Chapter 1: I never got to tell how much you meant to me.
A man in a suit stared at the road ten stories below, then at the other buildings, then at the people, moving like ants.
He smoked one last cigarette before stepping off.
A few seconds later, everything went black.
An eternity later, the man opened his eyes. By looking around, he noticed that he was in a gigantic room that had nothing to do with modern, twenty-first century architecture.
The ruined pillars, broken statues and carved walls reminded him of gothic architecture.
He struggled to get the pure white sheet off of him, then managed to look at his body.
His heart stopped for a second, before beating harder and harder.
His fingers were small, his arms were small, his body was small.
I'm a baby! I'm a baby! he repeated in his mind several times, while waving his fat, little arms and legs. Where am I? What happened to me? What is this? What is happening?
After exactly one minute of panicking, the baby calmed himself using advanced breathing techniques.
The baby tried to stand on his legs, but fell immediately.
He tried to speak, but everything that came out of his mouth were "goo-goo's" and "ga-ga's".
Wait a second. The baby's heart stopped a second time. There's nobody in sight. I don't even know where I am. I'm going to die if I can't move. The baby scowled. Therefore I'm left with one last option.
The baby cried like hell, hoping someone would hear him.
A few seconds later, a blonde woman with dark, round eyes entered the gigantic room. She wore leather armor, and had a backpack on her back. Her face was ridden with scars. She also had two accessories: a gold ring on her ring finger and a weird, paper hanging off her left earlobe. The rectangular paper had a pattern drawn on it: a golden flower with white tips.
That was quick, thought the baby.
"Who could've left a baby here?" the woman asked herself as she looked around the ruined room.
The baby couldn't understand a word coming out of her mouth. He tried to communicate with the woman, but his thoughts couldn't be translated to words.
His ensuing scowl prompted the following reaction from the woman: "Oh you're so cute, you little lump of fat! Goochie goochie goo!"
Stop caressing me, woman! I'm dying here!
"I doubt you can understand me, but my name is Aandra," said the woman as she cut a bit of the long sheet and weaved a makeshift sling, in which she placed him. "The journey back will be difficult, but I know we'll make it!"
I'm so glad a warrior came to save me. the baby talked with himself. He glanced at the woman's muscular arms and equipment. You have a sword and shield. And you seem strong enough. I think I can finally relax.
Aandra left the room and the baby gazed upon their current location, leaving his mouth wide open.
Towers and spires loomed over them. Ruined castles and fallen buildings formed a forgotten city with unparalleled verticality. Everything was positioned on floating islands of various sizes.
Those islands moved at random intervals and each had their own speed and direction.
"This is the lost city of Aaranos," said Aandra as she descended the stairs to a lower level of the floating island they were on. "I came here in search of treasure, but I only found you..."
Why does she sound so disappointed? the baby asked himself with a puzzled look on his face.
A deafening shriek pierced the skies. In a few seconds, tens of flying humanoids gathered above them.
Aandra unsheathed her sword. The baby chose to trust in her. After all, he had no other choice.
When one of the flying creatures landed right in front of them, the baby could examine it more closely.
It had a long, dark yellow beak, yellow eyes, two wings coming out of its shoulder blades, two arms holding a halberd, and claws for feet. Its feathers were a dark purple.
"Look, I haven't taken any of your treasure," said Aandra. "If you let me leave, I'll never return again."
Without any warning, the bird-man swung its halberd at Aandra, who ducked under the weapon and split her enemy's head in two with her own sword.
As a fountain of blood splashed all over the stone floor, some of it landed on the baby's face. He was so surprised, he didn't even scream.
As a former twenty-first century citizen, he hadn't encountered much violence in his day-to-day life. He certainly hadn't seen anyone being killed in front of him.
So seeing someone being decapitated in front of his eyes was... an interesting juxtaposition to his previous life.
The bird-man's body didn't even hit the ground that Aandra started running.
The entire flock flew after her.
One particularly fast bird-man caught up to her in no time. It aimed its halberd right at her back and flapped its wings with an impressive might.
Aandra didn't even need to look backwards. She jumped, rotated in the air and parried the bird-man's halberd with one slash before landing and resuming her run, without losing any momentum.
She proceeded to climb a short ladder and enter a dark, long tunnel. A few of the bird-men followed her inside.
