He came to.

The first thing he noticed was the slick blood on the floor of the machine. It felt as if there must be at least four pints there, pooling on the floor.

He lifted his head from the puddle, expecting to see some nameless horror or lion or bear lurking in front of him, just outside the machine cage's door. But there was nothing.

He dragged his hand out of the puddle, sicklky tendrils of half-coagulated blood drawing strings from his hands to the floor. He pushed himself to sit up. He stared around.

The cliff was the same. The regular pattern of wind-blown dirt was not visible.

And the butterflies were gone.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that last one. It unsettled him greatly, but he could supply no reason why he felt more unsettled without them than he did with them.

He listened.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

Uncertain what to do, where to go, he opened the door to the machine, stepped out of it. The air was still, and the day was warm. He stank of blood. He walked to the stream.

In the stream, he washed out as much of the blood as he could from his clothes and hair and skin. Behind him, he thought he heard a voice. He turned quickly, but there was nothing there. Not even a little butterfly.

He resumed rinsing the blood from his body, felt an icy prickle run down his spine. He spun, and was faced with nothingness. He smelled something pungent like a rotting body of some creature that hadn't been scavanged up quickly enough. He looked around and could find no source of it. Unnerved became the understatement. He rinsed more blood out of his hair, as much as would leave. He could not smell of blood if he was going back in the city.

He shuddered with the cold when he was done, but it was better than being walking bait for a monumnet lion or subway bear.

He had heard a god out here, he was certain now. It was the only feeling that gave him any sort of hope, relief, stabliity. Otherwise he would be running like a forever-child. But he was no more certain which god it could be than he had been when he left.

Envisionment would know. He knew all three hundred and forty-three gods there were. It was his duty as a shaman.

He would have to go down into the city again, and he would have to talk to the old shaman.

He returned to his camp, gathered his things, put out his fire, which was still burning when he returned to it. He remembered putting it out before, and it should have burned itself out by now, but evidently, he hadn't and it hadn't.

He gathered his blankets, wrapped them around his shoulders. He grabbed his knife, and headed down towards the city, eating berries and nuts along the way.

The city was empty.

He had walked the entire way down to where his tribe lived. He saw no trace of footprints. No trace of monument lions. No trace of subway bears.

He stared up at the tower that marked their territory. The tapestry was still gone, but then, so were the scores in the stone from the dragon last month. He knew that they would not have repaired it, but they would have worked on making a new tapestry to protect them again.

He felt a chill prickle down his spine. It pushed him, made his legs walk without his knowing it. He stared around.

"ENVISIONMENT! WISDOMFUL! MIRTHINGLIKE! ANYONE!" he shouted.

He received no reply.

He looked into each little hole that his people used as homes. There was nothing. There was no sign that anyone had lived here since the Great Something happened.

And the sun hung still in the sky.

He stared up at it. His shadow was exactly the same length, the same angle, it had been when he had started. Not a cloud rolled by in the sky. Not a breeze kicked up. Nothing.

He felt the cold prickle down his spine. And he fully realized just then, that he was alone.

He slept five times while he was in the city. The sun did not budge even a hair from its position in the sky. To prove this to himself, he placed a stick in the earth and measured its shadow. And he returned every now and again throughout the day to stare at the shadow being the same length, the same position.

He didn't understand.

And there was nothing of which he was akin here. Instead of people, he continued to find the bodies of those who did not survive the Great Something, bodies which, according to the Line of Fallening which Envisionment had recanted yearly at them, had been removed and placed in the earth many many generations ago.

No other tribe was found, either. He walked along the broken roads, seeking someone, anyone, who could answer his questions. What had happened here? Where was everyone? Where were the monument lions, the subway bears, the dragons, the rocs? Where was the moon?

There was no one to answer him, however.

He would have been happy, just to see a butterfly or two resting somewhere quietly. Even if they flew away again immediately. Anything.

But no. There was nothing.

He waited. He listened. He closed his eyes.

For five more times of sleeping, there was nothing. There was no darkness, no night, no noise at all.

Only his breathing.

Absolute silence reverberated through the city.

He climbed the tower.

Careful and confident of his balance, he slung the rope over the last steel rafter, anchoring himself to it, just in case wind would kick up here. But no, there was nothing, even this high. The sun was equally warm here as it was down those two hundred levels to the ground.

He had slept three times on the climb up, eaten twice. And all that was here on this top level to prove there had been a two-hundred-first floor at all was a single steel bar jutting off across the sky above him. But he did not trust it to hold his weight, so he stopped at two hundred.

He wondered, while he was up there, unanchoring himself from the rope, just how long it had been since anyone had stared out across the city from this broken skeleton of the old days. He stared down, hoping, needing to see something moving down below.

He saw nothing. He heard nothing.

The loneliness hit him in the pit of his stomach. He had never been a strong boy. He needed people, he needed that safety net, knowing he was needed somewhere, wanted.

He realized now how terrifying it would be to live out the rest of his life alone.

And he realized how empty it would be, how pointless, to try to find the rest of his tribe. He was somewhere, they were not. Someone, whomever it was that had some vested interest in him, was mocking him. Or punishing him. He wasn't sure.

But he was sure that he didn't want to serve a god that played by rules like that.

But he was stuck serving this god or goddess if ever the world fixed itself and his people returned.

He stared down towards the ground, two hundred levels beneath him.

Maybe not.

Maybe he could get out.

How many times have you done this now? reason shouted up at him from deep within.

Reason doesn't enter into discussions with deities and spirits, he reminded himself.

Reason dictated that there was no feasible way this would work, even as his toes curled around the edge of the sun-warmed steel bar. He stared down, scaring himself first, trying to talk himself out of this.

But no. This was the only way that really made sense. This was what he had to do.

If he jumped just right, he would hit nothing on the way down until he was ready to hit the ground.

If being the word.

And then he would feel nothing until that final moment when he broke himself on the rocks below.

He drew in a deep breath, closed his eyes, listened. He dared anyone to whisper anything to him.

He heard nothing. He saw nothing.

But his blood screamed in his chest, Do it!

He stared down, vertigo just beginning to set in. His balance began to fail. He would either jump, or he would never be able to get down again. His legs were siding with his blood. His whole body began to rise up against him.

He took one last look at the listless, motionless, expressionless sky.

Then, in a last ditch effort to control his own body, he sprang out, arcing far from the tower, down towards the ground, watching it rush up to meet him. He watched it screaming towards him, and he knew.

It would work.

Because he knew no one could fly.