After I recovered from my moment of existential panic, I calmed down a bit. I was still well and truly afraid of the monsters roaming the city but I now had time to think of a way to survive.

I had made it this far without injury. I just needed to stay quiet and move out of sight or through the decaying buildings.

My current hiding spot was a large chimney. I managed to squeeze myself up past the damper, making it so I couldn’t be seen from the fireplace below. I was thankful that the fireplace wasn’t covered in ancient soot. It hardly looked like it had ever been used judging by how clean it was from the inside. There was a thick layer of dead vegetation covering the remaining flue and some bricks missing that allowed me a partially obstructed view of the street. But it was the best I could do.

I had my bag tucked between my feet. It served as a cushion to rest on when I got tired of standing while I surveyed the street for any movement. It was difficult to get into the sitting position but I could tuck my legs to my chest and sit down with a bit of effort. If I didn’t have the pack to keep my butt raised slightly, there would have been a good chance I could have gotten stuck in this chimney.

I chuckled silently at the thought of dying by becoming stuck in some ancient unused chimney, instead of being torn apart by the demented creatures roaming around outside. Gallow's humor didn’t do me any good right now so I tried occupying my mind with other topics and away from the desperate situation that I found myself in.

I had food, I had water, and I was alive and uninjured. Until one of those changed, I needed to focus on the goal.

There was still a bit of light so I took out the map I had cobbled together from third-hand accounts. After the short time spent inside the city, I already knew it was mostly useless, so I flipped it over and began sketching what I had remembered seeing while I was entering the city – running for my life – and in the toppled building on top of the others. That one alone had given me the best view of the interior of the city.

I remembered that the buildings looked like they got larger the farther I moved into the city. The ones that still stood at least. I had also noticed entire roads choked by fallen debris. I would need to keep clear of those paths. Scrambling over a bunch of loose rocks would not end well.

Then there was the forest growth to deal with. The area inside the city was untouched wilderness as far as humanity was concerned. Some of the trees I had seen, towered over the larger buildings. I couldn’t even imagine how long a tree would need to grow to become that large. Very little was known about when the ancestors disappeared. One book I read, hypothesized the ancestors disappeared over four hundred generations ago. I had a hard time fathoming a timeframe that long.

In another book, the author declared the author of the first book to be an idiot and that technically, all people alive today were still ancestors because we sprang from the loins of the survivors. While I understood his claim to be true… his take on the matter made him very unpopular since nobody alive wanted to be lumped in with the people that brought about the downfall of humanity.

In the end, the timeframe didn’t much matter and the information in the books I read was nothing more than postulation. It was safe to say it happened a long time ago judging by the state of the city.

I finished my crude charcoal map and looked it over one last time, comparing it to what I recalled seeing. I let out a quiet sigh, knowing it wasn’t much help. What I did notice though was that I needed to skirt around the center of the city. Whatever magic the ancestors used to build their towering structures was failing and if the routes I had seen were filled with rubble, what would the unseen streets look like.

The smart move would be to stick to the outer edge of the city and the normal houses. But I saw two issues there. One, it seemed whatever those buildings had been constructed of had long since decayed, leaving dangerous little hills and possible pitfalls as you had no idea what was below them. The other problem was the patrols.

I didn’t know for certain but it would make sense that the monsters lurking on the outskirts were thicker than toward the center. They wanted to get free of the city more than I did. But it was an educated guess based on the teachings of the Father. His minions were created to eliminate mankind. There was no argument about that fact.

With that in mind, I planned to weave my way northeast and skirt the center of the city. If this turned out to be a bad idea I would rethink my plans. But I needed to hurry. I had figured on making it much deeper into the city today but with the shadows lengthening and the riled-up monsters, I just couldn’t risk it.

***

Startled awake, I barely managed to stop myself from screaming out in surprise when I found myself in a tightly enclosed space. Thankfully my disoriented state went away quickly and I remembered where I was before I committed a deadly mistake. I realized I must have passed out from exhaustion sometime during the night. Waking up in the pitch black of night, stuffed into a chimney wasn’t doing my nerves any favors. I waited for my rapidly beating heart to settle before I slowly scooched myself to a standing position.

My entire body was stiff and sore. I slowly and carefully worked out the kinks as I looked out from the hole in the chimney to take in the street.

The full moon was out and it cast its eerie silvery-blue glow across the open ground. I froze when I saw the telltale red eyes of the monsters as they quietly stalked the dead city. What surprised me was how few I saw. It wasn’t hard to spot them in the darkness, their eyes seemed to not only be the color of blood, but they also gave off a soft red glow. It wasn’t enough to light up the area in the darkness but it made them stand out much clearer than they did in the daylight.

It was good to know in case I got desperate and needed to move at night. Although, I wasn’t going to risk that unless I had no other choice.

I found it fascinating to watch the monsters from safe within my hiding place. Eventually, I noticed something. A group of two that I had been watching, disappeared down a side street and out of view but twenty minutes later the same two returned. I knew it was the same two because one was short and the other was freakishly tall. The only thing I could tell for certain was they were both four-legged, all other details were hidden by the darkness and distance.

I watched again and silently counted in my head. Sure enough, twenty-two minutes later, the same pair came loping past. As I began studying the other monsters, they all shared the same pattern. Some were gone longer than others but all would return after a set amount of time.

I realized they were on a set patrol, it seemed odd that monsters would patrol like this but I didn’t really know anything about them. It also explained how the scavengers knew exactly when to enter the city each day. There must have been a couple of minute gap between patrols along that section of the city, allowing for entry. Good for sneaking in if you knew the pattern, bad for getting back out since you would need to find a place to watch the exterior patrols without being spotted.

