The Arena - The Moon Trilogy - Book #2

Chapter thirteen:

It seemed like they were driving for hours. Every time they turned a corner, the same, gray buildings spanned both sides of the street. On occasion, there were a few buildings that looked different, and once, there was another square like the one they had just left, but it was mostly just the single most boring town that Clarity had ever visited.

After what seemed like all day, but what was probably just a couple hours, they left the boring housing district. There were still buildings surrounding them, but there were no more endless grey, cloned skyscrapers.

No one said anything for the entire ride. Like their journey across the field, the other noise was Johnny's coughing. The motor was too quiet to hear.

A while later, the buildings started to thin out like trees on the edge of a forest. Soon, there were only a few service stations scattered throughout grassy farmlands. The only sign of life was a lazy tractor slowly making its way through a field, and a small flock of brown birds.

Clarity was really curious as to where they were headed, but she didn't want to be the one to break the long silence. The farmland rolled on, but every once in awhile, buildings would be visible on the far horizon. On either side of the road, small country lanes split off, leading to the little white farmhouses that the farmers lived in. It almost felt like she'd taken a trip back in time. It was so open.

A few minutes later, Alex turned the car into one of the country lanes. The dirt road was covered in potholes and slanted to one side as if it hadn't been taken care of in years. The sun was setting over the building-filled horizon.

Up ahead, a quaint little farmhouse came into view. Its whitewashed walls were starting to show signs of decay. Several of the windows were broken and the front yard was overgrown with weeds. A fallen fence was just visible under the army of foliage.

Alex parked the car in front of the old house, which could only mean they'd arrived at their destination.

"Where are we?" Clara asked as they started unloading from the car. She looked around in confusion, her eyes remaining the longest on the broken-down farmhouse.

"I used to live here," Alex replied as he headed toward the dilapidated house. His shoes made a hollow thump with each step he took up the old porch stairs. His words sank in slowly. He had to be pretty old for this junky, ancient house to have once been his.

Rachel and Sam shared a glance. Rachel shrugged and followed Alex up the rotting steps. The rest of them followed, not counting Johnny, who was still unconscious in the back seat of the car.

Alex opened the door, which was sagging a bit in its frame, and stepped inside. The others waited on the porch, clearly just as unsure as Clarity was about the safety of entering.

A minute later, a light flickered on inside the old house. Clarity didn't want to wait outside where people could see, so she cautiously stepped in. The creak of floorboards told her that the others were following. They would all rather take the risk.

The doorways were mostly missing their doors, leaving clear views into the rooms beyond. Clarity briefly caught sight of a living room, two bedrooms, and a small bathroom. The last room appeared to be a kitchen, but the old-fashioned linoleum was cracking and mold was covering pretty much everything. It seemed that the whole place had recently been occupied by a large family of rats. Thought a dirty, cracked window above the mold-filled sink, she could see that the sun had almost completely set.

Alex was nowhere to be seen, which presented a problem. He hadn't been in any of the rooms she'd walked past. She hadn't seen any staircases or other means of leaving, either.

As she took another look around, she found herself thinking of August. I hope he's okay. I hope that those people aren't hurting him...

She heard a thump behind her, and she would have turned around had she not assumed one of the others had entered behind her. She wasn't worried about Rachel, Clara, or Sam, so obviously she continued to study the kitchen for Alex's means of escape. Her mind strayed to August again.

Another thump behind her.

She was about to turn to see who it was who had made the noise when suddenly, a large square of the floor was pushed up, like a trapdoor. Dust flew in all directions, crowding the air and making her feel the need to sneeze and cough at the same time. Resisting the urge to do either, she jumped back. She might have to fight.

Alex's face appeared in the darkness below the square of dislodged linoleum. He coughed a few times while swatting at the air to clear away the dust.

"Alex! You scared me. How did you get down there?" Clarity said, stepping a tad closer. She frowned, unable to see anything past Alex's wings.

Alex completely flipped the square and it landed behind him with a thud. He climbed up what was apparently a ladder, or maybe a very steep set of stairs before he stepped onto the cracking linoleum. He brushed thick dust from his pants.

"When I lived here, mutants were still kind of a big deal. That was when the MCD still existed. I knew they were after me when I built this house, so I took a few precautionary measures to make sure that I could escape if I needed to." Alex said. His eyes were red. Clarity could feel her own eyes welling up with tears from the dust still swimming through the air.

"You built this house?" Clarity asked in disbelief. She tried to pay attention, but August was still lingering in the back of her mind. For a second, she thought that he might be trying to communicate with her, but she dismissed the thought. This wasn't the typical way that he spoke to her. She would probably black out again if he really was trying to reach her.

"Yes," Alex replied, not offering any explanations. He wandered around the kitchen, running his hands over various objects even despite the fact that they were all molded and gross.

After a second of this, he seemed to remember what he had been doing.

"Where are the others?" he asked, turning around to face Clarity.

"One of them is right..." she pointed over her shoulder as she turned to view the person standing behind her. Her voice trailed off when she saw that, to her surprise, there was no one there. Who'd made the noises?

"Right where?" Alex asked, his eyes narrowing as he took a step towards her. He'd seen her point. Whoever had made those noises and left without saying anything was sure being a funny guy.

"I thought I heard someone come in behind me, but there's no one there." Clarity replied. Her mind started to wander back to August almost against her will this time. Stupid August, she was trying to figure this out.

She stared at the doorway for a second. Her eyes started burning and the air in the doorway shimmered. The shimmering grew solid and the doorway was filled with a rough, stone wall. There were four, heavy metal rings stuck into the stone.

Attached to the metal rings were some very large chains. The chains led to four metal cuffs that were wrapped around someone's wrists and ankles. The someone had very ragged clothes on and there was blood leaking out of an oozing wound peeking out from under their black hair.

Bruises covered the someone's face and their eyes were bruised shut. The ragged clothes that they wore were crusted with blood. They were clearly in bad shape.

She vaguely heard Alex asking her something as she stepped closer to the haggard person on the stone wall, but she wasn't paying attention to him. This had to be in her imagination...

Her eyes widened with surprise when she saw who it was. It was August.