Chapter Thirty-Five
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PHOENIX

"𝚆𝙷𝚈 𝙽𝙾𝚃?" 𝚂𝙴𝙴𝙼𝙴𝙳 𝙻𝙸𝙺𝙴 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚁𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃 𝚀𝚄𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽.

  Later, when his energy came flooding back to him, Phoenix investigated his treetower more thoroughly.

  It wasn't something he'd expect from such a small alliance out in a tropical jungle that spanned . . . what, a hundred miles across? It didn't matter how much, to tell the truth. What mattered was how someone managed to construct these treehouses so precisely. Apart from the shower and bed, the inside was home to all sorts of gewgaws. He suspected that most of them were created not by people but by God Himself. No—he knew God had created all of these things. The only other option was, a participant in the past had constructed objects out of thin air. And how likely was that?

  He searched the nighttables and wardrobes expecting to find something useful. Sure enough, there was a small notebook with lined paper. Nothing was written in it, but there was a black ballpoint pen attached to the spine.

  He lay down in bed and wrote on the first page, at first scrawling jagged lines, then random words, and finally full sentences. These sentences became paragraphs and, before he knew it, he had written a whole page. He wrote about Alex, about his family, about his fears in this world, whether Death would grab his sceptre and rip his neck a fresh one, whether the Spiral was achievable. Whether he could do it—run 375,000 miles (or whatever distance was left) without dying. He liked to think he could.

  I might as well try. There's no point staying around here, he wrote. A couple seconds later he sketched the Spiral as a small dot surrounded by plasma lines. Had his artistry been standard, then it may have looked more accurate, but he knew he was a writer, not a designer.

  He flipped the page and continued writing.

  Zamora has a plan, she says we only have 2 years. Alysia says she wants me to "infiltrate" some other alliance (a city I think) and Valerie says they're likely to help when they find out I'm a weathercaster.

  I'm not too keen on the idea tho. If we're supposed to reach the Spiral, how will teaming up with this alliance help us? Then again, I just got here. I don't know much about anything.

  Today is, what, I don't know. A time. Zamora has a clock. That's how she knows how long we have left. Maybe I should go ask her.

  "Hey, Zamora, got the time!"

  "Of course, my most splendid Levin." She zips up one of that blue rectangle. "The time, upon further inspection, is two hundred and seventy-five minutes past midnoon of—"

  A rumble of footsteps drove up the stairs, and Phoenix tore his attention away from the paper. He shut the notebook and tucked it under his blanket. Alysia appeared from the stairway, dressed in a white blouse and cotton trousers, her bandanna knotted at the back and concealing her face from the nose down. Her arms still looked bulky through the fabric. Her hair was no longer tied back but instead drawn over her left shoulder like an oil spill. Her eyes bore icy whites all around the green-tinted irises, winking in the light of the chandelier.

  "We need to move now," she said, and her words reverberated slightly, flat and peculiar.

  "Now? But it's only been a couple hours . . ." Phoenix hopped off the bed. His feet slapped the floorboard with creaky outcries.

  "Now." There was a touch of impatience in her voice. "Zamora's orders."

  Aw, shit. Phoenix sighed and wiped his eyes groggily, then trailed his fingers through his afro. "Any news about Alex?"

  "Nothing," she said. "Haven't asked her. When she knows, she'll tell you. All right?"

  "What's up with you?" Phoenix furrowed his brow, starting towards the stairway, and soon they reached the front door.

  Alysia sighed. "I'm worried about this alliance, to tell you the truth." She maintained her pace and shoved the door open.

  A piercing sunbeam flashed into view. Phoenix winced and wiped his eyes again. He threw a glance across the jungle and saw that the people who earlier had been swimming in the lake were nowhere to be seen, and there were neither more nor fewer animals climbing the trees. A baboon had been holding onto a thick bough high above, peering off into the sky with its furry paw screening its eyes. It snapped a glance at Phoenix for a moment and then swung away into the leaves, never to be seen again.

