Clarke led Thomas and I clandestinely through the empty suburban streets of Tuioni, the occasional makeshift densely crowded den with homeless could be spotted as they herded around the fire pits made out of empty forty-gallon drums while keeping a nervous eye out for any malicious beasts that prowled the abandoned human settlements for prey. The night sky was overcast, blocking out the stars and leaving only a bright patch where the moons were, becoming an all-encompassing abyss, absorbing any pitiful terrestrial light sources.Iin the past when the city was alive and brimming with energy and escudos and people. And if the Barrier was still intact, did the light pollution block out the natural stellar canvas from reaching the ground.

Thomas followed closely behind Clarke whose backpack rattled with each step. Did he pack a cowbell or something in there? What was it that was rattling? If we got too close to any one of the creatures patrolling the streets they could end up hearing us and discovering our escape attempt. I followed behind Thomas as we walked in single file, only twice did I bump into him when I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have. In the distance we heard the roar of a dragon echo from an unseen location which was enough to make us all flinch.

In front of us, the scene of a multi-car collision was displayed out in the middle of the road; we stepped over a palm tree’s long pale body that had fallen to the ground as a result of a sedan that had seemingly driven into it. I thought I saw something inside the vehicle and it almost looked like the driver was hunched over with his head resting on the steering wheel. Thomas’ hand grabbed me by the shoulder and dragged me back before I got too close to see who it was. I overheard Thomas asking Clarke in a hushed tone how far to the collapsed part of the Barrier, he admitted it was still an hour’s journey away. After walking through the side gate of a white two-story house, Clarke stopped in the backyard and gestured for us to come closer, which we could see as distorted shapes in the darkness. He stuck his arm out to a shape blacker than the night sky behind it.

“See that, there?” He said in a normal voice, waving away any of the precautions we have established. “See those pillars beyond the fence? That’s the Dale expressway; if we walk underneath and follow it, it will lead us to Sanctuary Hills. Just watch where you step. Waste management usually dumped their loads underneath to save a buck.”

“Alright then, are we all ready?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah” I replied, keeping a hushed tone.

“Of course.” Replied Clarke.

All three of us proceeded to the wooden picket fence that separated the lush green backyard from the dry desert ground under the elevated expressway. Thomas was able to run towards it and reached up to scale it before swinging his feet over the top of the wooden planks. I heard a powerful thud as he landed on the other side. Clarke threw his rifle over the fence to free both his hands before throwing himself up to grab on to the top before throwing his legs against the wood. Meanwhile, I took ten steps away from the fence, I really wanted to give these new implants of mine a proper test. Shortly after taking in a deep breath, I ran toward the fence with a burst of speed and jumped short of a metre away from the fence and nearly made it over the fence, it caught me below my belly button. However, this did not stop me as I used my strength to throw my legs over the fence and I landed flat on my back on the other side letting out a loud groan after feeling the contents of the hiking bag prod itself into my back.

Thomas hissed at me to shut up, and though he probably didn’t see it on account of it being dark, I flipped him off at his casual dismissal of my pain. Clarke offered me a hand and I took as he pulled me off my back. After retrieving his weapon from the ground, we followed Thomas to the support columns of the Expressway, it didn’t take long after following in the proverbial shadow of the Expressway that we stumbled upon the massive piles of garbage filled plastic bags, it was also then that we noticed the rancid stench of whatever was decaying in those bags. Thomas reached out for me.

“Michael, your optics, you’re gonna have to lead us.” He stated as a matter of fact.

“Me!? I can’t see shit… Literally. I’m sure there is shit here that I cannot see.”

“That would not surprise me if the sewage lines run somewhere around here” Clarke chimed in.

“No,” Thomas said. “Michael, your optics is Amarian military grade gear, you have night vision installed, you gotta activate it and lead the way.”

“Why are you telling me this now!?” I said in a hushed voice. “I could have been seeing clearly this entire time?”

I felt a hand slap my chest, presumably Thomas’s “Just access your settings menu, and go to optics, the filter should be there.”

