin left Monti and Matthew to continue descending and convincing people to leave. Around him, the panic was growing on each tier and people were swarming up towards tier 1.

Matthew watched as policemen arrived at the mines and closed the doors, before making them secure. The miners behind it crowded together and forced their weight against the doors, but they refused to budge. After a few moments, they turned to the aeronauts and an idea came into Monti’s head.

“Down!” He ordered them and the miners instantly understood his plan. They moved downwards, leaving the police above them baffled as they descended to the lowest part of the mines, where it was open to the centre of the city.

“Monti! What are you doing!” Matthew bellowed as he watched his brother descend lower, into a space where even the smallest airship would have difficulty fitting into. He then glanced upwards and saw Arvin unlooping the rope from the side of his airship. Auksand was now filled with cries, heavy footsteps and shouts. Police were barking out orders, barring people’s way and purposefully hurting them to impair their escape. Arvin threw the rope towards the glass wall and a hand reached out from between steel bars and grabbed a hold of it. Arvin had found Talia, and Belmont had been right. The windows to the cells on tier 14 overlooked the centre. They were the only part of the structure that wasn’t reinforced glass.

Quickly, Talia tied the rope around the bars and made sure that it was secure. She was lucky that all the prison guards had been called away, and that none had considered the notion that the prisoners may escape by breaking into the centre. Arvin re-opened his gas valve and began ascending as Talia stood away from the wall, and then with an almighty, crash! The wall was pulled off in one solid piece and it hung on the end of the rope.

Arvin then looked down to see Talia poke her head out from the cell.

“Well? What now?” She called as shouts came from behind her and the guards began to rally back to the prison.

“Jump!” Arvin shouted down to Talia, not being able to think of anything else. She would either have to jump, for face being trapped in Auksand where she and everyone else would die, and he knew which option he’d rather her take. “Jump!” He shouted again and Talia disappeared from his view.

From below, Matthew was watching the scene and after a few seconds, a fast-moving shape leapt out of the hole into the chasm of the centre and landed with a hard thwack, onto the wall that was hanging in the air. A hand then gripped the rope so tightly that it caused the knuckles to turn white. Talia looked up at Arvin once she knew that she was safe, for the moment at least.

“Yes!” Arvin cried out in joy before he opened the valve further and his airship began ascending. A few moments later, a prison guard and three policemen arrived at the hole and looked upwards.

“We’re closing the gates now,” Said the policeman, and Matthew’s heart dropped.

“Monti! We have to go!” He shouted below him, just able to make out the top of his brother’s airship. Nothing but silence came back to him, and he had no choice. He opened his gas valve and began ascending after Arvin.

As the centre got winder, he was able to pass Arvin, as the weight of the wall was slowing his airship down. “Can’t you cut it free Arvin?”

“Not without risking Talia’s life.”

“I could have had her jump across to my airship,” Matthew realised, but it was now too late. There was a sicking crack above them as metal gears began turning and the gates began closing.

“Shit. Where’s Monti?”

“He went down to the bottom of the mines to rescue people.”

“He needs to get up here now,” Arvin said as he looked below him and he saw the faint shape of Monti’s airship. However, with the gates closing, and the wall already slowing him down, he had no time to go back for Monti. Unfortunately, there was nothing that either he or Matthew could do without risking their own fates and, even then, the centre that far down only had enough space for one airship.

“I shouted to him, but I don’t know if he heard.”

“We don’t have a choice Matthew. Go, I’ll be right behind you,” Arvin ordered him and Matthew reluctantly agreed. Arvin was right, and Monti knew that there was only limited time. Matthew kept ascending and on his way up, he saw the huge crowds of people that were now racing to get out. As they got higher, they were becoming slower, and there was a bottleneck on tier 1.

Matthew saw the barricade first. It was a thick line of policemen, standing strong and driving riot shields against the hoards of people that were trying to get out. Farmers, businessmen, miners and factory workers were all trying to get out and they were all being pushed back by the police. Every now and again, someone would push through and there would be a brief flurry of people before the police managed to close the hole up once more. Soon another hole appeared and it was closed up. Then another. And another.

As Matthew continued to rise, he saw Brenna and George fighting against the barricade and helping people to escape. They were thrusting their limps between the riot shields before trying to squeeze their bodies in after them to create an opening. They were struggling and fighting the police in order to help to get people through.

“This is for your own good! Don’t make it worse!” Matthew heard one of the policemen shout as they forced their barricade violently against the crowd.

