Chapter V

Invisible forces ram the passengers into the leather seats, sinking before halted and thrown back out by the steel framing. The clouds overtake the truck as the earth waits for their return in the race. A mud kissed face shadowed under a shredded hood of sketchily sewn straw; Hunch-backed on the roadside, where bruised and healthy dirt met, an indistinct blubber permeated through the katabatic wind. The truck door clicked open and Rahat jumped out, the dust whisking around her feet; she stood over the figure, hands on hips, shaking her head, pointing out each speck of unhygienic care the person had for their clothes. She kneels, bringing the man up to his feet with her, bringing him round to Sao, who now stood outside the passenger side door, pacing up and down the length of the car, ridding the static from his legs.

'Sao, I know this may be a little too much for me to ask, but is it okay for him to come with us?' Rahat asks, presenting the man like a stray kitten.

'We can't be taking random strays with us. Put him back where you found him,' says Sao, staring off into the distant mountain wall, their shadowy triangle arms reaching into the looming darkness behind them.

'That hurts, Sao,' the man responds in a sniffle, pulling off his hood to reveal it to be Naaji. 'I thought we could be friends.' His whimpering face staring deep into Sao's soul like a puppy begging for food.

Sao tries multiple times to avoid his widening tear-soaked eyes, searching for distractions in nature, before the scratching snuffling caught his attention. With each review of the ever-watering face, Sao brews a cocktail of disgust and pity; then he looks at his hands, the stained red on them.

'What's that on your hands?' Sao, in a held back anger, asks Naaji.

'Oh, that. Well, um, I, uh…' he throws himself to his knees. 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I've been walking for the last few days, I've not had the time to wash them.'

'Ok, you can wash them when we get to Gulhvitt.'

'Oh, thank you! Thank you, Sao!' He blubbers onto Sao's shoes.

After wiping off his shoes and exiling Naaji to the back with Yuda, Sao and Rahat return to their seats and resume their drive. Through the back mirror, Yuda rests, eyes closed, against the railing, unnerved by the ever-chilling steal from the mountain winds; Naaji clings to it with all his life, placing it in a vice grip, flailing his legs when momentum slightly nudges his vision over the edge to the shredder ground speeding past them, certain to rid a toe or foot.

Hannah, unstirred, dreams pleasantly, her smile contorting, never removed, within what could only be a pool filled with liquid imagination, beaches of grinded Id crystals, harmonious under the shade of superego clouds many years away from raining distress. The window wounded down by Akuma, Hannah's hairs flies recklessly downwind as a single droplet of drool begins lowering itself down to her cloak, much to the distress of Sao (still left with washing duties). Akuma reaches over her relaxed body to grab a map stashed in a woven pocket on the back of the chair. Crumpling it open, he reads, "TERRA in full", with little understanding, only in search of a different view, and where else to see new views than a piece of paper with bold "MAP" on its back.

Flipping pages without the slightest clue of destination, Akuma comes across many familiar locations: Gulhvitt, Deus Porta, New Washington, Bozhiygorod; both Shendian and Plutus containing multiple pages for themselves. Smaller towns and villages were also included, Akuma finding much pleasure in finally learning the name of Rose's home: Hadiqat Alshuk. The various competing oligarchies of Vestmuren, beside Gulhvitt, made appearances; the larger towns: Kolkulle, Diamantfjell, Safirflod, and Silfspretta – all containing page segments detailing their current affair (of which Akuma skimmed through with a blocked awareness); as to the hundreds of villages and hamlets, they were all covered in a single block of text simply titled, "Others".

From a forced interest to languid perseverance, an uncharted back cover appears in front of Akuma. Checking the world's glowing clock praying for a switch in light, yet it had moved as languidly as he.

Slumping back into his seat, dropping the map under Sao's seat, his arm nudges Rose without response.

She gazes through the climbing mountains, missing the sheep sleeping across the fields fog-like. Her eyes opposite from her home, neither smile nor frown claim victory. Having traversed this same road, viewing this same mountain range, to meet the same royals as before, only halted by a sudden fire in town hall, forcing her to family, on fire. The fire has burnt up nature. Longing out the window, no mountains, no grass, no sheep; the clouds vanished; the sun covered; the sky stripped; leaving, an empty canvass with no ink on the pastel.

Her blank stare catches Yuda's concern. Prying his arms from freezing to the iced beams, he turns out to look behind the mountains with Rose, unbeknownst to her. Taking quick, unrhythmic glances, he pretends to smoke with the cool gale. With a subtle breath and a drawn-out exhalation of condensing breath. It drifts in uniformed clouds, filling up the sky in their instantaneous life span, before fading away from sight and mind.

From behind Yuda, the huffing and puffing perfectly dramatized for fairy tales insists. As Yuda curiously turns back, with the indecisiveness inverting his head's journey a myriad of times, he comes to witness Naaji, mid-inhale, his chest bloated as he leans back his head to intake the entire atmosphere if possible, elbows pushed down, slightly behind his pelvis at an obtuse angle on at his elbow, clenching his fists with the ferocity of a parody appearing also in his red strained face, his little vibrations attempting to transform him into a new form of greater power. His local air devoured, Naaji prepares to release the accumulated energy, but his process is locked by Yuda's questioning eye. The interrogative stare persists as Naaji slyly whistles the abundance of air through the right corner of his lip, desert dry from his lonely flee and lack of aid, leaving a thin clouded trail. The whistle drags on, Naaji visibly desperate for an extra breath, his veins reaching out of his neck for its nourishment. Eventually he gives, forcing out a gust of wind, dispersing the once potential cloud into a forever separating group of gas particles, invisible to the human eye.

Sao peers up at the road ahead, previously lost in repeating thoughts, spotting an enlarging speck on an onrushing mountain. Eyes lighting up, lip curling up, cheeks brightening, the gate to Gulhvitt imminent, Sao shouts out to Yuda at the back to get ready, Naaji happening to hear it also. In a quieter voice he goes to inform Rose, Akuma, and Hannah, but Akuma has already sat up ready to launch out of the door or window if necessary, and Hannah, being woken by Akuma's enthusiasm, stirs and waves Sao away in acknowledgment. Rose remains unfocused on the land behind the sky, a few nudges from Akuma alerting her, in which she turns to Sao, apologises, and bows her head.

The truck drives through the pre-opened gate, officially escaping to Gulhvitt as the gate closes behind them, creaking with haste.