I always found this part to be the most disorienting. It was like trying to will the wall of dialogue and symbols appear before me. Usually, my coprocessor would kick in and accelerate my thought process to the point that time around me seemed to slow to a crawl. My eyesight shifted to red and the settings menu popped up. After scrolling through the settings for each of my parts, I finally settled the cursor on my optical gear which showed the filter modes. After I selected the Night vision mode and logged out of the settings menu my world around me showed up in red again only this time I could make out the filth around me such as the mountains of trash filled plastic bags that had been dumped here.

Gods, we are fucking disgusting!

I reached out to grab Thomas’ hand and instructed Clarke to do the same to form a link so I would be able to lead them in the dark. Despite the image my enhanced eyes could process I found it to be almost remarkable how little stench there was. The piles of garbage soon grew to mountainous proportions, leaving me wondering what to do. After stopping short of reaching the foot of the garbage mountain which had towered far above even the dragons that had threatened us, it became clear to me that I couldn’t keep following in the shadow of the expressway. I could probably lead us out of the support beams and follow them until we hit the turn off that takes us to Sanctuary Hills. Thomas jerked my hand to grab my attention “Michael, why did you stop? Is there something wrong?”

“No, nothing wrong. Just deciding somethin’”

Without thinking too heavily on the matter I took a tentative step to my right to navigate the garbage in front of us. We had barely taken three steps when I felt my older brother jerk my arm once more.

“What the fuck are you doing!?” He said in a hushed tone.

“What’s going on, is something wrong?” said Clarke.

While still maintaining my firm grip on my brother’s hand I turned to face him, his face was scrunched up in frustration. “There’s a mountain of garbage, we have to go around. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that we are exposed out here, if some dragon or phoenix or whatever flies spots us then we are fucked.”

I resisted the powerful urge to roll my eyes at him, Thomas looked at me as though I was oblivious to it. It wasn’t that, I just didn’t want to climb a mountain of other people’s waste. What was wrong with that?

“Don’t worry. As soon as we clear it, I’ll lead us back under the road.”

Thomas nodded but his face still had that what-the-fuck-are-you-doing expression I’ve seen from him and mum a dozen times in the past. But he seemed to approve of my idea, however hesitant. In the dark of night, I would have felt my anxiety consume me if I didn’t know Clarke and Thomas were right behind me and holding hands. Even with my night vision enabled optics it couldn’t see beyond fifteen metres and being out in the open exposed land next to the old expressway. And yet, the mountain of garbage seemed to go on as far as my eyes could process. The only other thing we had for cover out here was the burned wreckages of cars who had been disfigured beyond recognition and the occasional cactus bush. Admittedly it wasn’t that I couldn’t see beyond the fifteen-metre mark as it was harder for it to be processed and enhanced. Even though it was a moonless night I still could make out the shadow of the barrier in the distance which was only one shade darker than the night sky. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the hole in it with which we would be going through. Our advance was halted when I heard wingbeats above us, Thomas and Clarke slouched close to the ground and turned to look in the direction of where they seemed to think I was.

“Do you see it, are we safe?” Clarke asked shakily.

“No.”

I couldn’t see the dragons in the sky, most definitely it was flying high above that not even a faint shadow could be seen; chances are it probably was not within the immediate vicinity, I counted my lucky stars that it was a false alarm before we pressed on. Both my brother and senator seemed relieved when I told them the massive garbage pile was reduced to a few scattered plastic bags littered around in between the support columns and that I would be leading them back under the safety of the Expressway. None of us spoke for most of the trek through the concrete columns, occasionally one of us would point out the need to stop and pee. The silence that followed during said breaks was incredibly awkward, in the dead silence around us the sound of it hitting a surface was all that could be heard but neither of us wanted to acknowledge. After an hour of walking the off-ramp for Sanctuary Hills was finally in sight, I sighed with relief. The pain and aches my legs endured was finally worth it.

“We’re almost there.” I said to the duo behind me.

As we drew closer, familiar buildings and sights started to become recognisable. Next to where the off-ramp connected to the main road was a bar and grill that I used to always wanted to go to but never had the chance. A strange thing now seeing it powerless and damaged by a car that had ploughed right through the front facing wall. Thomas had let go of my hand and walked in front of me, raising his rifle while scanning the nearby area. After my rifle was unslung, I proceeded to do the same with my night vision filter mode on.

“Oh dang.” Clarke exclaimed.

