“I’m still not happy with this,” Lena said. She was staring off at Lucca and Catia. Lucca was settled as snuggly as he could be in a wheelchair with brows furrowed and annoyed. Behind him, Catia was holding the push handles and let out a little laugh.

“When are you happy?”

“When I’m not dealing with brats.” Lena huffed.

The wheelchair, at least from what Lucca had heard, was something his family had had in storage in preparation for a time when he’d wake up. Little had they thought back then that when he did open his eyes that he’d be perfectly able to meander about without the need of four wheels.

Lucca looked between his legs and to the little platform his sneaker-clad feet were stepped upon and grumbled silently. ‘I’m not even crippled and I’m being forced to go out like this. I’m a grown man…’ his expression soured. Something he was realizing since his return is the sheer difference between himself and Catia.

By far he was still older than her, at least technically. When he’d gotten to see his reflection he had seen he looked young, younger than any twenty-nine-year-old man had any right to be. If anything he’d liken himself to Catia’s age mid-twenties, possibly even earlier.

But then came the conversations. He couldn’t follow half the things she’d said in distraction. She spoke of complex numerations, otherworldly paradoxes and the like that even she didn’t understand fully. Even maturity, for all his teasing and poking and prodding, Catia only sent back half as many. Like to her, it was too childish a thing to do.

“Just be back soon. Thirty minutes, max.” Their father said from beside Lena, his arms crossed and a slight tilt to his lips and bags beneath his eyes. He’d been the first to say they should all go for a walk but was quickly refuted by Lena when she told him he needed to rest and Catia when she said Lucca didn’t need an army to be pushed around. That it was her job to push him around.

Of course followed by the whole ‘we’re not going to go far,’ spiel that calmed their father's nerves.

“We know dad.” Catia rolled her eyes and Henry nodded.

“Good. And Lucca,” he turned his eyes down and met with his sons grey orb, pausing slightly at the white one, “don’t overexert yourself okay?”

“Exactly how am I going to do that? I’m sitting in a chair, being pushed around. If anyone’s going to be ‘overexerted’ it’s Catia.”

Henry chuckled, “I guess so. Still, you just woke up. Take it easy.”

With a roll of his eyes and a low ‘Uh-huh,’ Catia and he said their goodbyes and she spun him towards the gate. As they got closer the thick steel barred gate whined and slid open automatically and they passed into the streets. Catia unhesitant as she brought him straight into the centre of the six-meter wide roadway.

It was silent and the wind was soft, bringing with it the scent Lucca could only liken to an abandoned city housed by the remnants of humanity. There were smells of smoke, of bread and meals being cooked, but no sound. There were buzzes here and there that drew his head upwards to the gangly streetlights blaring down silver light over the road and sidewalks but otherwise, there was nothing else but the sway of the wind.

“It feels abandoned.” He muttered.

Catia with a puff began to push him forwards before responding. “It basically is,” his wheels were silent as he watched a star flicker in and out of existence. “I think before everything went to hell there was like what, five… four thousand people in Haysmith? Now there’s like, barely a tenth of that and for a big part, they’re all Sparks. It’s too dangerous around here not to mention…”

As Catia trailed off, Lucca’s gaze was drawn towards the side where an open field stood, not a park, far from in fact. It was about the size of one of the smaller houses plus yards. No house stood there, not even a skeleton or evidence thereof. Instead, there was grass and a few faint hues of yellow and white from the flowers peeking through the tufts of green.

Looking past it and down the street he could see more of such plots, green and luscious, each interspersed infrequently between a standing building. The further Catia pushed him the more they appeared, the buildings dwindled until the houses became like spikes of rocks in a field. Out of place in this almost natural setting.

Lucca twisted in his seat and looked past Catia, it was gradual yet somehow so sudden the shift from habitation to nature. The only things seemingly unaffected by the rising verdure being the asphalt of the street and the sidewalks. Though the sidewalks were cracked with dandelions pushing through the gaps.

“Did all of these…” Lucca paused, he already knew the answer to that question.

Catia nodded, “things were bad after the rifts appeared. I mean, it’s not like they’ve all been taken down by the monsters.” She didn’t finish and Lucca wasn’t tempted to press her for more.

Licking her lips, Catia turned her gaze to the stars and hummed, “you know. I’ve never really looked at the stars since… everything. They’re so clear.” She began to laugh, “I remember back then we barely saw any on a cloudless night.”

He followed her gaze, up there, he didn’t care about those twinkling diamonds. Like flowers drifting across the ocean, they were mere accentuations of the beautiful onyx abyss that housed them so kindly.

“It’s beautiful.”

A smile drew to his lips, taking Catia’s heart with a touch of happiness. To her, it was miraculous how calmly he was taking everything. It was insane, but calming… In its own unusual way.

With a smile tweaking her lips upwards at the corner she kept walking. Their conversations turned silent to simply enjoy the night as it kissed them with its cool autumn touch.

