The Edge

Tola: Part Seven

It was strange how quickly a place could go from highly developed to basically abandoned. In this case, they went from the city to nothing but flat plains and periodic plateaus, even more rarely broken up by clusters of buildings. It may have been beautiful under other circumstances, but something about it seemed...strange. It was difficult to describe, but this time, the natural landscape carried all the heaviness of the city.

It didn't help that they were crammed into one of the Duke's two cars, with the sick cousin's father and a few other family members they hadn't really been introduced to. They all felt deeply tired. The hopeful feeling still lingered, but it was weak, strained by a weariness that felt like a ground-in stain on their hearts. She hoped—she desperately prayed—that she might be able to make things better for them.

Their destination was near one of the plateaus. Tola could feel the heaviness return as they drove through the outskirts of town, past what looked like a shipping area, then through some other industrial buildings arranged in neat rows. There were a few people out and about, but not enough to make the place feel truly occupied. "I know, it doesn't look like much," said Edward. He was the cousin's father, and the one driving the car. "But this used to be one of the biggest fuel mining settlements in the area."

"What happened?" Tola asked.

Edward sighed quietly. Not for the first time since being introduced to him, Tola did a double-take. He didn't look anything like her father—his skin was fair, his eyes a stormy shade of grey and not her father's dark brown—so maybe it was just the shared name that made him feel familiar. But sometimes he sounded familiar. "It just...didn't go the way we thought it would," he said. That didn't answer her question at all. She was about to push for her more answers, but he spoke again: "We're getting close to housing. Just...don't mind the fountain, all right?"

The what?

They turned a corner, and Tola immediately saw what he meant.

They were driving through a town center, a cluster of small, largely abandoned shops with a roundabout in the center. In the middle was a fountain—or what had once been a fountain. It had no running water, and the statue that used to be in the middle had been...transformed, for lack of a better word. The statue, whoever it had once represented, had been augmented with scraps of metal, rubber, and other garbage. It turned what had once likely been a person into a strange, swirling monstrosity, a black cloud with what looked like...eyes, perhaps, peering out from the whirlwind of detritus. It was like a storm cloud or an oil slick on two legs. There were other objects around the fountain, mostly food and stacks of various valuable-looking items. They looked like...

Tola settled back down in her seat, tearing her eyes away from the fountain and leaning closer to Gideon. "You okay?" he whispered.

She wanted to tell him what she suspected that fountain was, but she didn't want to say it in front of the group. It felt too risky. She didn't know if any of them had anything to do with that thing. "It's nothing," she whispered. I'll tell you later, was what she really meant. Fortunately, Gideon seemed to understand. He squeezed her hand again and went back coolly looking out the window.

They arrived at the housing section, a stretch of clearly prefabricated buildings arranged in neat rows. There were only two variations of duplexes (side by side, or one atop another), each with basically no back yard and a front yard bigger than a few square feet of mostly dead grass. Some had small gardens, but most looked unkempt and half-dead. When they stepped out of the car, Tola could smell rotting tomatoes that had been left to collect in the garden's bed.

"We live on the second floor," Edward said, gesturing for them to follow her. "There's not a lot of space, but we should be able to set up someplace for you to sleep. You may hear people running around after night, but that's just the local kids. There's supposedto be a curfew, but they're...mostlyharmless. Just stay inside and everything should be fine." He had to input his entry code twice; the first time, the lock made a noise like it was malfunctioning. "And...expect that to happen. A lot of things are broken now."