“We’re trying to protect you!” Another policeman called as he hit people with his baton. More police pulled out their batons and Brenna tried to snatch them out of their hands.

“Would you be calm! We don’t want you to be harmed,” A policeman called as he clobbered someone over the head.

“Come on!” George cried out as he managed to get a hole open and the shadow of one of the gates moved over him.

“George! George, we have to go!” Breanna cried out as the gates continued closing and their escape was being cut off.

“No! We have to help, we have to!”

“George! We have to go now or our fate will be the same as theirs,” Brenna told him forcefully and George looked at her. After a few seconds, George moved and they raced to the exit.

“Arvin, you have to cut the weight or you’re not going to make it,” Monti said and Arvin turned to see him ascending fast beside him with an airship full of miners.

“I can’t, not without risking Talia’s life,” Arvin replied before the gates reached the edge of the centre and screams came from all the people who were now forever trapped. There was a loud crash as someone attempted to smash through the glass with a large chunk of metal. Grief filled Arvin and Monti’s hearts as they watched the crowd still trying to struggle against the barricade, even though their escape route had been sealed off. Nothing man-made could break the glass, even though it had been made by men themselves. The only glass every to shatter in a city was done so by an earthquake that had been strong enough to rip the gates open.

Shadows moved over Arvin’s airship as Monti cleared the gates and ascended into the open air, accompanied by cheers from the miners in his gondola. Arvin’s envelope, however, kissed the two gates and it just about managed to squeeze through, which caused Arvin’s gondola to be swung and for Talia to be swung further. There was a heavy thump as the wall collided with the glass and a small piece of it fell away.

“Arvin!” Talia shouted as she stood on top of the wall, clutching onto the rope with both hands but too afraid to try to climb it.

“I know, but we’re going to make it!” Arvin shouted back in optimism as the gates began to close in and he braced for the impact. Between the strong metal gates, with the sky above and the deep centre of Auksand looming below, Arvin’s gondola was turned sideways and caught in-between the gates.

As the mechanism of the gates continued turning, the gondola was crushed, caving the structure in on itself and towards Arvin’s body. As it continued to contract, it became contorted and Arvin had to twist his body in order to free himself. He managed to get hold of one of the ropes and with much grunting and thrusting, he pulled himself free and climbed onto the gates. He gasped for breath before he staggered away from the gap that hadn’t quite closed up, and he looked upon the crowd of people who were watching him nervously. He could see Breanna, George, Monti and Matthew, but not. Talia.

Arvin turned to see his gondola becoming ever more distorted and misshapen as it was wedged in the gap between the gates. Soon it would be destroyed and Auksand would be closed forever. He raced back to the small opening, lay down onto his chest and stared down into the darkness of the centre.

“Talia!” He screamed before his eyes adjusted and he saw the rope hanging loose, free of its weight on the end. “No. No,” He whispered as grief, anger and loss and filled his heart. “Talia!” He screamed again before there was a jolt and Arvin was thrown to the side as the gates came within inches of their final resting place. But in that moment, Arvin could have sworn that he’d heard someone shouting his name.

“Arvin!” The shout came again and Arvin was snapped back to his senses. It hadn’t been one of his crew’s voice, instead it was closer, much closer. “Arvin!”

“Talia? Talia!” He cried out as he went back to the gap and, at the risk of losing his arm, he plunged it down, between the metal gates. A hand gripped his own and he held onto it for dear life.

Talia had found her courage and she had climbed up the rope as the airship had been making its way through the gates. Now she was hanging off a rope attached to a gondola, that was about to be destroyed.

Arvin heaved and he used all of his strength to pull her out. He had just gotten her onto the surface when the gondola finally snapped and broke in two, leaving the gates to close with an almighty might, crash!

“Are you ok?” Arvin asked Talia shakily as the adrenaline caught up with him.

“Yeah,” Talia replied as a tear rolled down her face. Her parents had been the city when the gates had closed and thoughts of her mother filled her head. Absorbed in a state of deep grief, Talia allowed herself to be led by Arvin off the gates and onto the soft grass.

“Hey,” Brenna said quietly as she embraced Talia. “You’re going to be ok,” She said simply as she held Talia in her grip. Auksand had had a population of some 23,000 people, but less than 1,000 had made it out safely. Auksand had decided that everyone should live without risk, and they had succeeded. It was now certain that they were going to die, thousands of innocent people denied a life because of one ignorant decision.