"Where are we going?" I asked as Vace stalked through the... well, at a lack of a better word: rebel base.

He opened a trunk placed near the wall in the middle room, rummaged through it and threw me a long-sleeved dark shirt. "Put that on," he commanded, "I hope that'll fit, it's the only spare we have."

I regarded the dark shirt. It seemed to be made out of a sort of synthetic material. It was collarless and its only decoration was a small stylised emblem on the chest—I guessed it was the symbol of the Globes. The rest of the shirt was plain and loose fitting.

I spotted some small holes in the chest and abdomen area, but they were hard to notice.

I shrugged and pulled my light brown cotton shirt over my head, placing it on the table. Goosebumps appeared on the bare flesh of my back and stomach, a small shiver passing over my exposed skin.

I quickly pulled the shirt Vace handed me over my head, and the goosebumps disappeared immediately. I instantly felt warmer.

I moved my arms a bit. I decided I was going to keep this shirt. It would come in handy in winter—still too many children died of the cold. This could be used for the sickly. I made a mental note to find and bring some additional clothing items of this material when I went back home.

If I went back home.

My neck got warm, and I turned around. I caught Vace staring.

"What," I said, placing my hand in my hip. The loose fabric of the shirt bundled around my wrist.

Vace was silent for a moment, scraped his throat and he said: "I thought you were bigger."

I hope your girlfriend doesn't feel that way as well, I thought, and immediately mentally slapped my inner Jaedie.

She loved these kind of easy scores. In a way, she influenced me with those kinds of things. I was never really fond of those kind of jokes, but the way Jaedie muttered them under her breath when someone said something like that, always brought a grin to my face. Even more if the person didn't notice we were laughing about them.

I looked down at my shirt, which I seemed to be swimming in. The sleeves reached till over my fingertips, and the hem till halfway my thighs.

"I've had worse," I concluded, recalling some clothing items I had owned over the years. Boots with rags stuffed in them to make them fit, socks used as gloves, jumpers which were basically dresses...

You name it, I'm sure we would've tried it all. It's not like you can choose what kind of clothing you get on a raid. Still, once you grew out of a piece, it went to the next person who could wear it.

If you were lucky, at least. Most of the time you wore the same items for years, even though the once oversized shirts didn't even cover your wrists anymore.

I tugged up the sleeves, but the moment I lowered my arms again they slid back down. I sighed and awkwardly started rolling up the mile-long sleeves.

Vace inspected my shirt, and after a moment he stepped towards me, crossing the room in just a few big strides.

"Here," he said, pulling my dagger from his waistband, "Fix it."

I ceased my attempts to roll up the sleeves properly. Vace held up the dagger by the tip of the blade. Gingerly I grabbed hold of the hilt of the dagger, surprised by his change of attitude.

"I want it back as soon as you're finished," he said, and let go of the blade.

Ah, there it was. It didn't seem like I was going to get it back permanently any time soon.

"I'm trusting you," Vace added with a raise of his brows, before taking a step back.

I gave him a look before starting with the mutilation of my shirt. With a few short cuts I ripped off the sleeves halfway, and cut off the bottom half of the hem.

The sleeves now ended just below my elbows, the new hem of the shirt resting on my hips. I wrapped the leftover fabric around my wrists, a habit residual of not being allowed to throw things away. I pulled up the fabric on my left wrist, placing it so it covered the skin where my arm scan would have been.

I almost slid my dagger back in the sheathe on my hip, but halted halfway. Surprisingly, I had obtained Vace's trust—I couldn't just throw it away like that. To my great dismay I found myself handing the dagger back to him.

Grabbing the dagger, Vace gave me a short nod, before slipping it back into the waistband of his pants.

"You ready?" he asked.

I took a deep breath. "Ready as I'll ever be."

* * *

Vace led the way.

As soon as the front door opened (well, I supposed it was the front door, it could as well have been the back door) I got struck by the sounds.

A stream of the whirring and pounding of machinery filled my ears, the sounds of human life filling the silent spaces in between. This made a cacophony of clunks and screams and rattles and cries. And underneath, a constant buzz of a unknown machine.

It was completely alien to me, for I was used to the silence of the woods, accompanied by the sounds of my own heartbeat.

As Outsiders we were taught to be quiet at a young age, which fit in our lifestyle of hiding. Even infants knew when to be silent as a breath, even when they were in the middle of a game. Mothers shushed their babies and they obliged. It was our way of living.

Silence was a long friend of mine, and in this noise I couldn't even hear myself think.

"This way," Vace said, taking a sharp turn. We left the unit they lived in, and ended up in a narrow metal alley.

On my left I saw a row of doors—other units, I supposed.

One of the doors was open, and I saw a regg family of five sitting at a table. Father, mother, child, and what seemed like grandparents. They were wearing tatty, brown coveralls, even the child who couldn't be older than ten. On the table stood a single pot, which looked rather small for the entire family. Three other chairs were still empty, so I guessed they even had to share it with more mouths to come. Regardless of their small posture, their brown eyes were sunken in their sockets, and their cheekbones just a bit too sharp.

Vace pulled me out of the threshold, stopping me from running in. If I had had any food I would've given it to them.

"They are lucky they even have food," Vace said to my surprise, and pulled me further. "Don't waste time."

I ignored him and gave the family a last glance before following Vace again.

The floor of the hallway was made of metal—again—which was worn and shiny from the many feet that walked over it every day. It was the same material as the ceiling, so I could only assume that it was the floor of the storey above. The ceiling was low, and if I stood on my toes I could touch it with the tips of my fingers. Vace only had to lift an arm and he already hit it with his wrist.

