The Altonevers Read Online Free Page A

time. It both is and isn't the time for
thought of it,” he says, slapping her on the back before diving off
the pavement plateau.
    Anna closes her eyes, hesitating for a
second that lasts forever in her mind, though ending when her
eyelids lift, reminding her that life doesn't last as long as a
single thought could.
    She tediously leans forward. Squeezing
her eyes shut, struck by fear growing as her body tips over the
edge, and she’s free falling a second later. Without a thought
she's stampeding down the wall, with toes barely tapping the
cracking and fracturing surface of the vertical sidewalk. The whole
way down she's screaming at the top of her lungs. Not even trying
to slow her gallop, she glides easily past him. Oblivious in the
caress of her carelessness, and never wanting to stop falling in
stride. She curls into a ball and meets the yellow and black sign
with a yelp and a thud. Dropping as dead weight then tumbling down
a long and twisting white tiled stairwell. The avalanche vaporizing
reality quakes through the ground as it rumbles closer. Washing
over the hole like an ocean wave seen from below, a second after he
shouts and thuds and drops to follow her tumble down the stairs.
The city and its history, the stars burning brightly in place for
billions of years, the Alto in it's entirely is evaporated from
physical persistence in a matter of minutes.

 
     
     
CHAPTER TWO
    Hop, skip and
jump
     
     
     
     
    Rolling, and rolling still, tumbling
down the long way down a narrowing white tiled stairway to
eventually flop flat on her front onto a dirty cement landing.
Slopping the sweat from her face to the ground, that smiles back at
her as her own reflection. Kneeling under an arcane decorated arch
of brass and wood, crowning the entrance of the Altonevers station.
She gets to her feet drunk in dizziness as he brushes himself
off.
    “ See, I told you it was a
thing,” he says over the blinding smell of urine smoldering their
noses. She looks up, to a shadow black ceiling with brick pillars
spilling down from it. Coated in the same dull gray paint peeling
in patches from the walls, falling like dandruff to an uneven stone
slab that’s been a platform forever. The only other thing visible
is a string of silver train cars, shining under the lights of the
dimly lit station. Cider is mesmerized like a bird staring at
string of glimmering pearls, to the train cars standing with their
doors wide open. Well lit inside with advertising resting over
scratched windows, and plastic blue benches stretched three feet
over a black floor speckled with violet, red and gray
dots.
    A short man dressed as a mustard
yellow clad bellhop is standing below a large board of arrivals and
departures. Humming a mellow melody, then blowing a whistle that
blows steam, and instantly appearing not four feet from the two,
holding a rolled up paper in a gray glove. Beaming at her with
elderly blue eyes, his hair is swept over his ears, and his face is
outlined by age.
    “ Is that yours?” The man
asks through a white mustache that sloshes as he speaks.
    “ Is what mine?” she
asks.
    “ That there on the floor
deary, or doe. You dropped that,” the man says.
    “ My, sweat?” she
asks.
    “ Yes, that’s right
madam.”
    “ I guess.”
    “ Well it's rude of you to
litter. You get that up, will you?”
    “ And how do I do
that?”
    “ By sipping it of course.
Acting as though you don’t know what I’m talking about. Ha, the
nerve of some people.”
    “ I'm not doing
that.”
    “ Sure you will, it’s the
law,” the conductor states.
    “ Do I have to sip it off
the ground?” she asks Cider, who laughs through saying, “It’s the
law.”
    “ I guess,” she squeaks, and
she looks to her feet to see the puddle of sweat lifting from the
cracks as a splash of water and vapor rising up to her shoulders.
Collecting into the shape of an empty coffee mug that floats closer
to her unsure face and tips to her lips. At first she