Both of us turned to look at Clarke to see the disappointment on his face as he approached the grill house after crossing the road. “Damn, this place really knew how to cook a steak. I really did like this place.”

After clicking his tongue disappointingly, Clarke then walked on the footpath down towards the suburbs that littered the base of the Barrier. It seemed so strange to me to be walking down these familiar paths with our guard up. In the past, people were more cautious for the trigger-happy gang members and occasional drugged up psycho prowling the streets to vent their excess energy. Now it was quiet and oddly peaceful like the richer suburbs. We walked underneath the expressway and into Sanctuary Hills and stood atop the raised bit of land overlooking the endless rows of houses. Some streets had apartment buildings like the one I grew up in. Thomas took the lead by walking past me and marched himself into the streets while holding onto his Magnetar submachine gun. Likewise, I held it in a similar fashion as we walked through the once recognizable streets. After another ten minutes of walking, we came upon a familiar intersection that was rife with a rancid stench of decay.

Clarke groaned loudly when he detected the smell which had prompted Thomas to say “Don’t think about it, keep moving.” But my curiosity grew the better of me as I remembered coming here earlier, the day the invasion started. I looked around and my enhanced eyes saw the bodies surrounding the crashed cars. Their blood that once stained the bitumen were nothing more than dark patches flaking off in the heat of the day, each body looked emancipated and pale as they lay there for days on end in the sun with no one to take them to get mulched or even give them a proper burial. Further ahead by another fifteen feet rested the equally decaying body of the elf we ran over and gunned down by Thomas. Not even fifteen feet away did I spot the creature's corpse in decay, were it not for the elongated body, ears and lack of any prosthetics it would have easily been mistaken for another human. Perhaps it helped if we didn’t think he was a sentient, intelligent creature. It might make the guilt of seeing his brain get spread over the pavement easier to process.

While inside, the feeling of sadness and dread bubbled up from beneath; what happens if we meet our end on the other side of the Barrier? What is going to happen to our corpses, will we be remembered, will someone know of what we did and what our goals were? I had too many questions circling around in my brain and I didn’t have enough information to process a justifiable answer to any of them. Finally, it all dawned on me that if something were to happen out there then nobody would know and nobody would send help, we would only be discovered by some creature who would probably leave us… Or eat us. Thumping in my chest was my heart reacting to the wellspring of feelings I was experiencing. Nervous energy was slowly building up causing my breathing to become erratic which I had tried to steady. Instead, my efforts were rewarded with Thomas hearing my shaky breaths, prompting him to turn around and face me.

I saw his lips moving but hiis voice rang muffled in my ears. None of it reached the logical part of my brain, the part of me that understood words and assigned meaning. I heard him say something else, however in my absent state of mind I had no understanding of what he was saying before I felt a force nudge my right shoulder which was enough to provoke me out of my trance-like state.

“Hello-oo, Munhiero to Michael. Can you hear me?”

“Yes, yes. Sorry, I sorta spaced out.” Shaking my head.

“Well stop it, can’t have you going vegetative on me, not right now!”

We left the intersection but not without giving the sight of death another glare before heading off to catch up with the senator and my brother. Still perched up on the curb was Thomas’s old Nova sports car, he shook his head, clicking his tongue at the sight of his pride and joy. It wasn’t hard to see the pain and loss in his eyes, even in the dark it was obvious that it hurt Thomas to see his car destroyed. I approached him from behind and patted him on the back as a show of comfort which he wasn’t in the mood for when he rotated his shoulder to shrug off my hand. We continued to walk down the middle of the road seemingly wandering without purpose. Clarke, who had been in front of me, pointed toward the Barrier on my left and explained that the hole that was blasted into the Barrier was located around that area. I had to admit that it was going to be interesting to see the destruction that had blasted open the gates of our occupation up close; the only thing I could remember of it was seeing a group of five dragons circling each other high in the air with their foreclaws extended out and summoning a ball of green energy that instantly propelled itself toward the Barrier. Not even the memory of the explosion could be summoned, but according to Thomas, a good-sized chunk of the Barrier crashed through the building and collided against my head giving me a good concussion and missing out on five days’ worth of developments and awakening me to a brand new reality.

