Just like the previous days, Dean's morning went faster than he'd hoped, and right now he was in the transit zone and staring at something that amazed him as much as anybody else here.
The center of attraction was a large black carriage that pulled up, mounted by what he would call horses if he didn't know better.
These creatures were quite different. They were green, ethereal, and ghostly. Looking like they were both real and mirages at the same time.
The two creatures that were easily twice the size of actual horses neighed while hitting their large hooves on the cobblestone floors.
"Yeah, those Phantom steeds are definitely real," Dean told himself.
Before he could move further. An aged man appeared by his side.
"Dean Gray?" The man who was wearing a slightly unkempt suit asked.
Dean simply nodded, and the man quickly reached for the handle of the carriage door.
Dean looked around and spotted the logo of the W.S.A on the tempered glass windows of the carriage.
This was the transport medium sent by the World Summoners Authority to pick him up and take him to the destination for the re-evaluation exercise.
Dean wasn't totally happy about this, though. He'd planned to take another manta ray ride with the quid he had left. But it seemed things turned out better, after all, who didn't like been treated special?
The man pulled open the large carriage doors with both hands, and Dean's eyes narrowed.
He'd thought he was moving alone. That he was special, but his moment of glory was snuffed out faster than a candle amidst a storm.
There was already close to twenty persons in the carriage. And even with though they all glanced at him, none of them spoke as if their tongues were sealed.
Dean climbed in carefully after a moment of resignation. Walking through the narrow path between the seats where the individuals sat side by side in two opposite rows.
Their eyes followed him like moths to flame. The weary looking eyes stayed on him till he was seated at the very edge of the carriage.
He sat close to the windows where he got a good view and a possible escape route.
The phantom steeds neighed after the carriage doors were shut. They raised their large legs, stomping loudly on the ground before they began galloping away.
<><><>
The commercial district of Hampshire blurred past the tempered glass like an unfinished oil painting.
Dean had been in this world for five days now and for five days—the city had been nothing more than background noise.
His run to the summoning ceremony, The route to Nessa's school. Moving to and fro transit zones and within the family compound had been the full extent of his world until this moment.
This was the first time, he actually looked. Truly looked at this world from the eyes of somewhere that was seeing it for the first time.
Hampshire was alive in a way that felt short-lived, like it could disappear at any moment.
The cobblestone roads were old but the flux Core lamps bolted onto every third building were new at the very least. These were the first visible sign of progress after the apocalypse.
With buildings that leaned slightly into each other like old men sharing secrets, The district looked like it was ready to submerge at any time, if it weren't for the metal lower floors that reinforced them causing a mismatch of wood and plated alloys.
Even while they travelled, he noticed merchants had already set up their morning stalls, their canopies were stitched together from at least three different fabrics. With kids running to school after all, friday was still a school day.
Dean pressed his shoulder against the window frame and watched while he shook his head, even in a damaged world like this, somethings still didn't change.
Behind him the carriage remained in limbo silence. He'd clocked it the moment he sat down.
There was more than twenty people in here and not a single conversation or the curiosity that comes with people been this cramped up together arising.
He let his eyes drift across the carriage without turning his head fully.
He noticed fingers clicking against thighs. One girl staring at the ceiling with the blankness of someone trying their best not to overthink.
A boy near the door had his jaw clenched ever since Dean boarded. And then there were the two oddities beside the boy who kept glancing at the WSA logo on the windows like it might change into something friendlier if they looked hard enough.
This was nervous energy. Dean recognized it the way he recognized the smell of a locker room before a any fight.
Some of these people had been here before. Probably retrials, Others were first timers drowning in the choking river of uncertainty.
He turned back to the window with hermit's eyes activated to grant him a 360° vision just in case, even as he saw wisps of verge moving like gas around the carriage.
When he thought about it. The people here, whether new or old, had their very own reasons for being here, but what about him?
He didn't need to be here. He couldn't care less about not having another chance for a summoner's registration, but for some reason, he was here anyway.
Initially, when he had attended the summoning ceremony, it was out of pity for the original who gave his all for that chance. The weight of the memories he received was the driver of his last minute choice to attend.
But now, maybe it was the fact he had gotten a system, or maybe it was the power he had obtained, as even now, he could see the entirety of this room with utmost clarity without even moving a muscle.
Was he an abnormality to mess with the system of this world ?
Or maybe it was just a second chance to life. After all his old life was everything but good.
He'd survived jumping from one orphanage to another before he even knew how to talk properly.
He'd survived the dangers, hardships, and crimes of the slums, which were the building blocks of his life.
It was in these very slums that he understood that trust was a currency that no one was willing to pay with but would give everything to buy.
Trying to learn this lesson had put him in danger more times than he could remember
Maybe this was his own chance of living a life of privilege. A life that was a fairytale. His compensation for the hell he had and was going through.
He shook his head. 'Life was never a fairytale, and it won't start now.'
He knew in his heart that this was all about survival and the best way he knew to do that was understand what this place was and then how to go around it with the gifts he had been bestowed.
His cross-like eyes reflected back to him a sharp light entered them even as the city pulled him back.
Hampshire had grown thinner, the buildings shorter and further apart.
They were now replaced by wider structures with reinforced walls and fewer windows. They looked like supply depots and military houses.
His eyes drifted with precision, then he saw them.
The walls.
They rose far from the edge of the district like something the earth had summoned on its own.
Massive dark stones that looked older than anything else he'd seen in this world, their dark stones were dense as if they were meant to last forever, reaching into the heavens like the fingers of a god.
This was the very monument that gave this very city it's name, humanity's last stronghold against the unknown.
The "Fortress City of Zhrea"
Embedded along the surface of the walls at intervals were flux Core arrays, the energy source forming faint lines of light that ran through the black stone like veins, pulsing slow and steady like a constant reminder of the lurking monsters.
Dean straightened slightly. He'd known the walls existed. The memories told him that much. But knowing and seeing them were two entirely different things.
The carriage didn't slow as it approached a gate Dean hadn't noticed until they were nearly through.
It opened without ceremony with a shift of light, and the sound of something enormous moving aside.
Then the weight changed. It wasn't the carriage but his body. Something stirred in his chest like a building pressure that arose and eased up as quickly as it came.
The air through the window seal smelled different. The cobblestones were completely gone now.
The road beneath the phantom steeds was darker and muddy unlike anything within the city.
He focused with hermit's eyes as he noticed the tension in the carriage increase like something was coming and he was the only one relaxed about it.
And for the first time, he saw mist. It drifted between trees that reached very high.
Dean stared.
The city was behind him now, and it wasn't just physically.
For the first time, he felt something different, like the five days of being with the Gray family and System screens were a distant past that belonged to a different chapter or something.
A sharp sound cut through his thoughts.
Ding!
[NOTIFICATION]
[You have entered a Flux Zone]
[Environmental verge pressure: increased]
[Hermit's Eye sensitivity: Increased]
Dean read the notification once and deactivated hermit's eyes as he sat with comfort.
"Here we go."
A/N: C'mon don't be a ghost reader, if you're enjoying the story, add to Library and support with Powerstones.
P.S: I need the P.Stones to gain more traction. Help a Author. Thank you...