The man, Solare, and Luna quickly
walk away from the scene of the fight while making their way through the ruins
of the city.
“Come on you two, we still have a
ways to go,” the man says.
“How come we’re moving so fast?”
Luna asks as she struggles to keep up.
“The black birds tend to not let
their prey get away from them. They retreat, regroup, and come back with more
birds to get what they want.”
“Where do they come from?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure if the
military was still alive, then they would’ve done something about them if the
birds didn’t destroy them.”
“Are there any in the sewers?”
“None that I’ve heard of, but that
doesn’t mean that there aren’t any. The birds like to follow their prey and I know
people tried to live in the sewers because it provided shelter against the
birds in the sky.”
Behind them, a black bird catches sight
of them and screeches.
“They found us! We’re going to have
to take a longer way to lose them.”
The man, Solare, and Luna run deeper
into a crumbling and connected series of buildings as a swarm of black birds
descends upon them. The buildings give them cover since most of it is
destroyed, but this rubble also makes it difficult to navigate for the three.
Its structure is also crumbling due to the constant rain and the previous fights
that have happened here, and the damage being done to it by the black birds is
making it fall faster. Solare uses his cloak of fire to light up everything
around him.
“Why are you doing that for?” the
man asks.
“To burn the path behind us so they
can’t follow us.”
“Good idea!”
The fires begin to consume the
buildings and kill whatever black birds are trapped within them, however, the
fires also break down the building even more and make it tilt over to the side.
“Hurry before the building
collapses!”
Once they’re outside of the
building, they see eight or more black birds going into the previous building they
were in with more flying in that screech to notify the others that their prey is
outside. As the connecting makeshift bridges begin to fall, the three make a
jump to another building. A black bird from behind them manages to grab onto
the man and take him away with a couple others so he doesn’t escape.
“The entrance to the sewers isn’t
too far from here! Agh! It’s below that skyscraper! Hurry!”
Luna turns back to watch him be
carried off as Solare grabs her hand and urges her forward.
“There’s nothing we can do for him!”
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t worry about me! Just go!”
Solare and Luna try to escape the birds,
but they are quickly surrounded. Unsure of where to go, Luna moves around to
look for an opening and accidentally steps on a fragile part of the roof that starts
to fall when she steps on it.
“Don’t move!” Solare says as he
starts firing arrows at the approaching black birds and moving towards Luna to
pull her away from the collapsing roof.
The roof is unable to stay together
and makes Luna fall to the raging waters below. Solare reaches out and jumps
after her.
“Luna!”
Luna braces herself for the fall,
however, the water catches her and gently lets her down to the ground.
“Oh, great…” Solare says as he’s plummeting
to the ground.
Luna reaches up ready to
catch Solare when her veins suddenly become blue as the waters catch Solare and
gently let him down on the ground.
“Ow, ow, ow!” Solare says as the
water touches him.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just that when a
constant stream of water touches me, I feel pain. Look out!”
The black birds begin descending
upon the two, so Luna uses the water to catch them in the sky and drown them.
Seeing what happened, the other black birds retreat.
“Wow. I thought you’d just hit them
with it, not drown them.”
“What? Too much?”
“No, not really. Just remind me not
to mess with you.”
“So, if getting hit with a lot of
water hurts you, then why did jump after me?”
“I don’t know. It was reactionary. I
didn’t want to lose you.”
Luna reaches out her arms to hug Solare.
“Wait, you’re going to hurt yourself!”
But when Luna hugs Solare, she isn’t
harmed by his flames.
“Thank you, Solare.”
“Yeah, don’t mention it.”
Solare hugs her back. The two then
walk towards the skyscraper as the water clears around them. Along the way, they
find a sewer grate.
“Maybe this could be an easy way in,”
Solare says as he opens it to find the sewers flooded. “Figures. Can you get the
water in the sewer to stop running?”
“I can try.”
Luna tries to get the sewer water
to recede. The sewer water does recede, but the water around them starts to close
in.
“Hey, hey, stop! It doesn’t look
like you can control two different flows of water. We’re going to have to use
the skyscraper entrance.”
“That’s probably better and not
flooded.”
“I hope it’s not.”
Getting closer to the skyscraper reveals
that the front entrance is blocked by flood-resistant barricades that Luna’s
water cannot break through. Solare tries to melt the barricades with his heat, but
the barricade refuses to break.
“That’s some strong pre-flood
metal,” Solare says, “We’re going to have to enter through the bridges that go
into the buildings.’
The two are forced to go through a
nearby building that’s blocked by rubble, but Luna’s water is able to remove
it. After making it through the mess in the building, they make it into the skyscraper.
