The Mantis Continuum - Book Four - 24. Chapter 24 - Unadi

Unadi ran aimlessly down one narrow street after another. Madness seemed to be his only guide. Ilya had lost track of him shortly after he rushed out of Red Raven’s.

He raced under the bright sign at the edge of Gate Town, turned down an alleyway, and at its other end he found himself on an old abandoned airstrip. He kept running. The area was desolate and the pavement was already getting hot, even though the morning sun was still on its climb. Unadi ran straight through the middle, across the vast expanse of concrete, until he reached the coast of Widdershins Bay.

He stopped at the water’s edge and looked out at the protruding hulk of the Breakneck Shipwreck. The jagged old metal battleship looked to him like a row of crooked grey teeth, and Unadi’s mouth snapped at the air, as if his body was inadvertently attempting the act of chewing for the first time.

A hot wind blew over the flat Oselian runway, and it sounded like faraway voices in his head. They called out, “Hey, are you okay?”

Unadi ignored the voices of the wind.

Another question came from the same direction, and the words of the wind sounded different. “Do you need help?”

As Unadi continued chewing the air, he thought to himself, The wind is very talkative this particular morning.

A hand came to his shoulder.

Unadi spun around in shock, but it was just two people.

One of them said, “We saw you run out here,” and the other added, “Are you okay?” but Unadi screamed in their faces like a banshee, and he fled.

He ran straight back in the direction from which he came, and he left the two concerned and startled individuals standing on the hot tarmac. He rushed into the tight alleyways again, and soon found himself at the center of Teshon City by the ruins of the Messiah Tower. The rubble blocked his way and forced him east toward the entrance to Gate Town.

Beneath the rainbow sign at the border to the welcoming borough, Unadi came upon a grey-haired peddler who was opening his cart and about to start his day. The old man snapped his fingers, and words appeared in the air that hovered above his head like decorative smoke. They read NOW OPEN in pink and silver letters.

Unadi approached the Shift man and attacked✪