There was a light, passing through the dome. Only faint, practically the same as a star only just that little bit brighter.

  It was a sun, a new solar system, slowly inching closer. The daytime festival was only a short time away.

  Flick shifted past the old metal doors leading to the science district, the path he chose was an ancient one and had rarely been used, especially with the recent explosion from Simons old office. The slits from where the doors were supposed to slide into were rusted and could only open so far.

  A line of checking booths crowded a hallway, split in two by a rope barricade, all of which were empty from what Flick could tell.

  It was the beginnings of a national holiday, plus there wasn’t much to guard in the science district anyway considering the prior attack. All that was left was the giant furnace and various smelteries, with one designed to convert the carbon ice into breathable air. There were other designations for the smelters, but Flick only committed the singular one to memory.

  Peeking through the glass he spotted the buttons for opening the main door, as well as a small locker room full of spare equipment for cutters and the like. He channelled a small flame from his machine and focused it on the glossy window, melting away a hole big enough for him to fit through.

  It was likely, he thought, that the moment the door opened Sam would know. He hovered his hand over the controls, and breathed slowly.

  Flick stood there for a while, thinking.

  * * *

  Just as he thought, Sam was standing plainly in the centre of the district in front of the looming forge. Its contents were still glowing red and churning, casting a deep red glow on the floor and walls. She stood there quietly watching it whilst Flick quietly watched her.

  “I’m surprised,” Sam said, turning her head slightly

  “About?”

  “You don’t hate me” She turned back to the glow in front of her, “Even knowing about what happened to Pillar Twelve, you don’t hate me yet.”

  Flick sighed, “I mean… It was pretty messed up, but I don’t blame you or anything,”

  Sam raised an eyebrow.

  “You were… Upset and angry. Besides it’s all in the past now so there’s not much to do about it,”

  “You could punish me” She muttered, “I would, if I was you anyway,”

  He chuckled awkwardly, “I mean you feel guilty right? Surely after doing… That. You feel bad about it?”

  Sam turned around, the belt of her black coat trailing behind her like a pair of tails gently resting slightly above the floor. Her eyes were sunken and could only glance through Flick instead of right at him.

  “What do you think?”

  “Well…” Flick hesitated, “You don’t look like you are but I’m sur-“

  “Would you want me to cry then? I can do that y’know, cry on command, even before all of… This.” she glanced to the back of her hand, remembering the way her skin peeled away whenever she brought her thoughts alive,

  “…Do you know the difference between a murderer that cries after killing someone and a murderer that doesn’t? Nothing. Feeling guilty won’t absolve me of this, Flick.”

  Flick rolled his eyes, “That’s not what I was saying, I just wanted to know is al-“ he sighed, “Okay okay, bad start, I just want to help Sam, really.”

  “I know…” Sam shook her head, then paused, “…My head is… There’s something wrong with it. All the time I can feel stuff I really really shouldn’t be able to. And these feelings, they aren’t whispers... They’re screams, every couple of seconds I feel something else and…”

  Flick stepped forward slowly, barely lifting his shoe from the steel floor, “And destroying the science district will help with that? Make the feelings go away?”

  “No… But it’ll be easier,” she turned again, this time looking at a distant wall as though a third person was watching from the shadows, “It’ll only be half as bad, not being able to feel someone dying from this disease at the same time as feeling someone else eat what was left of a body… Well, I definitely won’t miss it. Half is better than nothing, plus I’m essentially killing two birds with one stone anyway”.

  “Well…” Flick interjected, somewhat unnerved by the term Sam had used at the end for a reason that wasn’t clear to him, “How about we just help get rid of whatever it is that’s hurting you instead? No need for any birds, if we can just get rid of this thing that’s messing with you, so lets do that!”

  “You can’t.”

  “How do you know that? We at least have to tr-“

  “Because I know, Flick, I know everything.” She sharpened her eyes angrily, “Didn’t you listen to what I just said?”

  Flick stepped back, the look in Sam’s eyes sending chills down his spine, “Didn’t you say you felt everything?”

  “I did, and I also know everything.” She clenched her fists tightly, digging her nails into her skin.

  Flick noticed a dark liquid dripping off the knuckle of her hand.

  “Everything about everything. I know each thread of your skin down to the atom and if I think just a little bit harder I can unravel you.

