CHAPTER 3

Remnants Of The World Before

Maija was brought back to her cell. To a different one since she had easily escaped from the last one. In hindsight, she should've known it had been a trap. She had been provided with the means of escape. There was no way they would have made that mistake. Not a pirate gang that had taken all of Foundation "by storm" as Trey put it. Trey. She wondered if he had made it off that island.

Her captors had fed Maija once since she had escaped. Now far since then, her eyelids were feeling heavy. But she would not let her mind sleep. Maija kept her eyes open until the sun started rising through the small window behind her, casting warm light in the small room, quickly warming it up.

Maija stood, the joints in her knees popping as she did. She didn't think she'd ever been any more inactive in her entire life. She started pacing back and forth. They had taken everything back from her, grappling hook included- the only thing she had to thank for breaking her out of the last cell. She only had the clothes on her back. But she couldn't help but think about how easily she had broken through those metal bars. Solid metal snapping that easily? She had been set up from the start.

She slowly stepped up to the barred door. Maija was the only one in the room. Latching her hands to two bars like vises, Maija pulled with one and pushed with the other. The bars didn't budge and didn't feel like they would any time soon. But Maija kept pushing, not willing herself to give up. The muscles throughout her arms tightened and sweat beaded along her brow, a pressure forming in her skull until she felt as she might pass out.

Then the door to the room burst open and a man walked in.

"I wouldn't bother with that trick again," the man said, his voice familiar but Maija had never seen him before. "The bars in that last cell were practically made from tin cans glued together. They were meant to break."

It clicked almost instantly. This was him. This was the man with the cowl. He wasn't at wall what Maija had expected. Rather than being the savage pirate most gang leaders were, he was clean, well kept. His brown hair and thin beard were well groomed, and his skin was perfect, uncut or damaged- green eyes sparkled in the morning sunlight.

Maija felt a spite rise up in herself that came as a shock to even her. Her lips tightened and she pushed harder against the bars, now accepting the fact that they would never break but continued anyway. She pulled and pushed, gritting her teeth and even growling before banging her forearm against the metal and backing off.

"Finished?"

She nodded and sat back down, resting her arms on her knees.

The man smiled and walked back and forth along the barred wall to Maija's cell. He remained silent for several moments before saying: "Do you have any idea why I chose you?"

Maija scoffed, staring blackly at the floor. "Please, enlighten me."

"I will allow your attitude for now, you have the right," he said, stopping and quickly turning to face her. His face was now firm, lips tight and eyes sharp. "But it will not be acceptable later. Do you understand?"

Maija looked up, shocked by his change in attitude. When she had first met him down in the cargo hold. He acted childlike, jabbing weak attempts at insults, mocked her almost as if trying to get under her skin. Now, he exuded an essence of authority. This was no time for jokes, no time for insults, no time for attitude. It was time for business.

She nodded.

"Good," he began pacing again. "I chose you because you have an ability I need. Something no one else can provide."

Maija didn't say anything. She had lost her voice.

"Search within yourself, you know exactly what I'm talking about."

His sentence might as well have been a question, his eyes watched Maija, burning holes into hers. He was waiting for an answer. And Maija feared coming up short.

She nodded again. "My memory."

He blew what could only be classified as a laugh from his nose, a wide grin spreading across his face. "In a way, yes. You are going to do great things Maija. Get some rest, tomorrow's going to be a big day."

The day passed quicker than Maija had expected. Only a few hours had passed after the man had left when three people, all women, had entered the room, one carrying several thick sheets of cloth, the other with a sleeping mat. A bed. The last woman had a gun in her hand, trained on Maija.

She had slowly stepped away as the two women arranged the bed in the corner of the cell, the last woman had kept her gun focused on Maija.

Now she was lying on the blankets provided to her, head resting on her arm, staring up to the ceiling. The whole situation felt strange. She had been kidnapped, taken from her home, the only person she had ever known killed… but she so far hadn't been treated much like a prisoner. If anything, she felt more like a rat in a maze. Given hints and clues to what she was being used for. It wasn't much better but at least it was something.