  A layer of stratus clouds streaked across the sky. Drizzle tapped on the wooden platforms, swirling around the diaphanously netted balustrade and tipping off into the river with noisy plops. Phoenix groaned.

  They headed to the other side of the Castle, to Zamora's treetower, Phoenix presumed. The day was still bright, but neither an adult nor a child was out, and for a moment, Phoenix thought they were asleep or busy collecting resources in the jungle. He wasn't sure.

  The explanation for their sudden disappearance came later when he heard a hubbub of shouting and laughter. Where the three bridges joined together to form a central platform on which resided a podium—the area where all the speeches were held—a speech was being held, and looking out over the crowd of white-dressed people was Zamora reading from a sepia manuscript.

  Alysia crossed the bridge and so did Phoenix. Zamora spotted their arrival and raised a hand in the air. The clamour paused.

  That was easy.

  She reverted her attention to the manuscript laid out in front of her. "People of the Castle, loyal members of our cause, friends and family, I regret to inform you that our time in this world is much shorter than originally anticipated.

  "When we first arrived here, confused and seemingly hopeless, we were given a letter. On this letter was the instruction regarding our purpose in this horizontal plane: reach the Spiral. And for many years, we have believed that this God figure has given us a near infinite amount of time. We believed that He placed us here to witness the amount of time it would take for humanity to complete such a Herculean task. We believed He had created a world in which there were no limits. We were wrong."

  She raised her hands and made a series of circling motions. A bar of blue ectoplasm rayed overhead. It was long, the size of a bus, with clear numbers written out in a wonky, handwritten font:

2:00:03

  The same timer was beneath it, counting down in seconds, minutes, and hours.

  A panic sounded from the crowd, and swiftly Phoenix and Alysia edged around them.

  "What's happening?!" Phoenix shouted, but soon realised that the hubbub had been far too loud.

  Zamora raised her fist, and the crowd quietened once again, this time slower. Lowering it to her mouth, she cleared her throat and continued. "Above is the amount of time we have left in this world, the number of years we have left to reach the Spiral, the exact number of seconds we have left to trail across the hundreds of divisions and find out once and for all what brought us here."

  She raised her arms once again. The bar of numbers vanished. Replacing it was a spiral of yellow bubbles showcasing the far edge of the horizontal plane. Water flew off into the atmosphere like greased lightning, the molecules turning into black particles at first, and then disappearing completely. This reminded Phoenix, briefly, about what his ninth-grade science teacher once said at the Oceanside Academy in St Anderson's City: "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed—only converted from one form of energy to the other."

  "So where did it come from?" Phoenix had asked.

  "That's the mystery of it all. As far as we're aware, everything comes from something, but nothing is infinite. But for energy to exist, it must be infinite, and so it must not have a creator."

  "Why does everything need a creator?"

  "It doesn't," his teacher had said, quickly moving on to something else.

  This short interaction had stuck with him, and the more he looked into it, the more he realised how mysterious the universe really was.

  Zamora cleared her throat again. "These images are of the far edge. As you can see, the speed at which the plane is decaying has increased exponentially. We are left with a time that may or may not shorten, depending on whether the speed of decay continues to rise or not. For this reason, we must focus all of our attention on moving towards the Spiral. But the plan still remains: I will bring you all to the end, only now certain conditions must be taken into consideration. First, of course, the time. Second, the vagaries of time. We do not know if this rate will continue to increase or if it will dwindle. And lastly, the underlining threats we will face in this world. Not everyone here has been blessed with the power of offence. Many of us have basic, unfair powers that serve to help others.

  "However . . . " She paused, sweeping her gaze over the crowd. She stopped when her eyes landed on Phoenix. "Levin, please join me on the podium."

  Phoenix wore a puzzled expression. Huh? Me? What does she want with me?