  “I can unravel everything! With just a single thought! A stray intrusive thought and the world collapses, do you know how hard it is not to think, Flick? Not to imagine something for even a second?!

  “And I can feel it, you know I can see it too, right? Them… All the people dying from this fucked up disease. I can feel it killing them.” She gasped, finally releasing her hands and placing herself on a nearby railing, letting her body go limp for a moment as to let her breath catch up, “Two hundred thousand four hundred and seventy two… currently anyway, two hundred thousand four hundred and seventy two rotting bodies”

  Flick stood, watching Sam catch her breath. He fumbled with the fabric of his jacket pocket, the seams on its edges that were neatly stitched together. His hands moved towards the pockets on his pants and they did the same, before ultimately flinching away as he rummaged through his brain for a response.

  He was out of his depth.

  She started once more, looking back at Flick with solemn and weary eyes. “I’m so tired Flick, I just want it to stop, that’s all I want.”

  He paused for a second, then responded plainly, “Couldn’t you just get rid of six disease altogether? Like, with a thought or something?”

  She sighed, throwing her head up to face the ceiling “Its not that simple, doing something like that requires more focus and more patience than I could possibly have, even the slightest miscalculation and…” She shook her head, “I have to work on a smaller scale, on a scale I can handle right now”

  Something twinged inside of Flick, “And this is it? This is the only way?”

  “It’s the only way Flick”

  It happened again, a twinge inside of him that he could feel, where his throat met his stomach something itched.

  “Oh fuck off! ‘It’s the only way’ this and ‘It’s the only option’ that, why is this the only option?” He edged closer to Sam, “Do you know how many times I’ve heard about the ‘only’ solution today?! There’s always another option it just needs more time and effort and... For fucks sake it needs something that doesn’t ruin thousands of lives!”

  Sam’s face became plastic, as though all emotion had been filtered out of its features, “This is just how things have to be sometimes, Flick,”

  Flick rolled his eyes again, channelling the itch in his chest, “But WHY? Why the fuck is this always how things are? I don’t even wanna know, actually, because whatever answer there could possibly be my only response is this; it shouldn’t have to be. Things shouldn’t have to be this way.”

  Sam felt the itch too now, only she was far more familiar with the sensation. Anger, “The point is that it is this way, that’s why this has to happen, Flick! None of it matters in the end, they’ll just bounce back like they always do!”

  “And how much suffering would ‘they’ have to go through before that happens then?”

  She scoffed, “A lot less than six disease does to you,”

  “Then make a cure! Set up systems to ship it worldwide. Y’know what, fuck it! I’ll be the first courier for the cure if you want!”

  “A cure doesn’t do anything! Then it’d just come back again later or-“ Her brain ached, she paused until the pain receded.

  Sam then continued, her voice tired yet somehow manic, “What’s the point anyway, why do you care? For all you know the world goes away the second you're not looking and all that we are stops happening, everything only exists as long as you're still looking at it in front of you.

  “And I know that! That is... so so scary and yet I can’t get the thought to leave! I can’t stop the idea from running through me, that whenever you close your eyes to blink the floors and walls and me and my life stop happening for just a fraction of a moment while you’re not looking. I know it and now I can’t UN-know it...”

  She stumbled forward, grabbing at her temple before suddenly stopping still. Slowly, her hand dropped back by her side, and her posture regained rigidity. As she spoke her words became clearer, calm, like Flick remembered her sounding like before.

  “So, for now, while I still can’t do anything about it..."

  “Don’t…”

  “…Stop…”

  …Looking.

  Don’t stop… what?

  Her words floated around Flick’s head for a moment, before eventually shimmering away to his own, much louder thoughts.

  There was a look in Sam’s eye that he used to recognised in Scratch, a desire that wouldn’t be broken. He could hardly wrap his head around what Sam was now anyway, with every word she spoke his understanding grew more estranged. He had the sinking feeling that there was only one more option remaining.

  There was nothing more he could do.

  “I can’t let you destroy this district Sam,” one of his hands wrapped around the handle of his fusion cutter, the other dug itself into his pocket.

  Sam slowly closed her eyes, breathing shallow breaths, “…I know.”

  How can I do this? she wondered.

  I can’t kill him, I don’t want to. He doesn’t deserve to die, he’s too ignorant to have done anything bad on purpose, and anyway I don’t want him to die.