This is where it all began. I thought to myself. Though the streets were empty and devoid of life, I found myself oddly at ease with how quiet everything was.

Suddenly, Thomas called out to me and when I turned around to face him, he redirected my attention to the old apartment building standing tall behind him. After everything that has happened and everything he and I have been through, I felt somewhat ashamed that I didn’t recognise our old apartment.

“Wanna take one last look?” Thomas said while smiling warmly.

“Sure.” I nodded.

After climbing through the collapsed roof and crawling on our bellies we slowly ascended onto the floor we lived on, both Clarke and Thomas looked around nervously when they shuffled along the crevice between the wall.

“So this is where you two grew up, huh? This place is rather… basic” Clarke said snidely.

I rolled my eyes.

When we reached the front door, I pushed it open and it creaked loudly on its hinges and I cringed while Thomas and Clarke were suddenly hypervigilant and looked down the hallways as though we weren’t alone. Back in the old apartment living room, it felt like a rush of memories came to me all at once; warm memories of the times we sat on the now flipped couch and watched cartoons together on the weekend mornings, the many days when Tom and I chased each other around the table. The kitchen still had utensils strewn about while construction debris from the building wall was scattered in a fine powder, whole chunks of it had managed to have been located down the hallway that led to the bedrooms.

“Wow, your apartment is quite austere.” Clarke commented.

“Well not all of us are born with a silver spoon in our mouths and have a lot of esses to throw about, Clarke!” I shouted.My frustration soon turned to shock as I found myself shouting at Clarke. Recently I found his comments about our upbringing to be irritable. Recently the amount of times Clarke brought up his pampered home life has increased, getting on my nerves with comments on how our lives were different to his.

“Whoa, chill Mikey” Thomas lowered his hand.

I took a deep breath in and after holding it for five seconds I let it out before looking back to Clarke “Sorry. I’m on edge”

“I know.”

All three of us stood in the old smashed apartment for another minute, taking it all in. All of a sudden it occurred to me that this was going to be the last time we ever see the old place. Clarke was the first to speak up from the silence. Suggesting that we have been in the apartment long enough and Thomas glumly acknowledged. I agreed and signalled my readiness to leave. I could sense that Thomas looked at the familiar corridors and sights inside the apartment building with a sense of longing, it was incredibly obvious that he longed for the simplicity of the past without the need of my night vision to see it. The look in his eyes and the silence he gave said it all. Once we were outside and walking away from the apartment lobby it felt as though I was leaving something behind, my only tether to this city, to my home was in fact that my entire life was spent in the same building. I ached inside, the pain growing ever more present with each vehement step away from the building.

Be strong, Michael. Don’t look back. Don’t look to make you have second doubts.

I sniffled trying to be brave, trying to hold back the tears until Thomas took notice of this because he looked back and it was then I noticed the tears streaking down his face. He looked at me with a sombre expression telling me he too, felt the last tether holding him here was on the verge of snapping as we walked away.

Soon, the houses along the streets were covered in rubble and the boulders from the breached section of the Barrier got bigger the closer we got to it. I looked up to see its towering form, only slightly darker than the night sky around it. My idea of the hole that was blown into it was much bigger and rounder than what it was in reality. Aside from the gaping hole in the centre the breach resembled a narrow pointing triangle. Even with my enhanced eyesight it was easily overlooked at this time of night. It was pointed out to me by Clarke and Thomas who raised their fingers and aimed in its direction. Meanwhile, the boulders and rubble continued to grow in size, eventually entire chunks of its surface area was found atop the ruins of houses that were precariously close to the base. Cars were flipped and looked as though they had been rolled so much that the chassis had been smoothed out, houses were found to be on odd angles as it became apparent that the shockwave must have been powerful enough to cause this much damage to them. We eventually arrived at the end of the street which had been buried under the rubble. Activating my night vision again, I led the rest of the group up the rubble, narrowly avoiding getting my foot caught in between the large pieces as we ascended.

