Sealed Garden of Gods

Chapter 7- Shattered Descent

The world tilted.

That was the first thing I felt not the sound, but the sudden, sickening shift in my stomach as the stone floor beneath my boots just… gave up. The landing, that small slice of obsidian I thought was solid, groaned like a dying beast and snapped away from the tower wall.

"No!" I lunged forward, my fingers clawing at the frost-covered glass of the stairs above.

I missed. My hands slapped against the cold, slick surface, and for a heartbeat, I was weightless. The air rushed past my ears, cold and sharp as a knife. Below me was an abyss of black shadows and the white, screaming faces of the remnants trapped in the walls.

Clang!

My chest slammed into a lower landing, knocking every bit of air out of my lungs. I rolled, my fingers catching the jagged edge of the stone. I hung there, swinging over the dark, my boots kicking at nothing but empty air. My ribs felt like they been kicked by a horse, and the silver mark on my hand was screaming, a white-hot needle of pain that made my grip slip.

"Not… yet…" I hissed through grit teeth.

I pulled myself up, my muscles screaming in protest. I rolled onto the narrow ledge, gasping, my face pressed against the freezing stone. Above me, the middle of the tower was a mess of falling debris. Huge chunks of black glass and obsidian were tumbling down, smashing against the walls and sending showers of sparks into the dark.

The figure with the porcelain mask was gone, but the tower was still dying.

I looked down. The spiral staircase I’d climbed was falling apart. Sections of it were hanging by threads of silver mist, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. I couldn't go back up, and I couldn't stay here. The wall behind me was already spider-webbing with cracks.

I had to go down. And I had to do it fast.

I stood up, my balance wonky. I looked at the next landing—it was ten feet below and on the opposite side of the tower. Between me and it was a single, swaying beam of dark wood that looked like it had been half-eaten by time.

"Borg would just jump," I muttered, trying to find his courage in the weight on my shoulders. "He wouldn't think. He’d just move."

I didn't think. I jumped.

My boots hit the beam with a loud thwack. The wood groaned, bending under my weight, and I felt it start to crumble. I didn't wait. I sprinted across it, the wood turning to splinters behind my heels. I dove for the next stone ledge just as the beam snapped and vanished into the pit.

I hit the stone hard, sliding on my shoulder. The rusted dagger in my boot dug into my leg, drawing blood, but I didn't have time to care.

Crrr-ack!

A massive chunk of the ceiling above me came loose. It was the size of a wagon. I scrambled to the side, pressing my back against the tower wall as the stone whistled past me, missing my head by inches. The impact below was like a thunderclap, shaking the entire tower.

The frost on the walls began to melt.

As it turned to water, the faces underneath started to move. Their silver hands reached out from the stone, clawing at the air, trying to grab onto anything that was solid. Anything that was alive.

"Let go!" I shouted, kicking a misty hand that tried to wrap around my ankle.

It didn't feel like flesh. It felt like cold smoke, but it had a grip like iron. The remnant pulled, trying to drag me into the wall with it. I slashed at it with my dagger, the silver-edged blade cutting through the mist. The hand vanished with a high-pitched hiss, but more were coming out. The whole wall was turning into a sea of reaching arms.

I turned and ran down the remaining stairs, jumping over gaps where the glass had shattered. My heart was thumping against my ribs so hard I thought it would break.

The tower was groaning louder now, a deep, bass sound that I could feel in my teeth. The South Tower was leaning. I could feel it—the whole massive needle was tilting toward the city.

"Come on! Move!" I screamed at my own legs.

I reached a section where the stairs were completely gone. There was nothing but a twenty-foot drop to a pile of rubble below. I looked back. The wall was covered in hundreds of silver ghosts, their empty eyes all fixed on me. They weren't just watching anymore. They were hungry. They wanted a body to hold onto so they didn't have to be mist anymore.

I closed my eyes and leaped.

The fall felt like it lasted forever. I hit the rubble pile with a bone-jarring thud. My vision went white for a second. I tasted copper in my mouth—I’d bitten my tongue. I scrambled up, my left arm hanging limp and useless at my side. It was dislocated or broken, I didn't know which.

The exit was right there. The triangular door.

But the floor between me and the door was buckling. A giant crack opened up, glowing with a sickly silver light. From the crack, the same silver liquid from the temple started to pour out, bubbling like boiling oil.

I looked up. The ceiling was finally coming down. The whole tower was collapsing inward, like it was being folded by an invisible hand.

"Kyle!"

I heard it. A voice. It wasn't the grinding stones of the masked figure. It sounded like Borg.

Run, kid.

I didn't look back. I didn't think about the pain in my arm or the ghosts in the walls. I sprinted for the door. The silver liquid was rising, licking at my boots, burning through the leather. I felt the heat—a cold, soul-biting heat that made my skin blister.

I dove through the triangular opening just as the tower gave its final, deafening roar.

I tumbled across the gray grit of the plaza, rolling over and over until I hit a crumbling wall of a common house. I laid there, flat on my back, watching as the South Tower—the great obsidian needle—folded into itself. It didn't fall over. It just... disintegrated. It turned back into the dust it was made of, a massive cloud of black and silver soot that billowed out and covered the streets.

I coughed, my lungs filling with the taste of old ice and death.

I was alive. Again.

I sat up slowly, clutching my broken arm. The silver mark on my hand was dull now, like a spent coal. I looked at the spot where the tower had been. There was nothing left but a jagged stump of obsidian, barely ten feet high.

Everything I’d climbed for. All that work just to see the view.

I looked toward the center of the city. The dust cloud was settling, and for a brief moment, the veil of silver clouds parted. There it was. The Castle of Light.

It wasn't a trick of the height. It was real. Even from the ground, I could see it now. It sat on a high plateau, its towers made of something that looked like solid starlight. It didn't belong in this world of rot. It looked like a piece of heaven that had been dropped into a trash heap.

"The center," I whispered.

I looked down at my dislocated arm. I grabbed my wrist, gritted my teeth, and slammed my shoulder against the wall.

Pop.

The pain was so bad I nearly vomited. I slumped against the stone, sweat pouring down my face, but my arm was back in its socket. It throbbed with every heartbeat, but I could move my fingers.

I reached into my pocket. The plum seed was still there. And Vax’s stone.

I stood up, my legs shaking like a newborn colt's. The feeling of being watched hadn't gone away. If anything, it was stronger. The remnants were everywhere now, standing in the shadows of the houses, their silver shapes flickering like dying candles. They didn't move toward me. They just stood there, watching the man who had survived the tower.

"I'm going to the castle," I said to the empty street. "And if you want to stop me, you better bring the whole city down."

I started walking. South was behind me now. The center was ahead.

The weight on my shoulders felt a little lighter. Or maybe I was just getting used to the burden.

As I walked, I noticed something on the ground, half-buried in the black soot of the tower. It was a piece of the porcelain mask. The weeping eye. I picked it up. It was cold, and it didn't turn to dust in my hand.

I tucked it into my belt. A souvenir from a ghost.

The journey to the Castle of Light had truly begun, and I had a feeling the South Tower was just a taste of what the Gods had waiting for me.