  Maybe I could stop him from moving? If I can keep him still for long enough I can destroy the essential things and if I do a good enough job they won’t be rebuilt. Then… well he’d have no more reason to argue then. Keep him down, that’s all I have to do, he doesn’t have to die.

  This doesn’t have to end badly, he thought.

  If I can just show her that I’d win, maybe she could… back down? Maybe just a little? I don’t need to hurt her, I don’t need to kill her. Make her feel as if it’s pointless to continue, that I’d keep stopping her until she gives in. Be annoying, I can do that.

  I can do that.

  Flick slowly withdrew the cutter from it’s holster, thumbing at the dial inch by inch before stopping and shifting his finger to the side. At the same time, his second hand slid back out of the pocket holding another, near identical, fusion cutter. His thumb dialled in again, this time stopping when he felt the factory standard spring refuse the wheel from moving any further. Taking a deep breath, he pulled both triggers.

  As soon as the fire traipsed around his sides Sam pushed something from her hand. A grain sized seed hovered before her palm before exploding into a rush of vine and wood, the end closest to Flick morphing into a gnarled hand as it closed in.

  The speed caught him by surprise, and his body instinctively pulled his upper half to the side forcing him to drop one of the cutters mere seconds after turning it on. Off balance, he hopped back to restabilise. Glancing at the grounded weapon Flick smiled, satisfied that his hand had released it the way he had hoped.

  Before long another branch careened towards him, protruding from the thickened claw that attempted to arrest him. He pulled his weight forwards into a low sprint, feeling the splinter whizz over his back.

  Sam barely made a noise, shifting her arm a few paces ahead of him and launching a triad of smaller seed-pellets. With two hovering parallel to one another and the third swinging far to the left of Flick, she tensed the muscle in her brain. In an instant huge oaken arms sprang from their tiny casings.

  The force of their approach was far more fierce than before, the ropes of tree flesh clawing over one another like dolphins skipping through earthy water, their brambled fins occasionally carving scars in the sheet metal floors with their tenacity. Sam knew it wasn’t good to summon the trees consecutively like this, she could feel the ghostly presence in her mind begin to gnaw and the aching was already looming over her. She grit her teeth and pushed harder. More than anything she needed this to be over quickly.

  Flick’s heels clinked against the floor with every light-footed step he took. Again, the branches came for him and something inside of him could tell they were somehow faster, as the wind that whipped around them seemed to bend the light near their surface. A shudder sank in his body as he attempted to match their speed with his plain eyes.

  He leapt forward, clean over the tangled mess of wood just as it was about to reach him, using his free arm to grab on its surface and pull himself forward, as though vaulting a table. As he flipped Flick caught a glimpse, a brown shimmer, of a branch he had previously dodged that had now redirected itself and was tunnelling towards his back furiously.

  Feeling his own immobility mid jump, Flick did the only thing he could possibly think of. He pointed the fusion cutter in the direction of the branch and tweaked the output just enough to give him a slight boost in speed.

  Its not much he thought, but this way, if I’m fast enough, I can roll before it hits me.

  The added tails of flame did exactly as Flick wanted, pushing his body slightly further than his jump would’ve done otherwise. However, just as he was about to land, the beam of his fusion cutter passed through a vein of oak.

  Sam recoiled, grabbing at her arm as if it was possessed. Sharp stings bounded up and down her skin and when the fire of Flick’s weapon finally left her wooden pillars, the pain suddenly receded with it. The pain itself wasn’t anything worse than Sam had already experienced, but it was still enough to grab her attention if only in passing.

  She figured it was something about wood being natural, how wood could feel like most plants could. As she rubbed at the place where the stinging first erupted Sam contemplated about if she could share the nerves of other objects that could feel. Perhaps this was something new, perhaps she was still evolving.

  She held back the presence in her brain as much as she could, refusing to let the headache take over. The wood was taking its toll, the repetition was getting to her, but Sam refused to use anything else for the time being. Wood was the safest option, for Flick’s sake.

  Rolling away from the barrage of attacks before, Flick broke out into yet another manic sprint towards Sam. Seeing one of her branches nearby, Flick steadied the flame of his cutter onto its skin as he ran hoping the heat would prevent Sam from springing any surprise spikes or brambles from its surface.

  Spurred on by the sudden stinging feeling that flooded her body all at once yet again, Sam grit her teeth and prepared three more oak carved spears and flung them at Flick.