Eventually, both men had overtaken me and I was behind Clarke when his footing slipped on the loose dust that was on the flat surface he stood on, knocking loose a sizable chunk of rock that loudly clunked against every surface until triumphantly colliding with the metal roof of a sedan that had been crushed by the concrete boulders down below. I watched helplessly as the rock, no bigger than my head bounced off every surface past me, I was cringing with each loud collision it made before sucking through my teeth when the rock collided with the car. I almost expected the car alarm to go off like it would in movies whenever something made contact. My heart raced with the impending implications of what this could mean

We must have stood still silently after the rock stopped for a whole minute, nervously awaiting the consequences; I assumed the others stretched their hearing as far as possible for any sight that was attracted by the unwanted attention… Nothing, not even the chirping of night crickets was heard. All three of us collectively sighed with relief, Clarke clutched his chest as he too was relieved from the outcome or lack thereof from his clumsiness. “Sorry.” Was all he said in a hushed tone before continuing to climb, politician or not I would have killed him if something had happened as a result. Our climb started easing up, the gradient flattened itself and soon we were going to be jumping on top from one piece of rubble to another. On opposing sides were the titanic concrete mass, bars of rebar poked out of the walls twisting in every direction. Inside the concrete revealed the hidden tunnels and service corridors that seemingly honeycombed the interior structure. Another minute of hopping on flat and stable concrete rubble we were in the middle of the Barrier.

It was there that what we all saw left us stunned in shock, excitement and perhaps feelings of trepidation; the untouched, unpolluted thickets that once obscured the army of creatures that invaded us would hopefully provide cover for our escape into the big world beyond. Standing beside me was Clarke and Thomas as they too were entranced by the possibilities and the significance of the next few steps we would take into a brave new world. In the dead of night no sound was to be heard, no crumbling of loose rocks forced out of whatever crevice held it for all this time, no beating of powerful wings… Nothing. In an instant we were blinded from an unseen source, my hands could not shield my eyes fast enough before a sudden chorus of raucous laughter echoed off the cragged surfaces of the Barrier.

Continuing to bellow out from an unseen foe, the maddened laughter was accompanied by the sounds of wing beats followed by thuds of something landing with force. Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the bright light, the figures of Thomas and Clarke still visible below my hand offered me some assurance, knowing they were still there with me.

“You, guys… You guys should see your faces!” A familiar voice called out from the light in between fits of laughter, sending cold shivers up my spine.

“Where’s that coming from? Can anybody see who that is?” Clarke called out.

After lowering my hand, I quickly adjusted my optical settings to compensate for the bright lights shone on me. Strategically placed all around the blown gap inside were industrial spotlights. I thought about disabling their generator if it was nearby to take out the lights and run while they were adjusting to the dark. Instead, each of the lights had some kind of light blue crystal taped securely to the external casing.

They must be using magic or something to power the lights. I don’t think I’ll be able to manually disable them not without going to each of them and ripping those crystals out. I might be able to take out one or two before they try to stop me. Maybe I can try and shoot them out but there’s no guarantee that will actually stop them, not with magic involved.

“Honestly, do you not recognise me? I’m hurt.” The voice said.

Nobody was with us at the lowest point in the breach, several dragons were perched precariously on any available outcroppings above us. Looking further up the walls and past the exposed internal tunnel networks stood a humanoid figure clad in golden armour firmly grasping an ornate staff. I zoomed in to get a closer inspection as this seemed to be the source of the voice. While my coprocessor slowed time around me to adjust the picture quality after zooming in as far as my optics could allow, each rendered pixel seemed to have only taken an eternity to render even if half a second had actually elapsed in real time. Then… the face of the speaker was fully rendered and my body temperature plummeted seeing the wicked smile plastered on his face.

“Xareith?!” Thomas called out. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I want you boys to imagine the surprise on my face when my ace dragon; N’Karno,” Xareith extended out his hand from under his cloak and gestured toward a familiar dragon below him but high above us with its claws firmly gripping into the rock for stability. It sneered at us and looking at it I suddenly realised that this dragon was the same one that nearly tried to kill me and Thomas two nights ago!

“Coming to me all terrified in the middle of the night after I slaughtered those that dared to disturb our presence here. Thanks for that tip, by the way.” His overly dramatic tone suddenly shifted to a calm normalcy before it shifted back to his dramatic tone. “And he tells me of two regular human boys who suddenly display the Daa’quardo just as he was about to kill them.”

