40

We were about to discuss what my brother had said when his stomach began to rumble. We were all hungry, so we decided to get back inside and take out our supplies.

"So what do you mean by something's wrong?" I asked him. For him to come back here so soon after finding a way to the surface after spending so long underground had to be bad.

He reached for a can of ravioli before saying, "It's empty."

Jace, thinking he was referring to the can said, "how could it be empty? The damn thing hasn't even been opened yet."

Ignoring Jace, Aaron continued by saying, "every street, every office, every goddamn house. It's all empty. It's like someone ordered a full scale evacuation, but I really can't see the reason."

"But that's perfect for us," Sarah told us, with a grin wide across her furry face. "Isn't it? Doesn't it mean that we don't have to wait for dark in order to leave?" I had to agree with her there, but something was fishy, and it wasn't just the can of salmon that Eric had opened.

41

Five minutes later, we were standing on an empty street in the middle of Manhattan—or wherever the hell we are. I don't know New York, being a Toronto guy myself—after having voted wether we should wait for dark, and follow our original plan, or leave now and see some daylight. Daylight won by a landslide, with only one person voting against. To avoid embarrassment, I won't say who.

There seemed to be a REALLY black cloud coming in from the north, and my thoughts turned to this: They wouldn't evacuate New York City for weather... Would they? We decided it wouldn't be best to fly with these conditions on their way, but something was odd about the cloud, though I couldn't put a finger on what.

And then it was on me, just like that. I didn't feel like I was being constricted from the inside, so we were in a high pressure zone. There couldn't possibly have been a storm on the way. It must have been something else. Something flying.

Erasers.

42

My first thought was to take to the air, and fly in the opposite direction, but I knew we couldn't do that. If we did we'd be spotted for sure, and be captured, or possibly killed. So I looked over my options. Return to the subway. No. To risky, and counterproductive. Next, hide in a building, the taller the better. Yes, and lucky for us, we were only a block or so away from the tallest building in the whole city.

The Empire State Building.

While we were built for flying, except for Aaron of course, we could still run faster than the average human being, so it took us about five minutes to reach the famous tower. Murphy must be giving me a break today, because the doors were unlocked. The elevators were down, so we just took the stairs. Again, being faster that the average man, we were in the upper levels in no time.

And by that time, the Erasers were swarming around the top of the building, as if they were tracking us. Wait a minute... Shit!

Evil cliffie! Don't worry, there's more on the way! You'll certainly enjoy what happens next, or at least, I hope you will!

Don't forget to press the nice little button there that says GO. Come on. You know you wanna.