Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Then one day, we come in contact with the War People, our allies. Giants. If the wall’s already fallen here in Monsterland, the War People won’t be safe. They’d have no choice but to come to my world—the past—looking for a place to regroup. And with the bridges gone, they’d remain their size.
So after the invasion, the War People flee to my world and agree to help complete the wall. They’d already know how to build the bridges and arm them with the Dusts. They’d know how to set up doorways with locks.
The flow of monsters finally stops with the help of the War People.
But what about the monsters already in my world? Maybe there are too many, and some president somewhere in the world starts pushing buttons. The US would get hit first because the doorways are sitting right there in Pennsylvania. Would the US then retaliate? Or would the bombs keep going out as humans try to stop trillions of creatures from crossing oceans and invading?
Either way, the only people who would survive these blasts are safe in their doomsday bunkers or hiding in caves in the mountains. The Mountain People and the First People. Some animals survive because they are far away enough, but they’re not protected from the fallout. Toxic fumes, radiation, little to no food.
Over time, those who survive must adapt.
The age of monsters begins. Thousands of years later, here we are. Monsterland.
Fuck, fuck, fuck! The pieces all fit, backed up by facts I’ve witnessed with my own eyes. But what I need is solid proof, because if I’m right, then the only way to close the doorways has nothing to do with locks, keys, or doorways. Killing off Monsterland has nothing to do with cutting off their water.
I have to stop Monsterland from ever happening.
“Lake, are you all right?” asks Alwar.
Nope. “Yeah, sure. Why?”
“You are making odd noises and sweating—I did not know vampires could even do that. What did they do to you back there?”
“Who?” I hope he doesn’t mean his brothers. Because no way do I want to tell him how I got lost in bloodlust and almost drank Gabrio to death while he fucked me in his own haze of intoxication. And then Bard showed up to try to stop me from killing Gabrio and ended up using his brother’s body to screw me in a way that just ruined me for all other men.
“The Scholar People,” he replies.
“I’m fine. I just…” I actually feel like shit. Cold, then hot. Sick, then hungry. I can’t seem to get enough air in my lungs even though I supposedly don’t need air. I’m having a meltdown. “I’m worried, that’s all. I want everything to go right.”
“I, too, was nervous for my inaugural address to the kingdoms,” he says, “but you will do fine as long as you remember to be strong. Not nice, but strong.”
“Got it.”
“I sense something else is bothering you.”
That’s because my mind can’t stop racing down all the various fingers and tributaries of my hypotheses. I’m spiraling in “what-ifs.”
“If you knew something that would help your people change course forever and live a better life, but it required some pretty big sacrifices on the part of all the kingdoms,” say trillions of creatures, too, “would you do it?”
“Of course,” he replies, like I’m silly for even asking.
“What if you couldn’t do it alone? Who would you trust?”
“I suppose I would pick those who have something to gain by siding with me.”
I need to stop an invasion from ever happening so that Monsterland is never born. If I find a way, none of this will be here. Not the giants, the trolls, the dragons—none of it.
In other words, no one here will gain anything. Unless…
“What if I told you there’s a war coming, and the wall falls,” I say.
“I would say that is quite a bold statement and ask for proof.”
It’s exactly what I was thinking. I need proof. There has to be something more than just a bunch of facts I’ve strung together in my head.
I look up at him. “How far are we from the wall?”
“A two- or three-day walk for you. Why?”
“Is there a basement? Or rooms or something below the wall?”
“There are rooms, but no one goes there. It is far too tough a journey down narrow steps in the dark. It is filled with creatures that have made it their homes.”
“But we could go if we wanted to. Right?”
“Lake, what aren’t you telling me? What has happened?”
If I’m right, then the proof will be there—ruins, remnants, something. The wall was built right on top of River Wall Manor, where the doorways are back home. It’s where the water that feeds this place comes from. It’s why that water flows right from the wall into a stream down at the base. We’re sitting on top of my family’s estate, separated by centuries, but still connected.