In the distance, Lucca began to see lights, bright ones, brighter than the street lights, spotlights he quickly surmised. Like those found in overlooking football stadiums.

“We should turn back now,” Catia said drawing Lucca’s wheelchair to a halt.

He glanced over her shoulder and saw a slight fear take to her eyes as she looked off to the origin of those lights. Buildings, thick concrete buildings where faintly Lucca could see the odd silhouetted figure wandering about.

“Is that where the rift is?” he asked.

Catia was hesitant to answer but did so still, “mmm.” Though it was more a whimpering hum than a proper answer.

“What are they like,” Lucca crossed his hands over his lap, clenching and unclenching his fingers till he felt his knuckles and joints crack.

“They… are different. It’s hard to really explain. Some go to deserts, some to the middle of an ocean, others into ruins and castles. You never know what’s in them.” Catia said.

“What’s this one like?” he then asked.

She kept still for a bit and chewed her lip. “Hell.” A tremor stole her eyes as her cheeks were sucked in giving her a gaunt and haunted visage of an expression. Before Lucca could ask anything else, she began to spin him around, ready to send off back to their home.

“Wait,” he said with urgency, “I’d like to see it myself.” He was hopeful.

“Absolutely not!” Catia didn’t even need to think before she blurted that out. “It’s too dangerous. At any moment a monster could run out of there and I’m not risking your life when I just got you back.”

A brow rose then fell, “aren’t there a bunch of sparks there to protect me?”

“Oh, there’s a lot.” She said, “still, it’s not a place for you to go. Rifts are just, no go zones for civvies. It’s too dangerous.”

“Even if I stay far away from it?”

“Even if you stay far away.” There was no changing her mind, that Lucca immediately realized. She would send odd offhandish looks, twists of her eyes to check the area as if expecting something to come rushing out at any moment. Even her hands clasped tighter his push handles till her digits went white.

Lucca sighed and returned his arms to their rests and gripped the front of them. “Understood,” with that he pushed himself to his feet and stepped off his little platform, his knees popping as he did so.

“Lucca, what are you doing. Sit down,” an ominous premonition took her as she watched her brother stretch slightly, earning a few more pops from his joints.

“Going for an actual walk.” He said and took a single step down the road.

“Uh-uh, get back here! You are not going anywhere near that thing!” she was almost desperate to stop him.

Catia gave chase with his wheelchair on his heel as if ready to catch him should he fall backwards should he stumble even slightly. He didn’t even stagger his stride or pause to recoup his breath.

“Seriously Lucca! You can’t just go up to a Rift. That isn’t how this works.”

A whistling noise of engines grew louder the closer he came. Soon joined by the odd chattering noise of men and women doing whatever it is they do around places like that. Card games he guessed.

“You need training, and licenses, and supervision, and strength, and, and, and so much else. Just being near these things is a threat to our lives.” She was half tempted to ram the wheelchair forwards, get it to hit the underside of his knees and force him to buckle into it but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. She just wasn’t confident she wouldn’t accidentally break his leg doing that.

“I’ve died two times already Catia. Came close a few dozen times more. I doubt looking at whatever the hell a rift is, is going to get onto that list.”

“You don’t know that! What if a drake comes through and-and incinerates us all.”

For that his stride paused and relief filled Catia. That was until he looked back at her with a slight sparkle to his eyes.

“I’ve never seen one of those before.” He said, “I saw a few dragonmen slaves on Marga but never actual drakes. Wait no, dragonmen have wings, drakes don’t. Different species?” mulling the thought his stride restarted and Catia let out an aching whine.

Quickly she released the wheelchair and rushed before her brother and forcibly stopped him by putting her hands on his chest. “No. Seriously Lucca. This is too dangerous. Please, just sit down so we can go back and take a nap. You just woke up, you need to recover from that. You still have a tube in your stomach!”

He understood that very well in fact. He simply didn’t care. He’d spent enough time following the laws of others, it was about time he took things into his own hands for once and took back his lacking agency.

Setting a hand over hers, he pulled her hands from his chest and gave Catia the most reassuring of squeezes he could while keeping silent.

“Get in the chair.” She said.

“No.”

Lucca pushed Catia’s hand’s to the side and slid around her leaving her gobsmacked that he’d refuse her like that.

“Lucca!” he didn’t respond, “mom and dad will literally kill me if anything happens to you!” she stomped her foot down one final time but still, he didn’t respond. “Lucca!” watching his back draw ever closer to the concrete bunkers charred black by hellfire, she could only whine. “Goddammit, I don’t remember you being such an ass!” Kicking at a pebble by her feet she curled her hands to claws and let out a frustrated cry.

When she calmed she grumbled curses to herself and with a light jog came to Lucca’s side.

“Five minutes.” She growled.

Lucca hooked an arm around her shoulder and laughed as she just as quickly tugged his handoff and took a sharp, well-trained posture and grew a face of dire seriousness.

“Barely two days in and you’re already a pain in my ass.”