“We didn’t die,” Jimox assured the group of Nebador people gathered around the bench listening.
Everyone smiled or chuckled.
Teina grinned. “It was the most humbling experience of our lives, because
. . .” A fit of coughing took her and she wilted into Jimox’ arms.
“Because the Kid’s Motorway stations,” he continued, “all of them, and several other buildings, had been reduced to piles of rubble, and Teina knew why . . .”
Once they overcame their initial shock, the pair moved toward clear air as quickly as they could, coughing as they groped their way deeper and deeper into Fairy Castle. Soon they came to a door labeled First-Aid Station, yanked it open, and found a small room with a cot, a chair, and a shelf of supplies.
After taking two seconds to memorize the layout, they pulled the door closed behind them, just as the main cloud of dust arrived.
Tails found each other in the darkness and silence.
“Wow . . .” Teina began, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Let’s . . . move forward slowly and sit down on the cot,” Jimox suggested.
Teina nodded, chuckled, then said, “Okay.”
A minute later, after only one banged foot and one bumped head, they managed to get seated.
“What do you think? Ten minutes?” she asked the darkness.
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 138
“Let’s give it fifteen. That dust was pretty fine.”
She nodded, then chuckled again.
The dust had mostly settled when they emerged, and the passageway quickly led them to the outside.
“High Alert,” Jimox said. “The quake could have damaged the fence.”
Teina frowned. “We’ve been on High Alert for two days!”
“Okay, Double-High Alert.”
They looked around. Dust covered everything. The Fairy and Witch’s Castles were still standing, but the Knight’s Castle, and several smaller buildings, were just piles of rock.
They wandered in silence into Forestland, where a few buildings had collapsed, then around the World Tree, seemingly undamaged, and finally into Machineland, where the Wild Roller Ride was nothing but broken sticks and twisted metal.
When the Machineland Kid’s Motorway station came into view, they both stood staring. The quake had completely demolished it.
“And the other motorway stations . . .” Teina began.
“Are built exactly the same way,” Jimox finished.
They hurried into Olde Towne, found it mostly in good condition, and quickly arrived at the front of Similand where their home had been reduced to a heap of broken bricks and shattered glass.
Jimox saw the tears on Teina’s cheeks, so he wrapped his tail tightly around her.
They poked around the ruins, but couldn’t see anything worth saving.
“Do you remember . . .” Teina began, dealing with a lump in her throat,
NEBADOR Book Eight: Witness 139
“. . . if our journals were still in there?”
“They were gone, I remember that. I thought of writing a little last night, but couldn’t.”
She snuffled. “Good. Hopefully they’re somewhere in Fairy Castle. I feel done here. Shall we walk the fence?”
Jimox
nodded.
The entire city outside of Similand seemed to be silent, still, and covered with dust. No dogs threatened them, although a few wandered aimlessly. The animal-proof fence was a little twisted in places, but still doing its job. When they were about halfway around the theme park, Teina said, “I want to stop at the office building and look at something.”
After slipping in through the employee’s entrance, Teina led Jimox right to a large map she had seen in a conference room. It depicted all of Similand, and everything built in each decade was shaded a different color.
They perched side-by-side on a table and studied it.
“The Kid’s Motorway stations were some of the oldest buildings,” Jimox observed.
“And the Knight’s Castle.”
“We
were
very careful around the old buildings that hadn’t collapsed,”
Jimox explained. “One fell down by itself about a week later. After we hooked up with Nebador, The Roofers discovered that another building was unsafe, and knocked it down for us after we pulled out some artworks.”
Teina perked up. “Luckily the fence, and the reservoir and water system, were mostly okay, just little problems we could fix.”
“The biggest change for us,” Jimox went on, “was that we suddenly had a very different relationship with Giona and the ghosts who lingered in Similand . . .”