  As they whistled through the air it finally happened.

  The ache returned. Sam screamed, clutching her head and curling her entire body. Her appearance changed, skin rippling into large mounds that rapidly shifted around her like formless clay that craved shape.

  Flick caught wind of her pain, seeing the changing skin on her body mimic things like wings and flowers and concrete, as though the aching made it somehow forget its own shape. Seeing an opportunity he pushed his legs harder, slipping through the air unhindered and unchallenged before eventually reaching Sam.

  He switched the energy of his cutter off at the hilt and stuck its dead flame at her neck.

  “Are we done now?” Flick asked, hoping the threat would be enough to quell her anger.

  Sam glared.

  She walked forward, pushing past Flick’s shoulder as he continued to point his weapon at her. She continued for a few feet towards the exit of the science district all whilst barely making a noise, her sighs of disappointment blending into the natural hum of the electricity that coursed around them undisturbed.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Flick studied the features of her face, trying to figure out if his tactic had worked or not, before noticing a flash of prismatic light pulse from under her skin.

  Suddenly the ground peeled away beneath him, coiling up into a slope that forced Flick to grab onto a serrated edge to keep himself from falling down. At the base of the slope a murky black pool of tar formed, as though it leaked through the pores in the metal panelling, slowly inching towards where Flick was hanging with leathery hands that clambered over each other. He frantically kicked his feet at the slope for any leverage but failed to find anything.

  Spurred on by the rising mess below him he swung his body around so that his face was inches away from the new wall he found himself clinging to and searched with his free hand for anything else to grab as support.

  His fingers wandered across a stray copper cable and wrapped it around his palm as best as they could. Immediately, and all at once, Flick pulled. The wiring held his weight long enough for him to throw himself over the peak of the wall.

  However in his manic attempt to clear himself of the black ooze Flick failed to remember that the wall was wrenched from the floor below him, meaning that what lied on the other side of the slope was a gaping hole that led into the lower levels of the science district.

  What they were on now was the main district floor, the giant platform big enough to fit trucks and crowds with ease, but the lower levels were different. Pipes and walkways criss crossed over each other in a labyrinthian nightmare that only engineers had the experience to navigate.

  The further down someone went into the science district, the less sense everything made. Down there, you could be two feet away from a chemical vat and not even realise it.

  He braced as best as he could, but whatever he did could hardly defend him from gravity’s brutality. He flew down the first two floors without any collisions, but on the third his chest aligned perfectly with the safety railing of a walkway. In an instant his breath was stolen from him and for a brief moment, as he began to fall again, he felt as though his body might break in two. He knew without question that this was the most pain he had ever been in, like some gut feeling that nothing else compared to this.

  After falling another floor down he finally collided, back first, on solid ground. Flick groaned, his body growing numb and his vision blurring more and more with each second that his eyes were open. It felt as though all the adrenaline in his body that had worked so hard before to keep him from feeling pain suddenly paused, gasping involuntarily at the injury, like bystanders to a crash.

  Flick felt the urge to stay completely still, just in case moving would cause his fragile spine to snap in two.

  His vision slowly regained some form of clarity, though still not perfect, and Flick could make out some black orbs swooping side to side towards where he was laying. He remembered the goo from before and his adrenaline pumped faster than it ever had before.

  Flick picked himself up and hobbled away, testing the limits that his adrenaline would allow him to reach. The pain was numbed, at least for now, and his legs seemed to work perfectly fine. He worked his way back up to sprinting, eventually shrugging off the huge amount of pressure on his chest and regaining the agility he once had before.

  Glancing back however, he realised the black orbs that were swooping down before weren’t simply droplets from the tar pool. Shiny black doves and crows, formed from the tar, flew down like bullets weaving through the wires and pipes.

  He shot forward resisting the urge to look back again as he ran. He noted the humming machinery churning and pumping at one side and the suffocatingly close steam pipes on the other, the thin runway stretched out before him funnelling him to an unknown destination.

  An unknown destination, Flick didn’t know where he was any more, he hadn’t been this far down yet.

  Panic made his heart skip faster; his legs kick harder. He kept glancing at the unchanging wall of pistons hoping they’d give a floor number but none seemed social enough to oblige. Everything here must’ve been built ages ago, no machine here was privy to human senses of direction. Each footstep rang louder than the last, he was panicking.

