Code of Shadows

Chapter 8: Aala

          I had never been outside of Windsdover, let alone the city system. I had always imagined the world outside as a large dessert. Nobody knew as all the transportation vessels available to normal people had no windows. Trains, small transportation vessels, everything. But the vessel that Kara drove had windows. We pulled out of the train station, and zipped towards the capitol

What I saw astonished me. A vast jungle lay to the right, and a wooded area to the left. I must have been gaping because Kara smiled.

"Yes, it is beautiful," Kara sighed.

I stared out the window in amazement. I relaxed and without even knowing it. I longed to go and be in the forested areas. I had never seen real vegetation before, besides what I ate. All the vegetation that I ate came from a different cities because Windsdover didn't grow food. One of the other 92 main cities did. Each city of Almosa specialized in its own special thing. Windsdover specialized in the police system. Mom had moved to Windsdover with Dad when they got married. Of course, my parents had settled in Dad's home town. I remember Mom saying that she met Dad in her own city in court. He had broken a law on accident and had come to her town for a trail. Mom had been the assistant defending lawyer for Dad, so she got to know him well. Mom had been able to convince the judge to give Dad the smallest sentence possible, and after the trial, they had started dating. 

A movement in the trees nearby caught my attention. I focused on the movement, and saw several birds flying along with the vessel. Their feathers flashed in every color imaginable. Blue, Purple, Silver, Gold, Red, Orange, Green. Then I looked further back, and saw other animals running along with the train. I smiled, amazed. Animals I had never seen before looked up at our vessel. They yipped, and howled, and tweeted, and roared. I couldn't hear any of them though, the vessel was moving too fast for that. Then the trees abruptly ended. I turned and looked back to see the animals that had been running beside me stop and stare longingly towards our vessel as we disappeared from their sight.

I sighed, then looked forward. The huge reservoir in front of us reflected the sun off of the water and blinded everyone in the vessel. I brought my hand up in front of my eyes. 

Within a second though, the sun's glare was gone. The shadow of the city system in front of us blocked the sun, and the full glory of Pleaci could be seen. 

Huge glass buildings soared high into the sky, distorted by a bubble that encased the whole island keeping the air fresh and clean. The outer edges of the city disappeared behind a tall white wall. Buildings were shaped in all sorts of ways. Triangles, Ovals, Squares, Pyramids, anything you could thing of. 

"Wow," Arin said. I smiled. Then reached over to my brother and ruffled his hair.

"Amazing isn't it. Our new home. A city above a lake." Arin pushed my hand away from his hair and I smiled happily.

"Look! I can see the capitol building from here!" Arin rushed over to the window from his seat, then stared at the sight of one of the most important building in Almosa. But he didn't care about the important artifacts hidden inside or that there were some famous people inside of the building. He cared about the architecture that had been built almost 500 years ago and had taken 10 years to build. His class had been learning about important buildings around Almosa in Social Studies and he was excited to see what they had spent a week talking about. 

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We pulled into the landing dock, watching as other vessels and trains whipped out of the tunnel in the opposite direction. Our vessel passed quickly through the scanning checkpoint and we rolled into grand station just at the windows on the vessel closed. I felt the vessel jolt to a stop and the doors opened to let us out.