This extract broke Kurt:

While the 20th floor is bright, with white marble tiles, and cream wallpapers, and candles, the 21st floor is noticeably darker, bordering on gloomy. Candles light up the way here and there, and the walls are dark red, with a carpet on the floors, whose colouring seems to be an even darker red. I click my fingers once more, as I have so many times this last month, and the flames in my palm cast a crackling light across the corridor. Turning left, I follow past the portrait of King Arubeth on the wall, past the Bastian family crest, to the third door on the right. I stop outside, and by the light of the fire, I examine the glass cabinet that contains an urn. With recognition sparking in my memory, I realise whose ashes are contained, and pause for a moment, giving silent respects to my mother.

“Are you gonna say hello, or are you just gonna stare at that thing all night?”

With a start, I hear my father’s voice right behind me, and turn to face him. His tone was slightly joking, playful, perhaps, and I could have sworn I saw a flicker of a smile across his face, but that could have just been the firelight playing tricks on me. He looks as solemn as ever.

You could hardly tell that this was the same man who once made fireworks dance across the sky, spelling out “Happy Birthday Gregory!” That had been for my sixth birthday. My mother’s death a few months later had changed all that, though. She had been on a business trip. As one of the main researchers of the day, she frequently made trips to the Library at the Kaarn Monument, sometimes staying in the Scholar’s Village for days on end. She would never stay away more than a week and a half on end, though. She loved us too much to be away for longer.

Then an illness, this... epidemic swept through the land. On her way back from the trip, a raider’s arrow grazed her arm. The infection spread quickly, and she only just managed to return to us for the last time. She practically fell off her horse, in fact she may well have. I vaguely remember my father carrying her to her bed... And then she said goodnight to us for what would be her final words to any living thing on this world.

“I’m feeling a bit tired, you don’t mind if I rest a bit, do you?”

Cremation is fairly uncommon, but there were a lot of pyres lighting up the sky that year. Far too many. No one wanted to take the risk of leaving bodies around, and not many people could afford immediate burial. My father and I set up the pyre, and then... Well, it’s a pyre. What did you expect to happen?

The urn was commissioned by my father, and depicts scenes of a couple together, who I have noticed resemble my parents when, I would guess, they had just met. There’s one scene where they’re sitting down, holding hands, one standing together and pointing at the moon, and another of the woman at a desk, reading, while the man sits opposite her, writing. Looking up at my father now, I realise how much he’s truly been affected, and wonder if he was like this before he met her, and if she brought him to life, or if he’s only become so serious because of her passing.

Mrs Eliza Bastian, wife to Peter Bastian, mother to Gregory. Rest In Peace, 19th of Je, 458.

Hammocks, are, I’ve noticed, very hard to fall out of. A good thing, too, since I must have thrashed around quite a bit during my nightmare. How do I know this?

Well, when I wake in the morning, the first thing I’m aware of is how uncomfortable I am. The next thing I realise is that I can see the floor, so I’m face down. Which, to be honest, I probably should have worked out from the rope mesh that is cutting into my face. I try to say something, but a blurred mumble is all that escapes.

I do not know what time it is, but what I do know, is that I need out of this problem, now. I push at my mind, praying for a psychic link with AddRock. No such luck.

What I think is possibly five minutes later, I have managed to manoeuvre into a position from which I can see the rest of the room.

Having freed my face up, I attempt a call for help.

“AddRock? You there?”

I hear movement downstairs coming through the floor, but it is Clarissa, who must have been on the stairs, who comes through the door first. She blinks at the sight in front of her, and I think of what a sight I must make, with my right arm tied behind my back (painfully), my left arm pinned under my body, and my left leg somehow sticking straight up in the air.

However, she takes it all in her stride. Waiting for the others to reach the top of the stairs, to make it clear she’s entering, she then rushes in, skilfully untying me in the ten seconds it takes for everyone else to reach the door, AddRock and Jonathan at the lead.

The sound of footsteps fell, echoing around the deserted streets. The lone man walked towards the throng of strikers, his steel and gold armour glinting where the sun was getting through the dirt and grime. His long, copper-red hair was unwashed, and straggled around his face. His black cane, topped with a gold snarling striker head, tapped an echo to every second step. There was a threadbare red cape hanging across his back, and the only part of his outfit that wasn’t looking the worse for wear was his sword, the curved blade sheathed at his side, the gold dragon engraved in the hilt practically glowing in the sunlight.

He approached the crowd of beasts, and stopped just before them. He nodded towards the solitary runners, and spoke two words to the strikers.

“Kill them.”

Immediately, a small group of strikers broke off, and within a matter of seconds, had caught up to the runners and swiftly tore their throats out, while the people taking refuge in the tower watched from the windows in horror. The strikers returned, rejoined the crowd, and the entire group sat down on the floor around the tower, silent, waiting for instructions.