“The fuck is a ‘daa’quardo’?” Thomas mumbled to himself.

“Well. I was being nice before,” Xareith continued. His unnervingly cheery tone suddenly shifted to a seriousness that made the hair on my remaining skin stand on end as I feared what could possibly be a violent encounter. “But now it’s time I stop being reasonable and nice.”

When the fuck were you ever fucking nice!?

Suddenly Xareith jumped out of the exposed corridor before driving the spear into the concrete to slow his descent down as he landed on his feet gracefully. His golden ornate armour glimmered as it entered the field of light at the bottom of the chasm.

Dammit, even that was impressive. No, screw him! He doesn’t deserve praise. Though I wonder if I can do that with my hands??

“So, I will give you one chance, bow down to me and I promise to treat you nicely.” He extended his hands outwards in a non-threatening manner.

I looked at Thomas and Clarke with a look of concern, both my brother and senator didn’t look the least bit concerned. Thomas took one step forward toward Xareith, a smile crept along his pale face which had prompted me to worry that he was actually considering his office.

“Xareith,” Thomas said calmly. “You look like a gold statue’s used tampon, so get fucked you cunt!”

“Hah!” Blurted out of me.

“You look like the film award’s gold statue for biggest dickhead in the continent!” Thomas continued to insult the Elven commander.

Xareith turned to the wall behind him and pulled the spear he had driven out of the Barrier before flashing it around while Thomas continued. “You are a ginormous. Fucking. Loser. Even your mother saw you and said ‘fuck, that’s the ugliest fucking thing I’ve ever seen’!”

Xareith examined his spear, that cold chilled smile soon turned to one of anger and I realised I preferred the insincere smile he had. Xareith looked more sinister and angrier than calm and collected like we had seen him before. “I’m going to enjoy killing you.” He chuckled approvingly.

Subconsciously during his examination, I inched myself closer to Thomas and whispered to him “Didn’t we put an explosive in his head?” Thomas responded in an equally soft manner “Wait for it.”

Clarke came at us with a worried expression. “Wait guys, don’t piss him off. Look, we tried and failed alright?”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Just watch.” Was all I said.

“Hey Xareith, you are such a loser that even your used golden tampon guards don’t care about you. You want proof? Well, we installed a bomb in your head!” Thomas sang cheerily.

Any focused anger that Xareith had melted away at the end of the sentence, for the first time I’ve seen him he looked worried and his voice wavered. “What?”

Suddenly, Thomas’s optics glowed bright with golden light as a dull buzzing sound could be heard before he extended the middle fingers on both his hands before shouting “SUCK SPARK’S DICKHEAD!” before grabbing me and Clarke and ran toward the outer wall of the Barrier.

Xareith started nursing his head with one hand before dropping his ornate spear and firmly pressing both hands on his hand. First he moaned with discomfort, then started taking short gasps in pain before throwing off his helmet and his gasping devolved into screaming. A little light glowed behind his right eye, I don’t remember him getting any optical gear. Then his head burst into flames while he continued to scream in agony. His flesh bubbled from the intense heat, the flames erupted out of his eyes with a loud and sudden pop. Smoke trailed out of his ears while the flames consumed half of his head as the scent of burning flesh wafted in our direction triggering my stomach to growl.

“Don’t look! Run!” Thomas shouted.

I did as he suggested and faced forward as we ran down the rubble.

“Won’t they get us!?” Clarke asked.

“Hell no, they’ll be busy with him.” I shouted back.

Behind us all that could be heard was the frenzied screams of agony from Xareith. I tried not to focus on the blood curdling howls, at one point it almost sounded like it was the screams of the damned. I focused on jumping down the rubble before sliding down a large flat surface piece of the barrier before landing on the grass with a muffled thwump. After picking myself up I got knocked down by Clark tumbling down the flat surface piece. I picked myself up a second time just as Thomas gracefully glided down and landed without falling over.

Finally, we are over, the first humans in how many years to be on this side of the Barrier? For a split second I felt pride at what I was doing. I took a moment to stare outward as Thomas and Clarke ran towards the thicket. “Come on, Michael!” my brother shouted. He was already thirty yards ahead of me. So I ran to catch up, further and further away from the land I was born and raised on and into the far out lands.