  He rubbed his face, not out of tiredness, but out of anxiety. He hated public speaking, hated standing in front of any number of people larger than three. Presentations in high school were always sleep-depriving scenarios, and when the time came to do them, he would stutter like a lost child looking for his/her mommy. Right now, he felt the same way. An intense heat coalesced on his skin. Gooseflesh tiptoed across his arms like spiders. His heartbeat raced, and a sheen of sweat trickled down from his uneven hairline.

  He joined her on the podium, hands stuffed in his pockets, face expressionless and bored.

  "Levin, here, is a weather-caster," Zamora announced, and quickly the crowd erupted in another roar of shock and dismay. She raised her arm and continued in the silence: "He can control lightning, possesses an extreme amount of physical power, and is responsible for the deaths of both the Shadow and Chrono." Her lips swerved into a most sincere simper.

  Suddenly, the crowd applauded, seemingly happy with this news, and when it stopped, Zamora added, "He has agreed to help us reach the end, to protect us and fight off any unnecessary hazards, and to have us win this game, once and for all!"

  A furore of excitement sounded from the crowd. Many of them raised their fists in respect, while others formed white purple and blue glows around them.

  Phoenix laughed timidly, unable to hear his own thoughts. I didn't agree to this . . . Did I?

  He couldn't remember exactly, but as long as it helped him find Alex or his family, then God knew he would go along with it.

  Besides, why have this power go to waste?

  Why not use it to protect people in need, people who had families—sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers? If he were in their situation, he sure as hell would want someone protecting him. Plus, he made some friends here—well, acquaintances, he supposed—who, yes, were pretty powerful, but no doubt had their weaknesses. Valerie, for one, couldn't even scratch Chrono until he was on the ground beneath Phoenix's hold. Alysia got beat pretty badly, and everyone else . . . What could they do? Nothing, he thought. Absolutely nothing.

  Zamora continued when the crowd silenced. "However, even with Levin at our side, we must work together to win this game against time, against the clock, so to speak." The array of yellow bubbles disappeared. "It is up to us and only us to listen and follow instructions clearly. Our first move will begin as soon as possible. Levin and Alysia will lead the way first, scope out the next division and gain their trust before we join forces. After all, we can't all show up at their doorstep expecting them to take kindly to us, not after our past history."

  Phoenix looked at Zamora a little doubtfully. Past history?

  The drizzle began thinning now, eventually stopping altogether. Spillikins of light fragmented through small gaps in the clouds and spread across the wooden platform like holographic poles. Phoenix grimaced and stifled another yawn. His heartbeat had lessened now, growing more comfortable in front of this alliance that had put forth a level of trust on him. Even if it was a small amount, it was enough to keep him calm—for the time being, at least.

  "With someone like Levin," said Zamora proudly, "they will have to accept us. They will notice his potential and want to make use of him as much as any of us do. You have my word on that. As for the rest of us: we must wait for Levin and Alysia's return. From that point onward, we will travel from division to division and, with the help of a cosmopolitan superalliance, use my portals to progress further in the world. And considering the time constraint, you can expect all the other alliances and groups to agree and accept us into their keep. We will beat this, we will prevail, and we will conquer. Thank you."

  A thunder of applause erupted from the alliance—all three hundred and some people. Zamora stepped over to Phoenix and raised his arm as if he had won a well-fought boxing match and the applause grew louder and more spectacular. The blue and purple glows swam through the air as bouncy dragons, lifting off into the atmosphere like campfire smoke.

  An insincere smile, timid and frail, formed on his lips. He looked down at Alysia, who leaned on the balustrade. She untied her bandanna, revealing a Hollywood-white grin. Hers was real. Phoenix could tell from her eyes. Those gorgeous green eyes.

  Slowly, his smirk formed into a real one. Fresh tears threatened to stream down his cheeks, not out of sadness, but out of temporary relief. He didn't want people to see his eyes watering, so he preemptively rubbed them with the sleeve of his blazer.

  Awesome. Totally ripshit.

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