  Then in the distance Flick saw something, a railing that led to a large circular pit with another platform lying across it.

  The centre of the factory, underneath the giant carbon furnace. Flick finally felt the tension in his chest lessen, he recognised this space and even though he wasn’t as familiar with it as the rest of the factory, it was enough to give him a sense of direction.

  Flick heard the splattering of a crows wings behind him and picked up his pace, he could feel the tiny droplets of tar on his shoulders as they collided with one another in their desperation to claim what was theirs. Flick straightened his form in sheer focus, locking his eyes to the platform across the gap as it grew closer and closer…

  He leapt.

  But it wasn’t far enough, the jump could only carry him so far over the gap and Flick found himself looking down for anything else to kick off of. There were wires and thick steel cables but those weren’t solid enough, the only thing left was a small copper pipe reserved for water. It was far too thin, but Flick decided it was the only option.

  He planted his foot on its surface and immediately felt it buckle underneath him like cheap cardboard, only getting a fraction of the air he hoped to achieve.

  Luckily, the air gained from the extra jump was just enough for Flick to tuck his body over the guarding rail on the other side of the pit, leaving only a hairs width of space between it and his heel. With no time to correct himself he fell to the floor pathetically, slamming his elbow into its tough surface to cushion his own fall.

  It hurt again but Flick didn’t have time, as the litter of birds were closer than they ever were before. He glanced to the right of him, seeing another cramped alley sort of passage between machines and scrambled to reach it. The birds screamed past him, colliding with the walls and floors as if they didn’t anticipate him changing direction. However, as Flick ran to the new passageway he noticed when they landed they didn’t explode into puddles of tar like he expected.

  Plumes of thick smoke seemed to shoot out from them the moment their bodies touched anything but themselves, a thick smoke that stuck to surfaces like glue. As more and more of the birds became smoke it seemed to snake its way towards Flick. It was gradual at first, but glancing back he saw it gaining on him more and more with each passing second.

  He hoped his intuition was right as he dashed to the side of the factory, unlike the path before this one was cluttered with abandoned tools and steel girders that criss-crossed in the same random way he was used to. Despite it being an environment Flick was a natural in, against the hissing cloud of white smoke behind him it only served to drain him of any energy he still had.

  Nevertheless he swung through its annoying layout, ducking and sliding whenever it was necessary for him to do so. His chest was burning, his eyes did too, with every step his legs felt heavier. Flick wished for it all to end, he didn’t even want to fight Sam in the first place. All he wanted was for this to stop.

  Then, just as his leg seemed on the verge of giving out he spotted it, an open pipe shaft. The science district was messy by design, a lot of the cramped spaces refused to let oxygen through them, so several pipes like these were littered throughout. They were designed to funnel some air to lower levels at least, or they were for yelling through to notify crewmembers of anything dangerous falling or malfunctioning.

  None of that mattered now though, for now it was a mouse hole Flick could scurry through to survive.

  He dove in, just thin enough for him to clamber up somewhat unimpeded. Flick hurried through, waiting for the bend in the pipe that led topside before quickly bounding up it. If he timed it right he could hop from one side of the pipe to the other, so long as he managed to grab tiny edges of the bolts and screws for leverage.

  However, not long after climbing its surface he felt the pressure in the pipe change, the smoke had already started rushing after him.

  Flick didn’t have time to climb the whole surface, he could feel the plume behind him being much faster than him. Seeing no other option, Flick pulled his fusion cutter out once more and span the output dial far beyond what he was used to.

  Everything behind him erupted in fire and Flicks body rocketed forward. He struggled to keep himself from slamming into the surfaces of the pipe as it twisted and turned until eventually he felt a vent push against his back. Without much resistance the thin metal grate shattered into pieces as Flick burst from its innards, managing to somehow come out feet first as the cutter turned his body around against his will.

  In the split-second Flick escaped from the lower levels of the factory, still mid-flight, he opened his eyes to coincidentally see Sam standing fifteen feet in front of him, a look of wide eyed shock plastering her face. Without thinking he steadied his fusion cutter to send him careening towards her.

  Sam pulled her hand up, still caught off guard that Flick managed to advance on her so quickly, and hastily thought to restrain him. However, she panicked. Every thought in Sam’s mind was concerned with restraining Flick, and naturally thought of the first thing Sam associated with the term. Images of spiders webs flashed across her mind for only an instant, but it was enough for her power to manifest it. A flood of webs shot out towards Flick.

