"Where the hell are we?" Dash asked. He shook his head as he studied the devastation around us.
"Throw in some flames and I would say we're in hell," Oliver said. He studied the plants around us. "Never seen anything like this."
I walked to the gate leading to the decrepit old city and felt a tinge of insufferable gloom, as if we'd been brought to the most depressing place in the world.
"You feel it?" Dash asked. "The heaviness."
"Like all the world's problems reside here," Oliver said. He pulled his computer from his back pocket.
"It's like a Poe story," Kyler said.
"Means bad s**t is waiting for us on the other side." Dash stood in front of the gate, watching me continue forward. "Your feet," Dash said, and I stopped walking.
I lifted my foot, and several muddy strands of muck ex
