Calamity Island

5 | HEIGHTS

There was one unspoken rule in Santcosmo that everyone agreed on: the centre of the city was off-limits.

About half a mile out from downtown, and Jem could see the devastation rendered up close and personal: a grim picture you couldn't look away from. Dark clouds swirled above, a whirlpool in thunder grey, lit from behind by flashes of red and violet. It choked the light out, and even in the midday heat, the district was shrouded in shadow.

There were no buildings. Every skyscraper, streetlamp, car — every structure that had been in the city centre when the Cataclysm happened had been torn apart. Debris floated through the air, glass and mangled metal hanging in the suspended gravity, a snapshot of a city collapsing.

Once again, Jem had to wonder what the hell had happened here. The scholars back on Little San had theories, but nothing concrete. How would you even begin to explain it? The complete devastation of the city centre and most of its surroundings was one thing. But the barrier around the island, preventing anyone from entering or leaving? The huge, mutated plants and animals?

It was baffling, was Jem's stance, and she was more than happy to leave it at that.

Her feet crunched against gravel and broken glass as she approached downtown's edge. The pull of the Halcyon building was stronger now, a siren song she couldn't ignore. Her rest last night had done nothing to fix that insistent urge towards the tower — if anything, it had just made it more powerful.

Jem craned her neck to look at it properly. While the rest of the district had fallen apart, the Halcyon Building towered nearly a hundred floors above the ground, a skeletal monolith visible for miles around. It stretched towards the sky in a narrow pyramid shape, wide at the base and tapering to two thin peaks at the summit.

It was driving her crazy. She'd never paid much attention to the building before. But now she couldn't look away.

She needed to get closer.

Jem climbed up to the roof of the old train station. Here the ground was totally unnavigable. The roads had split apart, leaving chasms of dark, whirling shadows beneath the broken tarmac. It was like the entire district was floating above a writhing, ever shifting void. The tower was still, but debris whirled around it like a hurricane. Just getting to the Halcyon building was a feat in itself. One false move, and it was all over.

Why was she back here?

The tower's call echoed in her heart again. Jem stepped closer before she could stop herself. She had to force her body to keep still. She had no idea what was calling her towards the building, coaxing her towards the top. But if trying to climb the tower was the only way to get it to stop, then she just had to get it over with.

Jem backed up a couple of steps. The debris storm whirled ahead. Jem took in a long inhale, a long exhale.

Focus.

Her eyes tracked the movement of the fragments caught in the maelstrom, familiarising herself with the erratic movements. She crouched to steady herself, still before the storm.

Then she ran up and leapt.

She plunged into the whirlwind. Her feet hit the battered shell of a car roof, making contact for just a split second before she vaulted again. She was all momentum, adrenaline, timing her movements perfectly from one chunk of debris to the next, all while the storm swirled and swept and eddied them in.

The Halcyon building loomed just ahead. She sprang for it, aiming for the bars of the exposed steel frame. But the wind shifted just before she reached it. A stray concrete slab howled towards her out of nowhere.