A sleek, silent car zoomed through a bustling City Road. Normally, moving at such a speed would be far above speed limits but thanks to the introduction of Custodire, it was legal.
Each floating car was governed by the Central A.I., Custodire, which monitored the entire situation of the road, constantly making adjustments to the car's routes, speeds, and interaction with objects. Constantly calculating the most suitable way to make traffic flow.
It wasn't as though the drivers weren't able to control their cars, the A.I just constantly made small unnoticeable changes to make everything flow smoothly. It was just one of the perks of having such a car.
Grey sat, quietly trying to ignore Storm constantly bragging on and on about his car. At some point, it went silent, the officer probably figured they weren't paying him any attention. The journey continued in silence. Grey looked out the window to pass the time.
He hadn't ever gone this far into the city, he could see numerous, beautiful high-rising buildings with almost magical holograms surrounding them, giving the place a high-octane feel. Of course, there was enough greenery spread around the place making the air fresher. The streets even looked cleaner and everyone moved at an organized pace. It was nothing like the horrible and desperate atmosphere he was used to seeing.
As he went further, he was shocked to find numerous low-rising buildings that were surrounded by huge compounds, Grey had truly never seen such a beautiful waste of space. Browning trees and bushes surrounded this area giving it an extremely calming and melaclonic feel, the air even felt invigorating here.
Suddenly, Storm spoke breaking Grey out of his trance.
" I'm pretty sure you guys know where your heading, right?"
His voice sounded a little heavy.
" The academy?"
Ember spoke, her voice sounding a little confused.
" No, ..The limbo."
Both of the teens suddenly became attentive, the Limbo was a place that most Cursed or Rankers were very secretive about. The Limbo used in movies even hard warnings not to believe that what was shown there was how it really was.
" In truth, the Academy was mainly created to prepare you for your first dive into the Limbo."
He paused.
" Nobody remains the same after entering there."
His voice sounded hollow. Grey's eyes suddenly contracted.
" Mr. Storm, are you by any chance cursed?"
A wistful smile crawled onto Storm's face.
" I used to be."
Hope suddenly found its way into Grey's voice.
" So it's possible to stop being cursed?"
Storm's hands squeezed the steering wheel of his car.
" That.... That is a story for another day."
Grey felt Storm didn't want to talk about it, but from the tone of his voice, he felt that removing your curse was far worse than being cursed. He just couldn't understand why.
Storm continued speaking.
" I don't normally do this, but unfortunately I have some experience with the Limbo. So I can offer you advice, it's not something you won't learn later. It's just, it would be far less.... painful this way."
His face warped into a dark expression, as though remembering some very unpleasant memories.
" Firstly, never fully trust anything you find in the Limbo. Be they human or an abomination, Everything there is designed to kill you in some way, shape, or form. Some Abominations may take the forms of humans, and humans can sometimes be far worse than any abomination you will meet. If you ever meet an abomination that speaks, I'd advise you to run and don't look back... although it would be pretty pointless at that point, so just pray you never meet one."
He paused letting it all sink in before continuing.
" Secondly, there are the courses you pick in the academy. We have roughly two months left before the Shiver anniversary, meaning you only have two months' worth of time before you get dragged into the limbo. There are two courses you have to take,..three to be honest."
He looked at the teens to make sure they were listening.
"First and most importantly, the survival course. The Limbo's environment is far harsher than the one outside the dome, a little carelessness is all it takes for you to die. You have to be knowledgeable about what's poisoned and what's not, how to find the nearest water source, which areas to avoid, and yadda yadda. You get the point. Secondly, is the combat and physical training course, it's useless just surviving in such a place if you're only going to be swallowed by a passing abomination. And lastly, Limbo geography, it's tied to the first course. Usually, the Curse drops you off close to human strongholds in the Limbo, So you have to learn how to navigate the routes to the strongholds and learn how to identify the environments, to prepare yourself for any situation. Each place has a unique environment designed to kill you one way or the other. "
He paused, chuckling regretfully.
"Trust me, it's not funny to learn any of these the hard way."
Storm activated the self-driving mechanism on the car. He turned around to face both Grey and Ember.
" This might just be the most important advice yet, although I've told you most of the things I know. There are still some parts I don't know. That's why it's important to have teammates and people you move with. Although, it seems to be contradicting my first point. It is truly the only way to survive the curse. Regardless of how you want to deny it, we all gave weaknesses, weaknesses that can only be covered by others."
He paused letting it sink in.
" Make sure you chose your teammates wisely, the having a dangerous enemy is better than having an incompetent friend."
Storm scratched his head, before looking back towards the steering wheel.
" That's pretty much all there is to say, I also, don't think I can take any questions"
"Why?"
Grey asked.
Storm smirked, "Because we're already here."
Gray and Ember looked out the window.
The car just passed through the last checkpoint, revealing a place that could only be described with one word, Beautiful.
Vast rolling hills filled with golden green grass, and numerous autumn seasoned trees placed on top of them. The leaves of the trees were brown as they swayed and fell in the chill autumn breeze. At the back of some hills, some mechanized farms worked on growing organic crops, adding a sort of rural charm to the place.
Numerous mansions that could almost be called castles could be seen sprawled around the hills, giving the place a picturesque feel.
'So this is the central ring, all the places before here just seem inadequate in comparison.'
"Enchanting isn't it, don't let yourself be fooled by it though. There are far more security measures here than I know how to count "
Storm brought Grey back to reality again, it felt like it was almost becoming a thing at this point.
Grey looked forward, deeper into the picturesque field. He saw huge buildings with high walls placed deeper in the fields.
They were currently almost in front of one of them, this one had numerous turrets mounted on the walls with drones constantly patrolling the compound and strange men with weapons that Grey could only conclude were Cursed manning the walls. But that wasn't what attracted Grey's attention. He was drawn to the dark purple hologram floating in front of the Gates. " The institute of Rankers"
Storm chuckled,
" Well kids I believe we've reached our destination, the Academy, or.... as I like to call it
The Cursed Cradle."