  Still carried by the force of his Fusion cutter, Flick contorted his body to spin the flame in the direction of the webbing swatting it away in a huge torrent of heat that ignited them. In no time at all Flick reached Sam and, on instinct as he finally landed, he slashed at her midsection hoping to kill her.

  Immediately he recognised the squealing noise of flesh against fire and turned his fusion cutter off, he span around on his heel immediately dreading the mistake he had made.

  Sam cried a blood wrenching scream as she clutched at her stomach, feeling the layers of her skin singing and burning like flash paper.

  Flick looked at her anguish, “Holy shit I-I’m sorry I didn’t mean t-“

  Just then the skin on her face peeled back, flashing Flick with the dark purple muscle lining underneath, speckled with shimmering multi coloured veins.

  A part of Flick’s insides caved themselves in, somewhere just underneath his lungs. He could feel his own bones crunching against an invisible vortex that turned inside of him, launching him back as if the air itself was retaliating in Sam’s stead.

  Flick felt blood in the back of his throat, chunks of it. Dazed, he stumbled back to his feet and patted his side. It was still there somehow, although with the force of whatever just hit him he wouldn’t have been surprised if it wasn’t.

  Sam inspected the damage to her midsection. Stitching together the fibres of her burnt flesh. Even though it healed perfectly, the feeling of searing pain lingered enough to drive her as close to madness as her ability let her.

  The two looked at each other. There wasn’t some understanding of kinship any more, both recognised the other as a threat. The pain made Flick and Sam equally aware of the damage they could inflict.

  Flick looked back to where he stood earlier, the hole where he dropped his second fusion cutter before seemed cool to the touch, he reckoned that it must be at least somewhere close to the bottom by now. Perhaps only a few seconds away.

  Taking a deep breath he hobbled to where the small hole lied, trying to resist the urge to limp against his body’s pleas. At the same time, Sam straightened her gaze, lifting her hands in front of her and centring them on where Flick was running to.

  She tensed a muscle in her brain once more summoning a ripple of barbed wire and sparks of bright yellow electricity that danced along their narrow bridges. She tensed harder and made the floor below Flick bend and creak, she turned the air above him into a ceiling of jagged ice and shattered it down towards him. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.

  Just then the ground shook against Sam’s command, sending tremors far up into the glass dome that encompassed them. An explosion shattered through the lower levels of the factory and breached just behind where Flick had finally decided to stop, a mangled fusion cutter rising up through the yellow and red.

  Flick hoped this would happen. He knew a second fusion cutter would take at least five minutes to reach something flammable, though he was only estimating at the time, and even still he only hoped to use the explosion for surprising Sam. He had hoped to use it to catch her off guard long enough for him to knock her out or something. It wasn’t a plan Flick had seriously intended on working, it certainly wasn’t supposed to be used like this.

  Flick’s body went limp as the explosion carried him forward, the G-force forcing hot air into his lungs. Sam flinched, the shock-wave rippling through her and causing the mess of barbed wire to fly off elsewhere. A stray spark of bright electricity melded into Flick’s side mid-flight, the energy coursing up through his eyes as he struggled to maintain form. Five feet

  Flick tightened his grip, bringing his cutter up to slash at Sam’s head as he fought against the hot wind pushing him. She couldn’t keep up, the explosion propelled Flick’s body far beyond what was humanly possible, her thoughts raced to find a suitable counter but even Sam could tell nothing would be fast enough to catch him. Three feet.

  She watched the cutter in his hand, the fire that struggled to keep up with the speed of his body. It was aiming for her brain, she could see it’s course clearly. In a split second she focused on defence instead of offence, she thought of a material that would shut out heat completely. The best she could think of was a thick mask of lead. One foot.

  Flick switched off his fusion cutter just before he thought it would reach her. He slammed his feet hard into the ground behind her, bracing as hard as he could to stop all his momentum, getting as low to the ground as possible.

  Before Sam could realise, Flick was behind her. In one swift motion he flipped the fusion cutter around in his hand and jutted its nozzle into the back of her head like a knife, turning it on.

  Sam made no noise, the heat turning her skull and anything inside of it into thick, black ash. Her body went limp as she collapsed to the floor.

