Young Writers Society

"Go!"

As the cracks widened and the bridge creaked, Pren bolted to the tower on the end.

Ki ran to the tower, staring directly at the tower to prevent themself from faltering. The bridge seemed to scream at them, the sound of shattering glass consuming everything in its wake.

Shards of glass fell from the bridge, glittering in the sunlight. Piece by piece, the bridge disintegrated, the sound grating on Pren’s ears like an alarm.

When he reached the ledge outside the tower, he gasped for breath and attempted to pull the door open. The doorknob didn’t budge, and Pren stared at the ID scanner next to it in despair.

Ki, taking in the sight of the locked door, gritted their teeth and turned their shoulder to the door. Squashing their eyes shut, they smashed through the door and crashed into the wall behind it. They stumbled backwards and barely caught their footing before tripping.

Pren looked at the smashed-in door with wide eyes. “That was epic. Does being made of stone make you super strong? So. Freakin. Cool!” He entered the tower and… ran right into Ki. “Oh no, I’m so sorry! Are you okay? I could’ve sworn you were at least three steps away…” Pren eyed the floor warily.

Ki shrugged. They stared at the remains of the bridge slowly shambling back into place, as if the bridge was never broken.

“I don’t like this.” They drew one of their swords, holding it close to their chest.

Pren patted down his jeans pockets and sighed. Nothing. Well, it wasn't like he regularly carried weapons with him anyways... he had no idea what he was hoping to find. Instead, Pren shifted his stance and hoped he looked like he knew what he was doing.

A grinding sound drew Pren's attention to the inside of the tower. There was a spiral staircase leading down, but... "Hey, does it look like the staircase is moving to you? Like, like... an escalator?"

“Escalator?” Ki wouldn’t argue that the stairs weren’t moving, which was unnatural and unholy in of itself, but the child using strange words wasn’t helping. They tried to take a step down, but the stairs pushed them back to the top almost immediately.

“That’s not right.”

"Yeah, an escalator. Like the ones with stairs sliding up or down?" Well, Pren didn't blame Ki for not knowing what an escalator was. Besides them obviously not being human, it'd taken Pren a good eleven years to figure out that the fun staircases were called escalators... Anyways. Pren figured the moving staircase was a problem.

"So... I assume we're going to have to get down somehow. And I don't see a railing, so sliding down doesn't look like an option. Should we run for it again?"

Ki shook their head. "It's like swimming against a current." Not that they had much experience with swimming or currents. But, they once watch a guard attempt to cross a river to create a safe subterran passage and drown because the water wouldn't let him move forward.

They grabbed a stone from their pocket and threw it down the stairs. It landed a few steps before the curve in the spiral staircase, and it made it to the top in approximately ten seconds. "We'll tire."

Pren searched the walls of the tower. "Is finding an on/off button here too much to hope for?" He felt around the stone walls, trying to see if any of them was concealing a control panel. "Argh. It's like these buildings are trying to either kill us or trap us here! So rude."

Ki peered over the edge. One more word and they’d be at eighty, only a sentence away from speaking more in one day than they ever had before. They didn’t have a plan, so they picked up the stone and threw it in the space between the stairs.

The stone took too long to fall to risk jumping. Their skin would crack on impact, hot magma seeping through the breaks and melting the rest of his skin.

Pren watched the stone as it fell. He gulped. "Th... that's a long distance. Heh." He started pacing, but he couldn't go more than a few steps until he either ran into the wall or the moving stairs.

"Uhm... Let's see. We've got to get down, and running isn't an option. And there's no control panel. Well, can we make the stairs stop moving another way?" Pren glanced at Ki and smiled apologetically. "Sorry, just thinking out loud here."

Ki held up a finger and knelt besides the top of the sentient stairs. The stairs disappeared into the normal floor through a small passageway. If the stairs weren’t smooth, they wouldn’t be able to pass.

They inspected their sword. Chandrallium was the strongest metal in the world. Simple iron would not stop it. They held their sword above their head and pierced the stair about five steps away from the normal floor.

They dug their fingers into the new opening and tugged with all of their might. The metal groaned before giving way, and allowing Ki to bend the metal so that it stuck straight up, just high enough to prevent a smooth transition.

Ki stood back, hissing a small breath from the effort.

Pren's eyes were wide. "Woah, that was epic! Your sword went through the stair, just, like, shwee!" Pren attempted to mimic the metal-sliding-against-metal sound. As he talked, the bent stair approached the normal floor. "And then you straight up bent the metal, which is so cool, and--" Pren was interrupted by a screeching sound as the ruptured stair caught on the floor a few steps away.

His chattering paused for a second as he watched the stair. "Do... do you think it'll be enough to stop the staircase from moving?" The stairs shuddered a little, then the staircase started moving the opposite way for a second, like it was backing up. Then the staircase resumed its upward motion and the torn stair clanged against the floor again. The stairs seemed to shudder.