Dinner was delivered as the sun began its descent to the void. Maija sat, legs crossed, in front of a steaming bowl of rice and stew with chunks of an almost purple meat on top. The smell of birikoi spices filled Maija's nose and her stomach demanded she ate it at once. Maija of course, was a little more cautious.

She lifted the bowl to her nose, sniffed it. Lightly touched the stew with her tongue. Nothing out of the ordinary. After her very extensive check, she gave in and started eating. Nothing about this situation made sense. The food was delicious, but she couldn't enjoy it. A lab rat. That was all she was.

Maija was too weak to resist sleep. She opened her eyes and sat up to see sunlight. Panic washed away her grogginess. She jumped up, looking around the room, imagining all the things that could have happened through the night. But nothing had changed. Everything was exactly where she had left them.

Someone came through the door, slamming it open as usual. Maija jumped back and bumped against the back wall of her cell. That man again. He walked in and closed the door behind himself, returning his hands behind his back.

He smiled at her, saying nothing.

"What do you want?"

"Kaius is my name," he finally said. "It is important that you know this."

Maija didn't reply.

The man, Kaius, reached forward and unlocked Maija's cell, pushing the door open. He stood in the opening. They locked eye contact, unbroken for what felt like forever. Kaius's face was stern, firm and completely still. It was impossible to read his emotions.

He turned and left, leaving the door open. "It's time for us to begin. Follow. Don't make me remind you of what will happen if you don't listen."

Maija slowly followed him, keeping just enough distance that she could react if he made any move. But two men trailed her, forcing her forwards quickly binding her wrists in rope. They walked down the same corridor Maija had taken two days prior, except rather than moving down the stairway, they went up. Up another flight, and the next and the next. Four flights in total. The last set of stairs breached the ship's hull and opened into empty sky.

Tall thick masts cut into the sky, holding up large black sails that had been rolled up by rope. Along both the right and left sides of the ship was a row of massive metal cannons painted red, all extending several feet over the ship's side. People everywhere, male and female. All dressed in brown hunter's jackets. They had lined up in two rows, allowing Kaius, Maija, and the two men behind her pass between them.

But the thing that tore Maija's attention away like the wind that wiped strands of loose hair against her face was what lay in front of the ship. A wall just like the towering sandwalls that she was familiar with but gray. A formation of storm clouds that stretched up into the sky and down to the void, thick and gray, lightning striking from its surface. The air got cold, the sunlight seemed to instantly diminish, and rain started to fall.

Kaius stepped up beside a man positioned in front of a metal helm. "Take us in," he said. The man nodded and pushed the throttle forwards.

The ship jolted forwards, filling Maija's ears with the rushing sound of jet engines. She could feel the ship's power as it accelerated, moving faster and faster towards the wall looming above them. Maija watched the top of the wall until they were so close to it that she couldn't bend her head back any farther. Then the ship passed into the wall, fog consuming it.

At first, she saw nothing. Nothing but a plane of gray, the ship moving forwards at speeds Maija could have never imagined. Then it shook. The entire ship jumped up and then down, hitting turbulence strong enough for Maija to lose her balance. She ducked, spreading her legs apart to steady herself. The plane of fog had vanished, opening into an expanse of dark clouds and lightning and rain. The whole thing seemed to stretch for miles in every direction.

The whole ship jerked, sending Maija off her balance again. A loud boom echoed through the wet air as the world flashed bright white. Lightning struck the side of the ship, but no one reacted. The two lines of crew behind Maija remained in formation including Kaius who stood firm behind the pilot. She waited it out, using every muscle through her legs to keep from falling over.

The ship buckled again, Maija's stomach dropping. She stifled a yelp. Lightning struck the ship, bright white beams of flaming hot light. Maija could practically feel the heat radiating from them with each strike. She couldn't believe how someone could remain so calm in the middle of so much chaos.

Thunder boomed in the distance and rain now drenched her from above, pouring down in buckets from the gray sky. Everything was so loud it felt as if Maija's ears were about to pop. And just before it began unbearable. Before it felt as if she might go deaf. Everything evaporated bringing a silence even louder than the noise.

The openness to the wall had vanished, pitching the ship back into fog, the lightning only flashing silently in the distance. Maija waited in anticipation. The noise and sound and movement around her previously had distracted from what had been happening. They just crossed a wall. She had never been through one. She hadn't even seen a stormwall before. Maija only knew of sandwalls. Her world was about to expand, and she didn't know if she wanted it.

