Evolving Classes In The Apocalypse-Chapter 13: The Calm Before The Storm

I was not sure for how long, but I knew that after speaking with Ysor for a bit more, I became drowsy at some point and eventually fell asleep. Or at the very least, allowed myself to.

But when the sound of multiple footsteps reached me, my eyes snapped open and that familiar sense of danger washed over me again. It was not overwhelming. I was not averse to living a fugitive life. In fact, this felt like more freedom than I have had in a very long time.

My only worry, of course, was Ysor.

She stirred beside me and rose from the stairs she had been sleeping on.

"Oh, what in the... did you two sleep here overnight?" one of the approaching people called out as they neared us. I stood and took Ysor’s hand, prompting her to rise with me. Then I spoke with an intentionally polite tone.

"Yes, we didn’t want to miss the first movement."

The man and the people behind him drew closer. The sky was still dark, the twilight not even hinting at arrival, but they carried torches... mechanical bulbs of light fixed into metal platforms. Lanterns, they called them. Cheap enough that anyone could own one.

With the lanterns flooding the ground, I could make out the shapes of the crowd. Men and women, old and young. It didn’t matter.

The man raised his lantern to my face and studied it.

"Hm, you look young. Don’t think this face is familiar around here. You sure you’ve been here before?" His gaze traveled down the rest of me, and he did not even try to hide his disgust.

"These youths, I understand wanting to make something of yourself and wanting to visit another dimension, but look at you. This is work that requires a lot of power." He stepped closer and placed a hand on my shoulder, lowering his voice like he was doing me a favor. "See, let me help you before the Enforcers come around to transport us."

He gripped both my shoulders and spoke directly into my eyes. "Listen, boy. Mining is not a job you can do, okay? You should try to look for something else, alright? Think about fishing, or a lifter, or you could even work as a cleaner. These are more of a you type of person work... mining is more..." He kept looking at me, searching for the words.

Then he shook his head.

"Or better still, just lose some weight!"

’There it is.’

The people around us were already settling onto the stairs, clustering in groups of two, three, and five. It seemed like entire families were heading to the mine.

Although it was easy enough for anyone to figure out why most of them were really here, and no, it was not to mine. Probably the same goal as me. But for whatever their reasons were, I did not care. Not that I was in a position to, in the first place.

I smiled politely but did not reply. I just sat down, and Ysor sat beside me. That alone was response enough. The man looked at me with one final disgusted glance, hissed through his teeth, and walked away.

For a while we sat there waiting. People were already laying down clothes on the cold steps and picking up wherever they had left off with their sleep.

One of the women who had also settled on the stairs shifted toward us and looked us over carefully.

"Aren’t you two cold?"

I shook my head with an unwelcoming frown, turning her away. Either she was a persistently nosy old woman, or she simply lacked the ability to read facial expressions.

"Here." She pushed a thin fabric into my hand and insisted. "It’s fine, you should use it together. The cold will be stronger for the next hour before the sun eventually rises."

She left the folded linen in my hand and shifted away slowly. I looked at Ysor. She looked back and shrugged. Then I unfolded the linen and wrapped it around her.

"Uh? What are you doing? We should use it together." She pulled part of the cloth back and looked at me. "What are you looking at? Come closer."

I stared for a moment before stepping closer, and she swept in between my legs and let me wrap the cloth around both of us. With my wide body, the cloth would have been insufficient to use side by side, but like this, it worked.

People stared but Ysor didn’t care. She just settled into the warmth and pulled the cloth tighter, drawing both of us closer together and I just let her.

After a few minutes, many more people had arrived. Most were men, old and young, with fewer women among them and even fewer elderly ones.

Soon the sun began to peek from beyond the horizon, casting a golden glow across the sky and staining the clouds that clustered beneath the fading dark blue above. Stars vanished one by one, and the moon was lost somewhere in the growing radiance.

The stairs that led to the main door of the Secretariat were filled now. People sleeping on the ground, people sitting, people standing. The ones who had arrived after sunrise gathered in front, waiting for the Enforcers that would transport them to the Crucible of Giants Sanctuary, where the gateway to the Terrace Dimension waited.

’Well... and me too.’

The only issue was the Enforcers themselves. They usually arrived from outside the Area, rolling in with their monstrous transports and carrying the masses through the perilous wilderness. They would deliver them safely to the Sanctuary and return them when the work was done. There had been reported losses, of course, attacks of Undefinition along the route, so it was never completely safe. But that was not the part that worried me... yet. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

When the Enforcers arrived from outside, I had to pray to a god I did not believe in that they would not mix with the ones stationed in the Area. If the news of our escape reached their ears...

I was sure that right now, they were searching every corner of the Inner and Middle Ring for Ysor and me.

After a few moments, fluorescent lights flooded outside the gate, along with the groaning sound of engines.