Well, most of it anyway.

It was still there, but not lucious and green anymore. It was a ring of dark... something. Levelled out with the ground. It looked almost as if it were... burned down.

"They really didn't think about how the fire would react to the Forest," I said.

"No," Zenon said. "I guess not." I could almost hear a hint of sadness in his voice. It made sense to me, though, because it was his home for more than a year. His safe place.

"This is only the beginning," Jamison said. He swerved the helicopter downward, angling at the city. There was one thing I noticed. Although I couldn't see such a distance, there weren't the usual hundreds of people walking to and fro. The pavement ground that surrounded the buildings was tinged darker in areas. It looked like the training centre behind Heuglin when I had called her on my COM watch.

Fire.

"I don't know what you expect to do," Jamison started. "But it's not safe."

"We're finding Len," Zenon said triumphantly.

"Finding... Zenon, please, please be careful. If your friend here wasn't holding a gun to my head, I'd bring you back to the Asylum. Don't get yourself... killed...."

"We're not gonna die!"

"You're my only son, Zenon. I'll take your word, but I'll keep in contact with you," said Jamison, raking a hand through his hair nervously, still keeping the other on the controls.

"You're lucky you still have one son," Zenon said. "Your other one almost put a bullet in me!"

"We're here," he replied quickly. My stomach dropped as we descended, and I clutched whatever I could beside me to keep my balance, ending up holding Erin and Zenon's shoulders. Adelyn almost flew right out of Terri's lap.

"Sorry," Jamison muttered, levelling out the machine. "I don't fly this very often."

"Whatever," Zenon said. "As long as we get there."

The helicopter landed, sending a cloud of brown dust at the windshield and blinding us. When it settled, Jamison turned the helicopter off, turned around and removed his headphones.

"You sure you want to do this?"

"Is there some special way to get in?" said Zenon. He pulled open the helicopter's sliding door, and a brisk gust of wind blew dust into it.

"Actually, yes." Jamison pointed to the ground, right at the area where the dirt met the burned-down trees. There wasn't anything apparent in the direction where he was pointing.

"Down there, there's a tunnel. Push the dust aside and you'll find the hatch door. You'll have to do a little searching, I can't see where it is. From there, just follow the tunnel until you find another ladder. Go up and you'll be in the city. We used to use it to get under the barrier, but..."

"It's destroyed now," I finished. "What's the point of using it now, then?"

"The Forest's still burning. Safety, I suppose." I don't won't my son getting hurt.

Zenon leapt out into Hinterland-or maybe the city. We were practically almost on the border. Just up the large hill was where the 'Forest' started. I hadn't noticed it before. We'd approached the city from a seperate side before, so this hill wasn't visible. Zenon started trekking up it.

"I'll keep in contact," I said, also letting my feet settle in the dust. The others followed me, like I was their leader or something. Maybe I looked intimidating, with the gun held in front of me. Or maybe it was because I'd saved them. Who knows?

"Good, good... just... stay safe. Leanne will never let me hear the end of this. Especially if you went and killed yourselves," Jamison said.

"Okay." The sound of the helicopter faded into the distance as I followed Zenon up the hill, one foot after the other. I was disappointed at how quickly I got tired, and even a couple prisoners dared to pass me, keeping their gaze on my trigger finger as if I'd shoot them.

"Don't worry," I said. "Look." I dropped the gun away, letting it dangle by the strap around my shoulder and waist. I pushed it behind me out of the way. One of them stopped to get a good look at me. A girl with a dark complexion, and black hair that was tied in a ponytail, not unlike mine. She looked my age. If anything, a bit younger.

"Thank you," she said.

I smiled back, staring at her for what seemed like an eternity. What do I say?

"You deserve it," I finally said. "All of you." I used my hands to gesture to the other no-longer-prisoners.

"Maybe, but it takes a real heart to really understand." I hadn't expected such a dramatic sentence from this girl, and I smiled wider in response.

"But..." My smile turned into a frown, and I dropped my gaze to my feet. "There's nothing to bring you to. Maybe we released you from the Asylum, but not from... not from this state of oblivion."

"At least we're free now," she said.

I attempted to muster up all the hope I had, then said, "Free." Just a simple word with a lot of meaning. "Now that's something to look forward to." I started to walk up the hill toward her.

"I'm Skai," she said. She followed beside me, heaving between each breath like I was. Having a miniscule diet and barely any excersize truly did a number on you.