The fog started to dissipate as the ship cut through it, blue sky becoming visible through the dense storm clouds. The rain instantly stopped. Maija blocked her eyes from the sunlight with her arms and took in the sight in front of her.

The world was unexplainably brighter. Vibrant compared to the dry, orange-tinted area she had always known. The sky, rather than being a pail, dirt color, was such a shade of blue that it was almost purple, the white fluffy clouds contrasting starkly against it.

And the islands, the islands. They were unlike any islands she had ever seen. Scattered plentifully throughout this sector, every island was covered with grass, some green, others various shades of red, orange, yellow, some purple even. Purple grass. Maija didn't even think a color grass like that had even existed. Remnants of the world before built on the surfaces of each.

Between the islands, between the clouds, there was something else. Animals. Soaring through the sky like birds, animals that looked almost like sting rays with navy blue leathery skin moved in flocks. White patterns across their backs glowed with bioluminescence and even seemed to change colors.

And just to seal the beauty of the world now completely different, the sun was setting ahead of them, just now dipping beneath the top of a weather wall. This one white and transparent, looking almost like a wall of rain, mist. A windwall. Bright yellow rays washed down from the sun, warming Maija's face and blanketing the world in an orange glow.

"What-," Maija stuttered, her brain almost unable to process the amount of information her eyes were giving her. The world had changed in an instant. It may have been the rain, but the air even felt different. Wetter. "What is this place?"

Kaius turned to face her, a smile curling his lips. "This… is the Remnants. Beautiful, isn't it?"

Maija didn't reply. Couldn't. She slowly stepped up to the side of the ship, no one stopping her. It was beautiful. It made the scenery she'd lived in her entire life seem bland, boring. Nothing in comparison. Maija almost forgot the ropes binding her arms behind her back.

"Why are you showing me this?"

Kaius stepped up behind her. She resisted everything to not back away. "All you've been doing since you got here is asking questions. Do you want to finally know the answers?"

She turned, Maija feeling surprisingly calm despite the situation. She should be terrified, questioning everything, but she wasn't. She wanted to know. Looking up straight into Kaius's eyes, her own eyes wide and glistening in the setting sun's light. "Yes."

The smile that crossed Kaius's face could only be described as happiness. Genuine. It took Maija back, made her second guess everything she had ever known. But it vanished as quickly as it came. "Follow," he said, and began walking away. Maija obeyed, following close after him.

He led her back, past the stairs which they had come up and into an area at the back of the top deck, small, only one room. A table and chair sat in the center of the room atop a red rug. A large piece of brown paper covered the surface of the table, scribbles and lines drawn on it. At this distance, Maija couldn't tell what had been drawn. At some point during their walk to this room, someone had cut Maija's bindings. She rubbed her wrists gingerly with her thumbs.

Kaius moved around the table and sat in the chair. Maija stopped in front of it, staring down at the paper on top. It was a map. At least, she thought it was a map. Its design was relatively simple but there were no discernable landmasses. It was a square with lines forming borders, creating a random pattern filling every space inside the square. Each bordered off space was labeled with a letter, W, E, R, or B. Each space also was filled with several dots in seemingly random locations. It all seemed so foreign to her.

Wait, no. This section right there. It blended into the rest but there was something so familiar about it. It was labeled with a B which she still didn't understand the meaning of, but the arrangement of dots resembled the arrangement of the islands she had grown up around, of the islands she'd almost memorized. This was a map of the world. At least the world Kaius had managed to explore. The R's must stand of Remnants. And the B was for Badlands.

"Is this a map of the- the world?" Maija spoke with excitement she couldn't hide. "How did you get all of this? Is this hand drawn? Did you draw it? Are you some- some kind of- of cartographer?"

Kaius snickered, "Take it slow. This isn't even what I came here to show you."

Maija stepped back, sealing her lips although she had no control over the expression on her face. She even found herself fighting the urge to mutter an apology.

Kaius's tone switched instantly from laid back, tinged with humor, to seriousness weaved with sorrow. "This world is dying, Maija."