  The explosion settled around them, chunks of steel and pockets of fire flitted around like rain. Flick wobbled in place, then went to his knees. He dared not look at Sam’s corpse.

  “I…I-I’m sorry” He cried. “I’m so sorry… I didn’t want this… I didn’t want to…

  “Why couldn’t you just stop? Why did you have to keep going? I don’t- I cant understand why you… I’m sorry I didn’t-“

  The tears streamed down his face endlessly.

  “…I only wanted to help…”

  Sam slowly pulled herself back up, her limp body twitching as the ash grew itself back into a brain. The scorch marks had all but healed.

  She stood; blank faced.

  Flick looked back up at her with horror.

  Sam stared at Flick, wide eyed. She had no words. Her disappointment, her anger, her pain and sorrow and most of all her surprise, was plain from the expression on her face. It was the look of someone with no words to give. The look of her realising that he wasn’t an exception.

  A wooden mask formed around her face, the same one Flick saw from the tower, with the pointed jackal-like ears that were impossible to forget, the glowing eyes that pierced straight through you. Then the air around her distorted and shimmered in a way Flick didn’t understand, bending and folding until suddenly Sam wasn’t there any-more. She was replaced by a gust of wind that extinguished any stray flame of her presence, as if her coattails were swallowed in an invisible water.

  Flick looked up to see Sam standing there, planted in the air looking back at him. Those eyes, from what Flick could tell they never moved, they were fixed only on him.

  Sam slowly pulled her hand towards her and pointed it towards the dome above palm first, and Flick felt a chill go down in his spine.

  He ran. Ignoring the pain in his side, ignoring all pain, Flick ran. He remembered seeing a helmet somewhere, attached to a railing somewhere or on a step, he definitely remembered there being a helmet here. He snapped his head around every corner, lingering on glimmers of glass then turning away hurriedly after realising it was a window or clear pipe that glinted in the fire. Flick cursed under his breath, looking back up at Sam.

  Something was growing from the grooves of her palm’s skin.

  Please don’t be on the lower levels he begged,

  Don’t be there, don’t be there, don’t be there.

  He could feel the ticking of time around him, every noise became an alarm that spelled the end of him. The banging of a pipe made him flinch; a small fire crackling made him tense. He had to focus on finding the helmet, that was all that mattered. He couldn’t help wondering about when it would happen.

  A small mesh of wires leaked out of Sam’s hand then grew rigid, forming over one another like snakes forming a grey rope. Plates of sheet metal moved along them and met at the tip, building themselves into the blade of a sword. It was already three times the size of her body.

  Another glimmer caught Flick’s eye and a wave of relief washed over him, the familiar black tint of a helmet stared back at him propped up against a spike of upturned metal. He dove for it, sliding along the floor and fumbling its glossy surface with his gloved fingers as he rushed to put it on.

  It squeezed over the sides of his head and he clamped the neck brace shut.

  The sword cast a shadow over the entire science district. With it’s added size Sam integrated complexities into its mechanisms to keep her from another headache; flowers adorned its hilt, gears and pistons lined the centre and spun endlessly at differing speeds, chunks of glass and ice danced along its bladed edge and at its tip lied a perfect plain steel end of a giant broadsword.

  The two looked at each other, Flick through the shaded glass of his helmet and Sam through the brambles of her mask.

  For a moment Sam looked alien.

  As did Flick.

  She tensed her whole body and the sword emanating from her seemed to double in size shattering the dome above and forcing all of its captured air back outside. In one swift movement she brought her hand down and with it the giant edge of her sword.

  It crashed through the towering engines and office blocks like they were wisps of a web she sought to swat away. All at once she cleaved through the floor, its fiery red blood erupting at the swords very touch. She continued to saw at the district with ease, cutting it off from Pillar seven entirely.

  This was death, this had to be death. Flick’s mind flashed images of childhood to him, the years spent staring at the stars, the months spent idle with Simon in his office.

  This was it. The end.

  Until Flick realised something. Pillar seven is one big stick in the ground with a glass bubble for a crown, the extra districts were smaller bubbles that glued themselves to the centrepiece.

  Sam had cut the science district away completely, but the centre pillar was still in tact. Any open surfaces get sealed one way or another, Flick remembered it clearly when Scratch fought him in the Pillar’s vents.

  Meaning one thing… If Flick could just make it back to the main pillar, theoretically, he would be safe.