"April," I replied. When I said it, her forehead creased, making a bunch of little lines between her eyebrows.

"The chaos started in April," Skai said, then corrected herself, looking up at me. "Don't get me wrong, it's a nice name." I lightened the tense mood with a laugh.

"I was two years away from getting my job," she started, and I braced myself for yet another emotional story. "My brother Orion was taken away. I didn't understand or know how, he just disappeared one day. My family went to bed, then in the morning, he's gone." I remembered seeing Skai with two other kids, one being someone older than her. That was probably her brother, but then how did Skai end up in the Asylum? I waited for her to finish the story.

"And then two years later," she said, "we figured Orion was truly gone. We had no reason, no way he could have disappeared like that. It was a lost cause. In April, I was about to be assigned, then the night before I was, I was taken from my home. All I remember of it was waking up suddenly, but only for a couple seconds. I caught a glimpse of faces. Dark, shadowed. Then I felt pain here-" she stopped to press a finger to just below her collar bone "-and then I was out again. The next time I woke up, I was in a cell. Strangely enough, there was Orion! Just fine. Well, as fine as fine can get when you've been isolated for two years... He's a little different now. A little more... mature, I suppose." So they took them at different intervals. I wondered why.

"That's terrible," I said, not knowing how else to respond to the story.

"But we're okay now, right?" Skai said. For now. "What about you? You've probably got a story, don't you?"

And so I told it to her, because why not? It probably took at least a half an hour. By the time I was done, I left Skai with a saddened expression and we had even reached the top of the hill. It turned out it was a little more than just a hill. When I looked back, the ground was probably at least a hundred feet away.

"Let's do a search for the hatch," Zenon said, walking past me. He bent down to sift through the dust, coming up with nothing.

Everyone simultaneously bent down to start searching, including myself, running my fingers through the silt. Mostly when I hit something, it was just rubble. Chunks of brick or metal or something else useless. I tried again and again, still nothing.

"Ah, this is hopeless," Zenon muttered, kicking dust up, although he bent down again to continue despite what he'd just said. Skai worked beside me, focusing intently on what she was doing. An older-looking boy approached her, who I assumed was Orion because of the resemblance, and crouched beside her. "Hey, sis," he said. Suspicions confirmed.

"And this is my brother Orion," Skai said, jerking a thumb at him. "Thanks for saying hi." She shot a glance back at Orion, who grinned in reply.

"And who might you be?" he asked.

"April Goldwyn," I replied.

"And you saved us all, correct?"

"If that's what you want to call it."

"Thanks, then. Guess we'll be a little freer out here. What exactly are we doing, anyway?"

"We're rescuing someone else," I said.

"Eh, what's with this girl and rescuing people?" He slapped a ridiculous smile on his face and looked back at Skai. She rolled her eyes. Something about Orion reminded me of Erin.

Clang.

My hand hit something metal under the dirt. When I went to move it thinking it was just a plain piece of rubble or something, it was lodged tight in the ground. I brushed away even more dust, revealing a curved structure, blotched with brown rust.

"Is that the hatch we're looking for?" Skai started to help me brush off the dirt. Soon enough, a whole circular shape was revealed. In the centre there was a large handle. I tried cranking it open with no such luck.

"I need some help here," I said, and Orion and Skai placed their hands beside mine. With one tug, the lever creaked, and we could lift the hatch.

"Zenon!" I beckoned for him. He jogged over.

"Amazing," he said, peering into the dark hole. A few rungs of a ladder showed, but they merged to shadows further down, creating an eerie look.

"This is the hatch he was talking about, I hope," Erin said as she approached us. "Who's going down first?"

There was a moment of silence, then I spoke up. "I'll go." Everyone just kind of stared at me, and then I started to descend the ladder, placing one foot on a rung. The dust made it hard to balance, but eventually I was concealed by shadow. Inexplicably, my heart was pounding in my chest. I almost expected something to jump out of the darkness and eat me.

When I hit the flat ground, I called up. "We're good," I said. "It's just a little dark." One by one, people came down, Zenon to be the first one after me, followed by Shane and Erin.

"I can't see anything," Shane complained.

"You're not the only one," Erin replied. I felt a couple people bump into me, and a few seconds later the tunnel sprung to life with light that made me wince. After my eyes adjusted, I took in what was all around us.