The Stitcher of Souls - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Unearthly City

“This is Unearthly City. But, I suppose you didn’t know that either.”

He really didn’t buy my act, though it was half-true. Because no, angry hot guy with sexy messy hair, I truly didn’t know that we were in “Unearthly City” and I found it a rather misleading name, because I was pretty sure there was nothing unearthly about it. Were there any stores with faces who could talk and would groan happily because the people who entered it were filling its belly? Were there mermaids and hot fairy guys with pointy ears and long hair which make them a little less pretty? Was the city a chaos of colour and optical illusions?

No, no, and well… Maybe. Although I’m not sure if you could call it optical illusions.

Because, okay – fine! This city does have its unearthly things. O, who am I kidding – this city was the very definition of unearthly!

We were on a road where people immediately jumped away to fall into another road that went up – UP! Up to some other streets above us – ABOVE US! Above us there were people walking on those streets where they seemed to have adjusted their height as to not hit the people below them.

Like I was looking at a miniature city above me and next to me – it was true madness here!

And it didn’t stop there! No! There were doors – or was I supposed to call them latches? – right above me and suddenly a guy grew bigger in the miniature city and basically stepped on the door. I could see his bushy, curly blonde hair and the sunlight that shone on his head, which seemed to grow smaller as he reached for the doorknob underneath and walked inside normally.

I realized that it was the same sunlight that shone on my own head, and on the stern guy in front of me and the other people on this street.

MADNESS. TRUE MADNESS.

Other than the streets leading up and down and twisting and turning around us and the doors above us, the streets themselves were insane too.

MAAAADDNNNNEEESSSSSSSSSSS.

I held on to the guy as tightly as possible as to make sure that all those things here wouldn’t kill me.

Because there were fireballs. Waterballs. Earthballs. Kids throwing the balls. Kids stamping on the air to make the pavement shoot up in the air as a part of a game.

There were sparkly trails of sprinkly and sparkly dust of butterflies – no, wait, tiny humans with wings – HOLY MOLY THOSE ARE PIXIES! Or fairies? I didn’t know – I didn’t care!

There were floating tents on the sky, almost in those other roads, no ladders climb on to get wide open tentflaps and no need for them anyway – people could just walk to inside of them, no floating and flying needed or a ladder.

There were women standing on balconies, who dried their clothing by throwing them away and smiling at hot guys – sadly no fairies, well, they don’t look like fairies anyway – while the wind which literally hummed carried them to the washing line. Yeah, because why do it the hard way like the losers from the place where I live, right?

…

WHAT WAS ALL OF THIS? THIS WAS MADNESS, TRUE MADNESS!

HOW – WHY – WHAT THE FUCKING HELL?!

“Sit still, would you? And please refrain from screaming in my back,” the guy on the horse grunted, but there was no need for him to tell me that, because just like in the animes my face had turned red, my eyes turned into spirals and my mouth half-open, while I was murmuring something incomprehensible.

Then my attention was drawn to clothes the people were wearing. They wore cloaks in different colours; blue, red and black.

But blue never walked with someone in red or black, nor did people in the other colours. In fact there were three rows of blue, red and black. And some had stains of the other two colours and were basically forced to walk in between the rows. Even those kids seemed to play in those rows, their fireballs not coming as far as the gap between the rows... Huh.

The road must be extremely big to be make it for both these people to walk in three rows and those kids to play in the same part as those roads. No wait there were three separate roads. No one big road. Three separate ones? One very big one? Uhm… Huh.

Maybe if I’d go just a bit higher, maybe then I’ll see… Nope, too high, too high. Let’s go back, let’s go back. Pretty cool that I can see so much from this point of view. Hey, look at those white threads above me... Huh.

WAIT, WHAT?

Then everything turned white.

As if we rode straight through a barrier, we ended up on a big plaza with six gigantic pointy buildings.

The guy on the horse didn’t seem to be amazed by all that craziness back there and honestly, I didn’t feel that amazed either. I mean, I remembered feeling amazed- because it was true madness, a really mad experience – but then it became, well, nothing, yeah, nothing. I don’t know, maybe… Maybe I’m just tired –

“As you can see,” his stern voice suddenly interrupted my hazy thinking and felt like a slap in my face, “we’ve reached Guna Plaza. I’ll find a place to drop you off safely and then you’re on your own.”

Talking about subtle, huh.

I let a small trembling “yes” escape my mouth.

Damn, very subtle, dude. He was right, though – I could not deny it. I was going to be on my own. I was going to have to figure it all out. On my own.

I started to shudder and became suddenly very aware of me being naked underneath this jacket. I felt being watched by the few people walking in three neat rows.

Oh damn it, I’m scared. I’m scared. So fucking scared. Damn it! I really am scared!

I breathed in and out. Oo… Kaayy…

I opened my eyes, clearing my mind.

Let’s do this. BAZAAM. Yup, I ruined the moment of heroic-ness.

The plaza was madness, too.

Heck, this whole city was.

Heck, this world, probably.

The guy took me to the biggest fountain I’ve ever seen. There he almost threw me off of his horse. The fountain stood in pool of foggy… water? Smoke? And was made out of a billion thin and really soft threads that – holy crap it was cold! My bare leg bumbed into the side of the pool, because of a certain someone, and if you could die of coldness, I’d be long dead by now. For second time.

But those threads were probably the most normal things I’ve seen around here, because they didn’t make any twist and turns, they didn’t go left and right and round me, no they just went all the way up and made an egg-like form, as if it were a big ass cocoon. Yeah, and I bet there’s a big ass butterfly in it, too.

“Stop being so clumsy,” the guy on the horse grunted with the same old frown on his face. “Or did you also forget that this is the Big Butterfly’s cocoon?”

I had to keep myself from dropping my mouth because – ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

First I get killed by some random Slenderman-wannabe, then I wake up naked in a forest, I get to this city of true madness – MADNESS – and now the angry guy who isn’t buying my shit is telling me that I should stop being so clumsy because there’s a fucking butterfly in the egg-like fountain behind me?

This was the moment where everybody would drop their shit, give ‘em a “nah-ah” and a snap of the fingers, ‘cause this was too much to handle.

But instead I just nodded slowly and took a few steps away from the cocoon.

He rode away on his horse and then I stood there on my own.

I gave myself a facepalm.

I’m so fucking stupid. Really, I had to make a billion jokes in my head about everything I saw instead of looking out for useful spots in this mad city. I had to be scared. I had to end up here.

Damn it, what am I doing? This self-pity wasn’t going to help me either! Jeez. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fuck. 
How the hell was I supposed to do this?

[PIC ORIGIN: fineartamerica.com, made by MARY CLANAHAN]