  The ground rumbled underneath Flick’s feet and gravity seemed to push him in every which direction as the science district turned and fell. He sprinted as hard as he could towards where Sam was dissecting, dodging around boxes and loose machines that slid towards him. As he ran the district fell more and more, the floor he once commanded with his speed becoming a hill, then a mountain with each passing second.

  He vaulted over railings that got in his path, clambered along pipes that at one time were far too steep for him walk on. Eruptions of steel and fire assaulted his senses from every side, a constant rumbling shook through his whole body until the ends of his legs were numb with vibration.

  Flick looked up and could see the ruffled edges of the district as they slowly escaped the main body of pillar seven, just as the floor became too off kilter for him to climb up. He grabbed onto what remained of a window and threw himself up.

  He stood on the freshly dissected wound, watching the whole place begin to fall to ground. Flick would only have a few seconds before the new floor below him would give way to gravity and send him plummeting along with it. He tried to ignore the flashing sparks of electricity from open wires and the shaking that was all but consuming him. He looked furiously for an escape, for any way to get out alive.

  There he spotted it, the once attached cables that hung vicariously from Pillar seven. He took a deep breath, then skipped over the lower levels of the science district. Along pipes and open machinery and pistons that refused to live any longer, Flick gained speed until he felt he could not go any faster.

  Swinging his arms out for extra momentum, pushing off the falling floor as hard as he could, focusing only on the cables, Flick jumped.

  All pain seemed to vanish, the rumbling that shook throughout him had finally stilled. As he reached the apex of his jump he felt as though he was hovering, allowing his ragged bones to finally rest.

  He turned his head, the outside of the pillar stretched before him.

  There was a sun in the sky. The daytime had finally come. Deep, Deep blue water flowed as far as he could see, it barely moved to allow the new sun to dance along its perfect stage. Little strings of dainty sunlight, dancing along the water. Clouds scattered the skyline casting shadows along the great plane below, teasing the dancing lights into new spaces previously hidden to them, as the white billows shifted around the earth stealing the shade along with them.

  It was warm, wonderful.

  Flick thought for a moment, if this was what Sam’s world looked like.

  The cables quickly advanced on him but his jump was far too short, he rushed to grab one of the frayed ends but only managed to claw at a stray vine that didn’t have enough body for him to slide down. He clenched regardless, hoping the grip strength of his hand would be enough as what remained of the cable slapped against his arm.

  As he began to slow his descent the frayed end of the cable shot through his gloves, whipping him towards one of the giant legs of the pillar.

  His body slammed into its side, another blow to his already shattered ribcage. He felt blood pooling under the surface of his skin. Flick span in the air, disoriented and in pain. As a last ditch effort he brought out his fusion cutter, rummaging in his pocket for a fuel cell to reload it.

  Before he could gain any more speed he attempted to point the cutter down as a thruster. The flame erupted once more but with the speed at which Flick was falling it blew back towards him almost instantly, grazing his entire body in an intense heat. He switched the thing off, reeling from the fire and looked back towards the surface of the pillar.

  Again his fall was suspended slightly, the thrust of the cutter being just enough to slow him, and mechanical panels of the pillar were only an arm’s length in front of him. Flick grabbed at anything, scraping his hand against the metal plates in the hopes it would make him stop eventually. He spotted a small foothold, a tiny gap that was probably meant for ventilation, and instinctively he grabbed for it. Flick stopped immediately, the entirety of his momentum flooding past the joints in his arm. He felt something pop deep inside of him and screamed, the accumulated pain being far too much for him.

  However, he had finally stopped. The science district melted away into the crystal blue water below, shattering its perfect blue surface into giant waves of white static that rippled forever. There was a pressure somewhere in his chest, he tried to breath but it was hard to squeeze air into his lungs, his arm was already getting tired.

  Flick looked up at the sky, in the place where the science district once stood. Sam was still standing there, watching the waves break out over the horizon. Finally, she looked towards the leg of the pillar where Flick was dangling helplessly from.

  She looked back over the horizon, at the shimmering water far off in the distance. The air seemed to bend around her again, and suddenly Sam became a blur. Flick could only catch the faint trace of her body escaping into the sky above, a tiny black dot in the air before completely vanishing into the pale blue.

  Sam was gone, like a star blinking out of the night sky, she was gone.