Author's Note:

Sorry it took me a while. I know it's summer but I'm just soooo lazy. :P Enjoy and savor it. My laziness will probably delay oncoming chapters. But it helps if your review, you know what I'm saying? Bwahahahah!

We spend another week in the forests. I'm not sure where we are right now but Mercury says we're probably in some place called Pennsylvania, close to Dead York, which is close to New Brooklyn. From the place where we encountered the Peacekeepers, we have had three river baths. Currently, I stink like crap.

"Waaatteerrrrr..." Marlin mumbles.

I hand Marlin my water bottle. "All you have to do is ask."

He sips the water. "Fooooooooooooood."

I toss him some berries I found along the last river.

He munches on them. "Carry meeeeeee."

"No."

"But I'm tireeeeed."

"Don't care."

"Roooooooobaaa!" he whines with indigation.

"Whaaaatever," I mimic him. He grunts and then I hear a thud. I turn around and see him sprawled in the ground, twitching. "Marlin?"

"Bleh."

"Okay. If you need me, I'll be with Zee." I pick up my pace and insert myself between Mercury and Zee. "Hey dudes."

"Umm... hi," Mercury says. "Where's Marlin?"

"He's going through something right now. Don't ask." I look at Zee. "What's up?"

And thus insues an awkward conversation about ostriches, a weird animal I've never heard about, Mercury explaining everything.

I keep an ear open to the conversation but other than that, I just take in the surroundings. The forest is steadily changing. What used to be the thick canopy of leaves overhead turns into the bare blue sky. The trees isn't as clumped together as they were and the leaves turns less and less dense. The grass turns yellow and the ground hardens. Suddenly, we're walking on hard black stuff.

"The heck...? Asphalt?" I mumble.

Everyone looks at the ground. "Asphalt," Mercury confirms. "We must be close to the city."

He picks up his pace and Marlin suddenly appears and says, "A city? You mean, a district."

"No, I think he means a city. A dead one. From the old days," I say.

"Cool!"

We follow Mercury through the cracked asphalt. Moss is growing through the cracks and chipped orange paint forms rectangles in the middle of the misshappen road. After a few meters, we see our first lamp post. Even though it has mysterious burn marks and holes in the structure, it's still standing. Marlin tries to climb it but I sternly pull him back. Then, we see a wooden bench. Half of it is just rubble. We turn a corner and see our first shop. I guess we're still in the suburbs. It has a metal sign that says, Wall-Mart. Huh. Maybe language evolved over the years.

I'm just about to walk past it when Mercury grabs my shoulder. "Wait. We can get supplies here."

I'm skeptical, but go along with it. Mercury pushes the glass door. It doesn't budge. He grabs a fallen brick and shatters the glass. He kicks away the rest of the glass. We duck to enter and Zee says, "You know, Mercury? There's a sign that says, push."

Mercury turns red and says. "Whatever."

I giggle and slide into the hole and step into water.

Well, I don't think it even qualifies as water. More like muck. Or liquified mud. Or maybe bat urine. It doesn't stink, though, making me wonder what kind of sick twisted liquid can look like this but smell nothing like how it looks. "Ick," I groan.

We slog through the isles. Mercury orders us to seperate and I get sent to the book isle. I don't know what good books do but I read some of the titles.

The Book Theif.

Artemis Fowl.

39 Clues.

Harry Potter.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I am Number Four.

None seems interesting until I stumble across a small beige-colored book titled, The Five People You Meet in Heaven.

In the middle of the cover, there's an interesting contraption that looks like a wheel. It's damp and some of the pages stick together, but other than that, it looks completely new. My muddy fingers make prints on the cover so I slip it in my bag to keep it safe. I make a mental note to ask Mercury what the thing is in the cover. Right now, I'm finding 'supplies'.

After I finish with the isle, I turn the corner and find kitchen supplies. Ah, yes. Wonderfully metallic and pointy things. I run, or at least wade, to the knife section and find it all blunt and rusted with age. The sharpest thing I can find is a butter knife. But, I pocket a small pan. We can use it to cook things, I guess. That's it. I finally move to 'the meeting point' which is in the middle of the shop. I'm the first on to arrive so now, I'm just standing there, water coming up to my thighs. Wet. Sopping. Unhappy. Standing there with a pan, like a fool. After a few minutes, I move to the nearest thing above the water, a cashier thing, climb and sit on it. I take off my boots and ooze went out of it. I grimace and put it back on my foot. I'll do it in a later date.

I wait until Zee appears hands full with canned items. "Hit the motherload!" she says cheerfully.

"Sweet," I say. I pull her up to my perch and we examine the lables. Most of them is for soup.

Then, Marlin appears, waist deep in the water. He has a shopping bag full of flammable objects. There's lighters, oil and hairspray. We have to lose the oil because it's too heavy but setting fire to the hairspray is enough. Finally, Mercury appears. He carries a bottle of fly spray.

"Poison." He grins evilly.

We exit the scene without drama. We step out into the sunlight and didn't stop walking until we reach the city.

"Holy cracker." I'm speechless.

There's towers and buildings that touches the sky. The asphalt road breaks into a billion different paths. The buildings have broken windows and even though its getting dark out, there's no light inside. Plants and fungi are growing on the walls of the towers. The streets are full of rubble. There's rock, glass, twigs and everything else. Parts of the city is flooded. Even though it's messed up, it still pertains a sort of grandness. A thousand people can fit here.

Mercury is the only one that isn't stunned. "This is an ancient city. Before the Districts. Come on."

He snaps us out from our daze and directs us to a building that says Jasmine Tower Apartment.

The lobby is a mess. Columns have fallen and there's holes in the wall. There's an elevator like the ones in District 13 but obviously, it isn't working. We take the stairs and in about the fifth floor, we break down the doors to an apartment. It's quite messy and there's magazines and cans of soda along the floor but its dry. Marlin swipes a muddy arm over the magazines on the flea-bitten sofa and parks his butt on it. "Comfy."

Since all of us are too scared to sleep in different rooms, Zee retires in a recliner that she lowers and Mercury grabs some pillows and sleeps on the ground. Meanwhile, I volunteer to take first watch. After a bit of searching, we a barrel in the hall outside and pack some paintings off the wall, spray it with hairspray and light it on fire. A great big fireball explodes. I grab an uncomfortable stool and sit next to the fire. As everyone drifts to sleep, I cautiously open my bag and grab my soiled book. I open the first page.

The first page is titled, The End.

Then, it went on like this:

This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins in the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It might seem strange to start a story with an ending. But all endings are also beginings. We just don't know it at the time.

I turned a page and kept on reading.

Author's Note:

Yes, The Five People You Meet In Heaven is a real book. It's by a dude called Mitch Albom and its super-mega-ultra awesome. Read it sometimes.

Sorry if you hate me putting a book in here. A book within a book? Sorry, but it will fit in with... later... events. (Muahahahaha!)

I don't own Wall-Mart, Pennsylvania or any book mentioned above. I'm just a fan of them!