“We should take the pocket to the seventh ring,” I suggested. “I know that area the best, and it’s only a short journey on foot to the eighth and ninth rings.”
Coen nodded. “It’s a good start. We’ll get there first and evacuate everyone inwards. Send the outer rings toward Soldel. These servers might outnumber us, but they’re moving slowly. They’re in no hurry. We have a few sun-cycles before we need to fight. A few sun-cycles for Willa to figure out how to stop them without killing them, which I know she’s already trying to do.”
“After our quick trip to Topia, we’ll send the other gods to the inner rings to keep everyone evacuating, and we’ll meet you in Soldel,” Cyrus said. “The best thing we can do is continue to shuffle them toward Blesswood. It’s protected, and the sols there are used to battle.”
“The sols won’t like that,” Emmy said, turning back to the sight of the server army marching down the valley. “Fighting beside dwellers.”
“They can learn to live with it, or they can die,” I said with a shrug. “Personally, I don’t care which option they choose.”
A few tense chuckles met my statement, and then Emmy was hugging me goodbye, her arms stronger than they had ever been as she squeezed me tightly, channelling her desperation to see me safe again through the gesture.
“I’ll be fine,” I promised her. “I always am. Keep yourself safe, Emmy.”
“You too,” she whispered back, before pulling away.
“Don’t die,” Cyrus told me, almost awkwardly.
“You too,” I replied, grinning.
He nodded at the Abcurses, took a hold of Emmy, and they were gone. The others turned to me, but it was Rome who held out a hand. I hesitated before taking it.
“How will we all reach the same place?” I asked. “In the seventh ring?”
“The soul-bond,” Rome replied. “We can all see your house, and the path you walked to school, and the garden of vegetables outside the cottage across the dirt road. We will meet at your old house.”
I nodded, placing my hand in his, and the darkness closed around us without warning, pushing me through nothingness and into the world of colour again as my feet landed against familiar creaky wooden floorboards. A woman screeched, causing me to almost jump out of my skin, and I turned around, noticing her sitting on top of a man … on the bed that Emmy and I used to sleep in when my mother was out for the night. The other Abcurses all appeared then, and she screeched a second time. The man just stared at us, eyes wide and mouth open.
“G-gods,” she stuttered, her entire body locking up in shock.
I realised, somewhat stupidly, that the dweller settlement would never have allowed a perfectly useful empty cottage to remain empty when there were so many others in need of a roof over their heads.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Shall we give you a moment?”
The woman didn’t answer, and I turned to the others for help, but they were too busy watching with expressions of amusement. I was glad they could still find the humour in my situations, despite the rapidly approaching end of the worlds.
I tried again. “You really should … uh … finish up your … Just finish, okay! There is an undead army of servers heading this way and it’s time to evacuate. You need to head toward Blesswood.”
She continued to gape at me, but the man under her no longer appeared as shocked. He reached out to cover the woman, awkwardly dragging their blanket up. “Could you maybe leave our house?” he asked gruffly. “I’d prefer to have this conversation with clothes on.”
Right.Right. Not everyone was cool with naked end-of-worlds conversations.
The Abcurses were still grinning as we pushed through the old rickety door, so familiar to me with it’s the multitude of scars across the bottom three panels. Most of them from me tripping and hitting it with things. Like hot fire pokers, metal dinnerware, and even my head.
“So this is where you grew up?” Yael seemed fascinated by the village, staring around at it like he’d never seen anything like it before.
“This is it,” I said, holding my arms out and spinning in a circle. “The seventh ring.”
“It’s … nice,” Aros said, clearing his throat.
Truthfully, it was a dump. Ragged brown grass where they were used to seeing green meadows in Topia. Small hut houses built from whatever could be scavenged in the surrounding areas. No trees for shade. No water for swimming.
“The land is going to be rejuvenated,” Coen reminded me. “You won’t recognise the area soon.”
I wondered how the Topian waters would spread through the outer rings, because I couldn’t see any signs of it here. It would probably take a long time to spread because of how barren the desert was.
A man ducked out of a nearby hut then, and he was noticeable in the silent early morning emptiness of the village. I recognised him, and without thought hurried forward, reaching out to snag his arm as he hurried past. He had been in such a rush that he hadn’t even noticed us standing there, and he let out a low shriek at my touch before wrenching himself free and careening backwards.
I crossed over to where he had sprawled, holding out an assisting hand to him.