With that information, I also realized someone had majorly screwed up. I wasn’t sure how they did it but they somehow alerted a patrol early. It’s the only thing that made sense but I hadn’t heard anything that would have given away the runners.

When I thought back to the sprint, one face kept coming to mind. I came to a disturbing possibility and I wanted to curse and swear but I satisfied myself by clenching my fist and quietly grinding my teeth in anger. Lydan, that snake. He was one of the first runners to disappear, it wouldn’t have taken much for him to toss a stone or something, alerting a nearby monster patrol. Who else but him would know the patrols so well. He had managed to survive seven times even if he did return empty-handed. That seemed rather suspicious to me now that I knew the behavior of the monsters.

Then I thought back on all the people I had seen in the camp. Some people obviously stayed behind. I wanted to groan and slap myself for being such a hasty fool. Why risk running into the city to earn money. Just collect the shit left behind by fools like me. Who was going to argue against it if they were dead?

I’m sure I wasn’t the first idiot to overpack for a trip into the city. I wanted to think Navae wasn’t involved in this con but she had conveniently come up to me and told me all the horrors she had seen and offered me free advice to be as quick as possible. Which conveniently meant leaving everything behind. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that my conclusions were spot on.

Part of me felt like such a fool. Being the son of a merchant I should have looked past her innocent helpful demeanor and asked myself what she was truly after. Who is crazy enough to want to study the Father’s minions? But in my youthful exuberance, at seeing the city and being so close to my goal, I had forgotten that life lesson. I remember my father telling me, “the best cons are wrapped in a thin layer of truth.”

Following my father around when I was younger and watching him work gave me insight into merchant life, which is why I knew that merchants weren’t much better than conmen. My father had laughed when I got angry and called him a conman one time. His response to my outburst was to say he preferred the term businessman. I didn’t get the joke at the time, only realizing what he meant weeks later.

While a part of me loathed being made a fool, the other part of me applauded their well-thought-out con. Going by what I knew, it was obvious that Navae was the brains behind the plan. She was smart enough to not risk her life running into the city.

I wondered if everyone that stayed behind was in on it? No, probably not. They needed people to survive and even get rich making runs into the city to keep this little hustle going. While I applauded their scheme, I wouldn’t forget their actions here. After I get out of this city, I was going to pay them a visit.

***

As soon as I saw the horizon start to glow, I crawled from my hiding place.

By now I had all of the local monster patrols timed. In ten minutes, there would be a clear route. I was going to follow the path of the pair of patrolling creatures for as long as it went in the direction I was heading. I would need to take care to remain out of sight and quiet but now that I knew what to look for it shouldn’t be too difficult.

Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I slipped my pack back on. I would need to cover a significant amount of ground today to make up for my disappointing performance yesterday. At least my pack was slightly lighter now that I had drank some of my water and eaten some rations.

With that done I started tiptoeing my way to the entrance of the building. The beam over the door had collapsed sometime in the past, leaving a triangular opening clear of debris. I stood in the shadow of this opening and looked down the side of the street I hadn’t been able to see from my hiding spot.

It didn’t take me long to pick out the form of a monster moving quietly through the thick plant growth. It appeared I was lucky, the monster was moving away from my position. My one worry was that there would be a monster patrol on this side that covered the absence of the other patrols.

When my mental count reached three minutes, I saw the pair of monsters round a street corner up ahead. I figured three minutes behind them was plenty of space. I couldn’t wait any longer or I would be spotted by another patrol. Time ticked down and with fifteen seconds to go, I made my move.

As quietly as I could, I moved across the street but speed was more important right now.

When I reached the corner of the decrepit building, I breathed out in success. Now I just needed to follow the monsters and avoid any others.

I slowly made my way down the weed-choked street. The monsters had worn a path in the grass, making it easy to move along but also easier to be spotted. Still, I used the path for a bit, until I got to the next intersection.

Taking a moment, I paused inside a building and surveyed for more monsters. I spotted one of the creatures heading in this direction and I held my breath, squeezing myself as far back into the shallow alcove of the building as I could and hoping the shadows concealed me.

I didn’t have to worry about being spotted, the monster turned down an alley farther up and vanished from sight. Seeing no other monsters, I slipped from my hiding spot and continued around the corner. I was now heading north again.

As I moved, I thought back. I had known about the scavengers for years. “Idiots who braved the city for riches,” most people told me when I asked about them. I remembered asking a few of the passing merchants why these men never became gifted or returned with a calling. Most of the merchants just shrugged. A few others just spouted religious dogma about how they were unworthy. But there was one merchant that knew.

“The only people that become Chosen must exit the city through the Gate of Light. It matters not where you enter, only where you choose to exit.”

I remember saying, “a smart man would enter right next to the gate and just exit right after.”

The merchant had laughed at this, saying “that would be a wise choice if it worked.”

I had later learned that nobody had ever been picked by the Mother to be a Chosen unless they spent at least a full day under the Father’s glare. It also seemed that a Chosen with a powerful Terrani calling had walled off a large section of the city near the gate. This effectively made it impossible to enter anywhere near the gate. And I now knew why it was suicidal to stand inside the stone border markers so entering through the Gate of Light and waiting wasn’t an option as you would quickly be spotted by a patrol. No, the Mother needed capable warriors, not cheats.

Once again I reached an intersection and had to make a choice. I didn’t see any monsters so I crossed over the street and started looking for a good vantage point to scout from for a bit.

I heard a soft crunch behind me and froze.

My head slowly turned toward the noise and I spotted a squirrel sitting on a chunk of rock and looking away from me. I went to slowly move away but its head whipped around and the beady red eyes of a monster stared directly at me.

It opened its mouth and I tensed to run, then I paled as its mouth unhinged like a snake and it emitted a high-pitched piercing scream that seemed to go on forever. The noise set my teeth on edge and I bolted down the street.