The ground shook, causing Baahir and her to lose their footing and careen into one another. Baahir went down hard, smacking his chin on a chunk of rock. He cursed and clutched his face with both his hands. Zahra was frightened that he was seriously hurt — and so close to the end too. His hands came away slathered in blood, and when he looked up at her, she sighed in relief.
Baahir held up his open hand. Inside was a tiny white square.
“My tooth!” he said, whistling slightly. Blood ran down his chin.
If Zahra had been in better spirits, she would have died laughing. Now, she might die from the lack of breathable air.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” Ali said, hauling him to his feet. “Come. We are nearly there!”
Zahra recognized the part of the city they were in. They had just stumbled upon the main road — the one they had used when they had first arrived. That meant that the entry stairs were on the other end and were a straight shot from here.
Just the thought of seeing the sun again was all the motivation she needed, but instead of pouring on the speed, she laid back and helped Rabia with Ali. He was struggling with his shoulder, mightily. The bouncing motion of having to run was jostling the injured joint to the point of him whimpering with every step.
“That bad?” she asked.
Ali could only nod, locking his jaw as he moved.
Zahra gave herself some credit. It had been a life-or-death situation and she would have absolutely done the same thing if the roles had been reversed. They had all saved one another so many times that it would have been impossible to keep track if they had tried to do so.
A thicker, tall, Damned man stood in the middle of the road. He was all that stood in the way of their freedom. Him, and a crumbling staircase. Zahra unclipped her hook and handed it to her brother, allowing ten feet of cord to unspool. Baahir understood her thinking, and the siblings separated themselves far enough to stretch the cord out taut. They shouted like mad and ran at the larger man with the cord dipped low, taking out his ankles. He faceplanted into the road with a thud.
Baahir handed the hook head back to his sister and gladly mounted the first step. Rabia and Ali skimmed past him and climbed higher. Zahra didn’t. She came to a stop just before the first step and looked out over the “Lost City of the Damned.” This was the second lost civilization she had found recently, yet oh-so different than the one prior. Her previous find had been a living, breathing ancient society of people untouched by modernism. This was a true hell on earth and something that needed to be buried from the world above. Zahra did not plan on telling anyone about this place, and she was pretty damn sure the others felt the same way.
“Nothing good can come from this place,” she muttered to herself.
“What was that?” Baahir asked, joining her below.
She turned and confirmed her hypothesis. “We can’t tell anyone what we found down here, correct?”
Rabia and Ali shared a look but nodded.
Zahra turned and stared at her little brother. Baahir was a talker, but even he threw his hands up. “Fine, fine… But if anyone asks, the bruises came from a passionate lover.”
Two separate hordes of the Damned appeared through the haze, but they didn’t advance past the city limits. Baahir was the first to put it all together.
“The sulfur,” he said, taking in a large lungful of air.
“What about it?” Zahra asked.
“It’s thinner here. They can’t follow us. If they do, they’ll suffocate — like a fish out of water.”
Ali patted him on the shoulder. “Best news I’ve heard all day.”
The entire city rumbled, and the majority of it plummeted into the roiling pool of magma. Zahra clumsily pushed Baahir up the steps, and the quartet of exhausted explorers began the arduous climb to freedom. The busted sections of steps were an issue, but luckily there were four brains working together to find a solution.
Zahra tossed her grappling hook up the steps with the hope of hooking it onto a jagged outcropping of rock. She got a hold, then handed the line to the others. They held it tight, allowing Zahra to use it as well as the crags in the wall to her right to scale her way up.
Once Rabia had completed the parkour move and was standing next to Zahra, she lobbed the head of the hook to her brother, and he used it hook one of the lower steps. The two women drew it taught and held tight. Baahir scrambled up to them next. Ali struggled to get a foothold on the wall while also pulling himself along with one hand — his movements kept pushing himself away from the rock, like a rappelling exercise.
He gave up. “Just go,” he said, staring up at Rabia.
Baahir snorted from down below. “Not a chance. We’ll think of something.”
Zahra was impressed with her brother’s determination.
She thought for a moment. “Throw me the hook.”
Ali did.
Zahra tossed the end of the cord back to him. “Tie this off to your belt. We’ll pull you up.”
Ali was about to argue.
