He followed the ethereal pull of his map.
He walked. The city looked stranger now that he was no longer a child in body. Gone was the warped perspective of things gigantic; in fact, things shrank for him. And seemed desolate. Dumaguet’s streets were littered with all conceivable trash, the junk of old earthbound cars carelessly tossed into every nook and cranny and alley way, while newer models of cars—flying contraptions that were consuming every last bit of energy in the world—grazed leaden skies. That was the monochrome of living: a pervasive grayness unmitigated by green (there were only scraps of trees left in the world), or by blue (a glimpse of blue sky was a rarity).
He soon found himself at the entrance of the old bridge, which spanned the trickle of what used to be known as Ban