A stream of warm air hit my right cheek which made me look aside. My eyes shot wide open, drinking in the view.

Enormous buildings rose up next to me, reaching high till the ceiling of the enormous Globe. I couldn't see the tops of the structures, since the top half of the Globe was filled with a kind of brownish smoke.

Wash lines and bridges connected the buildings at several levels, all in different shapes and sizes. Several looked like they had been there from the beginning, broad and well-structured, while there were also plenty which seemed to be hand-made. Some were broad enough to let eight people cross at the same time, while some were so narrow you had to shuffle foot by foot over it, one person at the time. Countless men, women and children were crossing the bridges, as a thousand brown splotches in a web of metal. They didn't even look where they were walking. Most of the time, the bridges didn't even have rails—I was surprised I hadn't seen anyone plummet down yet.

I gulped at the sight of it, and grasped the banister in front of me. I held on to the metal tightly, my knuckles turning white. I hoped we would just stay safely behind these bars. I had been so stunned by the view I had forgotten about my fear.

"Are you coming?" Vace called at the end of the hallway.

I looked up and quickened my pace, gingerly letting go of the safety of the bars. Giving the abyss next to me a final look, I fixed my gaze on Vace's back, following the movement of his shoulder blades under his shirt.

I didn't look sideways again, falling into step a bit closer to the wall. I hoped we'd be back on solid ground soon.

Vace took a sharp left turn, into a spiral staircase. My eyes had to adjust to the darkness, but the smell hit me first.

As the humid, musty smell of stale water penetrated my nose, a murky droplet of water falling from a leaky pipe into the nape of my neck. The sounds of the machines became muffled, only the constant buzz remaining, which vibrated through the metal skeleton of the staircase.

The metal grid under my feet was slippery and wet from the excess water spilling onto it, a green substance growing on it and spreading over onto the walls.

We climbed a couple of flights, before Vace came to a halt. Surprisingly enough, we hadn't encountered anyone, even though the bridges connecting all the buildings had been buzzing with life.

He stood on the landing between two flights, which was only lit by a flickering orange light. Pacing over to a wall, he stepped in front of it. He grabbed an invisible ledge on the smooth metal wall, placing his foot flat on its moist surface. "Come on, then," he said, making a small gesture with his head.

Amazed, I watched him seemingly effortlessly climb the smooth wall, his toes and fingers finding invisible ledges and handholds where he pulled himself up with. Before I knew it he had already disappeared into a dark hole in the ceiling, his long legs disappearing into the darkness. The orange light kept flickering, only showing fragments of his body.

He popped his head out of the hole, his black hair falling around his face. "You coming?"

I craned my neck inspecting the smooth wall. "Yeah," I said, and gulped bodily.

I was not going to give him the pleasure of my struggling, which was partly thanks to my stubbornness to swapping my footwear.

I was going to do this.

I took a deep breath, scanning the wall in front of me. Just picture it as a tree, or a rock wall I thought, you've done this countless times.

That was the weird thing about my fear of heights—if I climbed something, I didn't feel a thing. Back home I had climbed countless trees and walls. I had even climbed onto the roof of the cabin more times than I could count.

One time, it had been a beautiful night, the faint yellow moon luminescent above an unusual ink black sky. The pollution and clouds made stargazing virtually impossible, but that time I was able to see a few; little white dots littering the sky like small specks of light. I scratched their positions in the stone roof of the cabin, learning their positions by heart. After that time, whenever I went up the roof, I checked every single position in the sky where they had been last time. Only on exceptionally clear nights I was able to see maybe one or two—but never as many as I had seen that one night. I would climb back when the patrols changed shifts, just before dawn, so they wouldn't notice me. The thing was, I wasn't afraid. Not even when I hung from the edge of the roof, letting myself fall down onto my windowsill.

If I couldn't control the height, on the other hand, I was terrified. Kael once hoisted me on his shoulders, and I screamed out the whole time. I yelled at him to put me back down, trashing about, but he wouldn't listen. It was when I fell completely silent and didn't move anymore that he let me down—he knew something was seriously wrong. He never did it again.

Sighing, I placed my hands on the soggy, green-clad wall. Trying to picture a mental map with the route I was going to take, I slid my fingers over the slippery surface. I found a small ledge; it was a mere unevenness in the metal, not more than a slight bump, but it was enough.

I hoisted myself up on the tips of my fingers, my other hand already searching for the next handhold. My fingers grazed over the old metal, slick with algae and muck. I tried to find grip on the wall with my feet, but my boots didn't hold enough grip on the moist wall. They kept slipping, making me have to cling to the wall with just my fingertips.

After the third time I had slipped down I heard a small snicker above me.

I frowned, biting my lip in concentration. "Shut up," I muttered, continuing with even more determination.

After what seemed like forever I finally reached the top. I hoisted myself into the air vent, my tired muscles craving for rest.

Slightly winded, I sat on my knees in the low air vent. Vace lay casually against the wall of the vent, a surprised expression clear on his face.

"Impressive," he said, "I did not expect you to succeed."

I gave him a small smirk. "Too bad," I said, catching my breath, "shall we continue?"

Vace nodded, and as he turned around, a thought flew by in my mind.

Tomorrow, I was going to wear other shoes.

____________________________

2374 words. Not bad, eh? (Excluding the A/N) I'm trying to make up for the short previous chapter... oops.

Thanks for reading! Anyways, the usual, leave your thoughts in the comments! I'd love to hear you guys' opinions about where this is headed. Thanks!

And as always, vote and share! Thanks again, I love you guys! Your support gives me life ;D

-xoxo Vivian