The map proved to be a very worthy traveling assistant as it led Camilla into town quite easily. She kept the map out at arms length, following the red lines on the paper. People swerved, pivoted, and biked around Camilla as the young girl wasn’t paying much attention to anything outside the map.
Camilla simply let the people move around until someone finally bumped into her.
“Hey!” yelped Camilla. She turned to see the person who had collided with her scurrying down the sidewalk. All Camilla could see of them was a long blue dress and a short, black bob haircut.
The person moved along quite hurriedly, balancing a rather large bag of groceries in their arms. They gave a fast look back at Camilla but kept forward. She gave a quick sneer at the back of their head.
It was at this moment that she heard the ding-ding of a bell. Coming from up the street was a jolly little cable car. A large crowd of children, many around her age, chased after it. A few finally caught onto the handrails and lifted themselves aboard. Camilla looked down at the map and saw that the red lines on the road were going in the same direction as the cable car. Seeing nothing wrong with a lift, Camilla ran as well.
She found herself just an inch or so away from grabbing on when the car hit an incline. Her breath grew short as it got further away. She was sure she was going to lose her ride, when a hand clamped down around her wrist.
On the other end of the hand was a girl with short blonde hair. She pulled her forward and Camilla leaped on. After a bit of stumbling, she finally found solid footing on the landing.
Out of breath, and a bit flustered, Camilla had to take a minute to process all that had happened. She looked around and noticed that all the kids on the back were whooping and cheering for her.
“Going anywhere special?” The blonde girl stood to her left. She wore a brown shirt with baggy pants covered in holes and patches. Between her battered clothes and her low maintenance hair length, the young girl looked like the type that was accustomed to playing outside. Camilla, still a touch winded, looked for a response.
“Oh, not really,” she started. “I’m just heading to the castle.”
The blonde girl shot Camilla a look. “You’re not trying to get an audience with the prince, are you?”
There it is again, thought. Same as when she was with Julius and Montgomery: one mention of the castle and everyone got squeamish.
“What is it with everyone being so weird about going to the castle? Is the prince there a jerk or something?”
“You’re not from Solaris, are you? Should’ve guessed with that cape you’re wearing.”
Camilla started to wish for her hoodie back.
“Well, no. The prince isn’t a jerk. He’s actually quite nice,” the blonde girl got a very solemn and far off expression on her face. “That’s probably why no one wants to talk about what’s happening to him… or Solaris.”
Camilla took note of the girl’s melancholy tone. But she took that note and put it away in her mind.
“Well, whatever's going on with this prince or this Solaris place is none of my business. I just need to go home.”
Camilla looked down the hill the cable car was climbing and watched the city roll by. She didn’t see the little blonde girl leer at her.
“If you’re trying to get to the castle you should get ready to jump off soon.”
Camilla looked at her map and saw that the girl was right. The red lines were beginning to veer off of the road. The cable car began to slow down as a stop approached. Once at the stop, Camilla braced herself and leaped off the landing. She began to continue on her walk, when she remembered something. A tiny twinge of remorse bubbled in her. She turned back and looked up at the blonde girl.
“Uh… thanks for helping me get on earlier,” said Camilla.
“It’s no problem,” replied the girl. “Nothing wrong with helping people sometimes.”
With that, the cable car continued to glide forward. Camilla watched the girl’s sun colored hair flutter in the breeze as she still felt just a bit of guilt pinch at her.
She flipped the map back out in front of her and kept on track. The map really was similar to a gps in the sense that it only laid out the environment in the simplest and easiest to follow details. The map didn’t really present the places exactly like they were. And Camilla noticed this when she looked up.
Camilla had found herself on the block of a new neighborhood. The map painted the image of many tall houses, all close together, rolling down a cobblestone street. What it didn’t show were the broken windows. Or the chipped paint. Or the pieces of the buildings that had fallen off.
The neighborhood looked deserted. Even stranger, Camilla noticed that the sun wasn’t reaching over hear the way it was the rest of the town. An all encompassing shadow choked the entire street.
She couldn’t tell if it was the lack of sun or just her fear, but Camilla was definitely feeling chills running across her skin. She sped up.
Things only got worse as she got further. The windows went from broken to boarded up. Some of the houses leaned forward, looking almost sickly. The neighborhood didn’t just feel deserted. It felt dead.
What happened here? thought Camilla. Neighborhoods didn’t end up in this kind of condition for no reason.
Solaris is in a state of crisis. The words that Julius had said to her. She had ignored them. But now they felt much more pertinent. If Camilla didn’t want to get out of this place before, she did now. She sped up, practically sprinted, to find her way out of the neighborhood.
Running took her to a small patch of forest. After wrestling through a few bushes and past trees, she landed in a very grassy opening. She looked up. There it was.
Settled into a small mountain, and gleaming in white brickwork and turquoise stone was the castle.
Camilla folded the map and put it in her pocket. She straightened up her clothes and squared her shoulders. If meeting this prince was such a big deal she at least wanted to look presentable. Shaking off whatever nerves and hesitation buzzed around her, she went forward.
One more stop, she thought. Just one more stop and I’m home.
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