Out of every other pathway and building, why did you choose to come in here? The baby's face was contorted in fear. If these guys have half a brain, they'll just fly past this corridor and trap you inside!
And that's what they did.
Three hundred meters away from the end of the tunnel, Aandra was caught between two groups of enemies: three in the front and the rest in the back.
The woman didn't stop moving forward.
The first enemy readied its halberd and started swinging it upward, so that by the time it would reach Aandra, she would be sliced in two.
She jumped forward, before the swing ended, and killed the first opponent with one sword strike.
The corpse flew into the bird-men behind Aandra, forcing them to stop their forward momentum and dodge. With that one move, she killed two birds with one stone. Not only did she have better chances against her last two remaining enemies, but the ones in the back wouldn't catch up to her, provided she kept the same pace.
Unsurprisingly, she did.
She blocked, dodged, and slashed her way past the last two assailants in her way.
At the end of the tunnel she jumped over a gap in the floating island to a lower portion. She showed no signs of hesitation, not in her chosen path, nor in her skill with the blade.
Aandra continued running on a walkway, but her path was blocked by a rising tower, moving upward at an incredible speed.
She had two options: jump into the sea of clouds below, or stand her ground until the tower moved out of her way.
Aandra turned around with a cheeky smirk on her face.
She kept the tip of her sword low to the ground and stared right into her opponents' eyes.
Granted, they hesitated for a few seconds before attacking. Seeing their comrades cut down so easily must have been traumatizing.
Due to her general air of dangerousness intimidating her enemies, Aandra only had to slaughter two bird-men before the tower finished its ascent.
Aandra turned around and went through the entryway and jumped out the other side, landing on the first of many small, unsteady platforms. Below her and the baby were clouds. Below those, the unknown.
The woman hopped from one platform to another with incredible dexterity. The bird-men tried to cut her down, but her hands were faster than theirs. Using graceful pirouettes, she slew five more enemies before landing on the final platform.
Right after, however, disaster struck. She lost her sword to one, particularly deft, bird-man. Now armed with only a shield, she forged onward.
Aandra and the baby in the sling were running on a narrow pathway when a bird-man appeared out of nowhere, blocking their path.
The warrior grabbed her small, rotund shield with her right hand, flexed her right arm and threw it with all her force. The buckler sunk into the bird-man's face, causing it to spin in mid-air.
Once Aandra arrived at the spinning bird-man's location, she grabbed its legs and threw it into its friends flying from the back. This maneuver bought the two humans some time to cover a bit more ground before their enemies could recover.
At the end of the pathway, there was yet another empty room. At the end of the room, there was... nothing.
Just floating rocks and empty space.
They were at the edge of the flying kingdom, and its furious residents were right behind them.
Aandra hesitated only for a second before jumping off.
The baby's heart felt like it would burst out of his chest.
On her way down, the woman grabbed one of the many floating rocks with her right hand, while holding the baby with the left.
The rock slowed their descent considerably, like a parachute.
After going through the thick layer of clouds, the baby saw the world below. His mouth was agape.
On one side, the red-orange sun and sky, on the other the grey moon and dark-blue sky.
And further below, the ground, the mountains, the deserts, the forests...
The fear in the baby's heart was replaced with another emotion, one he believed he had lost forever.
"This is the world you're going to live in. Mercury," said Aandra. Of course, the baby still didn't understand a word.
A green-scaled dragon flew right above them. A few seconds later, once the flying lizard was a few miles apart from the descending duo, a gigantic, vanilla-white, whale-like creature 'leaped' downward, opened its mouth and ate the poor dragon.
It was like the world was upside-down, and the ocean was up.
"That's a cream whale," spoke Aandra. "It is said that its' meat has the taste of vanilla."
For thirty-three years I lived my life without any sense of wonder, thought the baby. Wake up, eat, go to work, come home, waste time, eat, repeat. Earth was a mess. There was nothing to get excited about. My life had no meaning. I was just another cog in a machine that was going nowhere. He felt tears streaming down his rotund cheeks. But now, for the first time since I was a little, little kid, I feel like the world is mine. Like I could do anything.
The woman and the baby locked eyes.
"I'mma be your momma from now on," she said. "I'm a lousy cook. And I know nothing about raising a kid. But I'll hear no words of complaint. From now on, we're stuck with each other, Arnar."