Beyond City Limits (Under Revisions)

Chapter 12: OUTERCITY

My thoughts keep escaping to my 6th year in school, when I was at my first boy girl party. I was so excited that I finally convinced Andrew to go with me. There was ice cream, virtual laser tag, and even Andrew was enjoying himself. Until everyone decided to huddle around and tell ghost stories.

"—she haunted any glider that dared to ride by the North side of the wall, always reminding the riders to never cross over." One kid whispered, using the light from his tablet to cast shadows cross his face.

I shivered with wide eyes, feeling the ghost woman's eyes watching me. A chill came over me when someone grabbed my arm. I squealed and jumped out of my seat, hitting the floor with my butt.

Andrew doubled over in his chair, holding his gut, and shaking with laughter.

"Are you okay, Cassandra?" Emma's voice whispered from the other side of me.

I dismissed her with a wave, still glaring at Andrew. He stuck his tongue out at me. I returned the gesture before grabbing his arms and pulling him to the ground next to him. He snorted as he plopped down next to me.

Another boy clicked on his tablet light, making a skeleton shadow overtake his features.

"Have you heard of the Outercity sea monsters?"

I shook my head, my earlier giggles fading from my throat.

Everyone drew quiet as he spoke inky words, "So we all know that the Outercity is ruled by gangs, right?" After an exchange of nods, he continued, "Well, each gang worships a sea monster, and one day, an Innercity boy failed the Test and was shipped to the Outercity." Andrew tensed beside me, his expression unreadable. "He tried to live as an Outsider, but their savage life style was too much. He refused to live by their laws. He wouldn't kill, wouldn't wear seashells as clothes, and wouldn't eat other people."

"Oh, come on." Andrew scoffed, but I shushed him.

"One day, when he was walking back to the Outercity Training Facility. Someone kidnapped him. Outsiders drug the boy into the sea, chanting a spell. When the boy touched the water, a tentacle shot out and grabbed his ankle. The last thing the boy saw was the devilish grins of the Outsiders before he was swallowed whole."

Andrew had lectured me the whole ride home about the story, and how insensitive those ghost stories were. I didn't understand his defensiveness of the Outercity. It's wasn't until a few years later when my mother explained about Andrew's mother that everything made sense. But that night I pretended to agree with him, but the story still scared me.

Not as much as it scares me now.

I stopped beating the windows, all it had accomplished was bruised fingers. Screaming didn't help much either. Once my voice was hoarse and fingers aching, I decided to try to stop the glider by getting to the manual control room. As I had suspected, it was being remotely driven, but what I didn't suspect was the door to the controls to be locked.

It's wasn't finding the locked control room that made me give up on escape, it was when the glider passed through the Innercity Wall, crossing into the Middlecity. The boarder guards didn't even blink as they pressed in a code, making a piece of the wall retract and open.

I never thought about leaving the Innercity before, except for the past few days, but even then, I made a plan to stay. When passing through the gates of the Innercity Wall, I thought it would feel like a weight was being pushed on my chest, or air getting sucked out of my lungs, but it didn't feel like anything.

For what feels like hours, I watch the Plains transform into miles and miles of fields. Some fields, to my surprise, are burnt. Most are filled with crops. Even in the darkness, I can make out the plump corn fields, some stalks swollen and grotesque.