It’s a dark place with barricades covering the windows. Despite the damage it’s
suffered on the outside, the skyscraper is mostly clean. Going deeper into it,
Luna and Solare find black owls against the walls. They have their wings and eyes
closed and appear to be immobile.
“These must be the black birds guarding
the entrance. I wonder what makes them so special,” Solare asks as he thinks
about what to do about them.
Luna takes a piece of food she has
and throws it near the owls. One suddenly wakes up, opens its wings to reveal
the mouth in its body as a tongue catches the food, and quickly draws it in and
closes in an instant.
“It looks like they sense when their
food is close by then immediately catches it and eats it,” Luna says, “All we
have to do is keep our distance from them.”
“That’s easier said than done. We
don’t even know if they’ll move and they’re blocking certain ways forward.”
“Well, we’re just going to have to
be careful.”
Solare and Luna make their way down
through the skyscraper while avoiding getting close. They get to a certain
point where the owls are blocking every way forward, so they go back only to
find that the owls have changed their positions.
“They’ve moved,” Luna notes.
“I had a feeling they would.”
The two continue their way through
the building only to have the owls block the way forward again and for them to
go back and find the owls in different positions again.
“I’m getting sick of these stupid
birds,” Solare says before he uses an arrow against an owl.
The arrow bounces off the owl as if
it hit metal. All the owls then turn their heads towards the two and follow their
movements. When they look behind them, the two find the owls behind them are
closer.
“We’re cornered!” Solare says while
Luna tries to use her water-powers to break into the building.
“I can’t do anything, Solare. You
have to use your power.”
“What power? All I can do is burn everything
I touch.”
“You have to be able to do something
more.”
“Argh! I’ll try. Come on!”
Solare builds a heated energy
within his chest before moving his mask up to release a beam of heat out of his
mouth and at an owl that shatters it.
“Wow! That was amazing, Solare!”
The owls then begin to mobilize with
their exposed mouths after what Solare did.
“We have to move!”
Solare clears the way forward with
his heat beams as the owls chase them. The two eventually come to a hole in the
ground that leads to darkness. With no other way to go, they jump down and land
in the sewers with the water surrounding Luna catching her then Solare. The
owls look down the hole and decide not to follow. Instead, they close themselves
up and stand guard over it.
“That’s bad. The only exit we know
about is blocked off,” Solare says.
“Maybe the guy we’re looking for
knows another way out.”
“I hope so.”
Luna and Solare climb out of the
place where the sewer water ran and follow a path that leads to a mechanical
gate. It has a communication device with the words, “sing a song to activate
the door”.
“What’s it with people wanting us
to sing songs for them?” Solare asks aloud, “Do you know any songs to sing?”
“I do. Do you want to sing it with me?”
“I don’t know. What’s it called?”
“I forgot the name, but maybe the
lyrics will help you remember.”
“Okay. Then sing it.”
“I
was wrong from the start
I
tried to make everything fit my own truth
Now
it's all different
You've
given me a new view on life
Good
things in life are hard to find
So
I refuse to lose you
Can
we rekindle what we lost?
Let's
try again and do it right
You
can fail and I'll always forgive you
Let's
try again but better
I
can rely on you to be strong when I'm not
The
weak part of me is dead and gone
This
love may kill me but it kills the selfish me
Let's
try again and Rekindle Our Love”
Solare remembers the song after hearing
the chorus of the song and begins to sing along with Luna much to her delight.
“Before
I used to be selfish
I
pretended to be strong and smart to make up for my weakness
Now
it's all different
You've
erased that part of me
Don't
let the past weigh us down
Don't
let our mistakes be what we remember
Don't
let a misunderstanding be your view of me
Good
things in life are hard to find
So
I refuse to lose you
Can
we rekindle what we lost?
Let's
try again and do it right
You
can fail and I'll always forgive you
Let's
try again but better
I
can rely on you to be strong when I'm not”
Before they know it, Solare and
Luna are dancing together almost instinctively. They enjoy dancing and singing,
so they continue.
“The
weak part of me is dead and gone
This
love may kill me but it kills the selfish me
Let's
try again and Rekindle Our Love
I
won't let you go
Let's
try this again, let's work this out
Don't
let me go
Let's
try again and do it right
You
can fail and I'll always forgive you
Let's
try again but better
I
can rely on you to be strong when I'm not
The
weak part of me is dead and gone
This
love may kill me but it kills the selfish me
Let's
try again and Rekindle Our Love”
Once the song is over, they embrace,
and the door opens. The intoxication of the song wears off and they let go and
stare off to the side awkwardly, but with smiles on their faces.
“Umm. We should go,” Solare says.
“Oh, yeah.”
The two continue on with a warm and
weirdly familiar feeling they are now taking note of.
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