"Should we try to find Adrian?" Malcolm asked, helping Asher to his feet. Whatever was in the medicine he had gotten, it healed quickly and the bleeding had stopped. Already the skin looked perfect, as whole as it had been before Christina's flailing knife abilities had debuted. Asher's face had regained it's color and his face was as blank and impassive as ever. Christina wondered if even a knife piercing his thigh had caused that impenetrable mask to slip.
"He'll be in the next zone by now, if not in white." Charlie's eyes darted through the inky black passageways, the dizzying array of neon lines not seeming to perturb him. "But it's possible that not everyone on his team made it."
"We'll have to look for them." Kent said, and Christina saw the dark anger in his eyes at the thought of abandoning the exit search to find lost team mates; a course that could have been avoided had they followed his plan in the first place. To his credit, he made no childish remark to Charlie but instead reloaded his large gun and handed extra ammunition to Wayde.
"Giulia, Axel, Jett, Reilly and Orion." Malcolm listed mechanically. "Giulia..."
"I'm sure she's fine; the medicine here works miracles for anything, almost like a one-size fits all." Wayde said comfortingly.
"And they had Jett." Charlie reminded him.
Kent stoically surveyed their small team and turned away for a moment. Christina saw him looking intensely at the mess of tunnels, and guessed that he was trying to gauge the best way to go. "The creatures could be back at any moment" he said finally "and we should try to find anyone else who might be here. Let's move out."
Except for a vague buzz of electricity, the team was silent as they trooped along. Occasional tremors made the four soldiers flatten themselves against the wall and point their guns at the floor in anticipation of the beasts. After a few instances of this behavior Christina and Asher learned to do so as well, but there were only a few minor skirmishes with one or two of the creatures. The powerful guns quickly disposed of them; they seemed weaker than the original monsters.
Soon after one of these fights, Malcolm found the first box that Christina had seen. Since it was dark near the floor, he tripped over it and swore loudly and profusely until Charlie boxed him in the head and told him to shut his mouth in the presence of a lady. Christina examined the box - it was made of dark wood, as she had been told, and was virtually invisible. Only the shine from her light on the surface made it visible, and her fingers slid over the smooth lid, trying to find an opening.
"There's a combination." Charlie told her. "We'll have to figure it out, but they're usually simple." He fingered the wood and made a small triumphant noise, gesturing Kent closer. "Numbers again. What d'you reckon?"
"9 through 0?" Kent squinted in an attempt to make out the numerals in the dark.
"Yep." Charlie cocked his head. "Three - three - six?"
"Good enough for me." Kent pressed three numbers, and there was a metallic click. Charlie took off the lid of the box and began to take out the contents.
"How did he know the combination?" Christina asked Malcolm in a soft voice.
"Well, he's a Captain, isn't he? They both are."
"It's because we're in level three, in the third zone, and there's six of us." Asher said unexpectedly. Malcolm looked at him in surprise. "Yeah, that makes sense." he said. "You could be a Captain, man."
Asher cracked half a sarcastic smile and turned away. Malcolm raised his eyebrows at Christina.
"More food, thank goodness." Wayde said with a grin, pulling strips of dried meat out of a plastic pouch he had taken from the box.
"And medicine." Kent ran his thumb over an unmarked bottle.
"How do you know it's medicine?" Christina asked curiously.
"I suppose because it always is." Kent said with the shadow of a smile and tossed her something. "Here. These look about your size."
She looked down at a pair of fingerless gloves with glowing blue stripes along the black background. "Are you sure? One of you might need them more."
"They wouldn't fit us if we tried." Wayde held up his hand. "Big palms and beefy fingers."
"Yeah, those were definitely made for girly hands." said Malcolm wisely. "Besides, you need all the light you can get."
"What do you mean?" Christina looked at Kent and Charlie. Charlie licked his lips. "See, Christina, you weren't in the cavern as long. You're starting to fade out a bit."
"But my clothes are still lit up, right?" Christina looked down at herself and saw that they were right. Her skin and garments had not drunk in enough light, and compared to her companions and the walls, she was practically a shadow. Only her hands, with the light of the gloves, were easily seen.
"Just stay close." Kent told her, picking up ammunition from the box and stuffing the pockets of his cargo pants with it. "We don't want to accidentally shoot you."
With these comforting words he pulled the last object from the box and held it up. "Looks like a charge." he said to himself, rolling the small red canister around in his fingers. "Should we take it?"
"It might be useful later." Wayde commented.
"It's also heavy as a conscience." Kent unloaded cartridges from one of his guns and stowed them away, leaving the empty weapon on the ground. "I don't really need four, anyway." he said and tossed a second gun to Charlie. "Pull your weight, big guy."
"And apparently some of yours as well." Charlie stuffed the large gun in the back of his belt and shut the box.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Friday, May 15, 2015
The Threads Tighten
"I'll hold you to that promise of your gun, Kent." Charlie clapped him on the shoulder as they went through the yellow gate, and turned to the team as they followed "Which means that no more than two of you are allowed to pass out from this cacophony of light."
Wayde grinned and shook his head, but Asher Elliot kept his stoic face smooth and barely even blinked when Malcolm punched him on the shoulder and said "lighten up, old man."
As Asher didn't looked much older than thirty, Christina found this comment more amusing than it was meant to be taken.
She could see the other teams over the walls, and kept Rebecca's blonde hair in sight to her right. To her left, in the blue zone, Giulia waved at her a little.
As they trekked through the path, guns out, Charlie noticed her lack of weapon. "Didn't the Guides give you anything?" he asked in surprise. She shook her head, feeling stupid.
"I guess they didn't think you had much in you. Well, we'll prove them wrong, won't we?" Charlie smiled. "When we stop, I'll teach you how to use a gun. In the meantime, take this." he pulled a thick knife from a sheath and handed it to her. "Just be careful where you swing it."
Christina felt the heavy blade and thanked Charlie, and felt oddly better than she now had a line of defense, if a small one.
Christina had prepared herself for an interminable walk, but they hadn't gone more than fifty yards into the maze when a low whining began to fill her ears. She glanced timidly at Malcolm to see if he had noticed, and sure enough his brown was furrowed and he shook his head slightly.
"Hold it." Kent held up his hand, slowing his steps, and called out "Caster!"
Adrian's voice sounded thinly from the team to the left. "I hear it. Keep your eyes open."
They began to advance more warily, and suddenly Scarlet's voice sounded from the far left "what is that thing?"
"Jump!" said Max in ringing tones, and there was a bang as twelve feet leapt into the air and came crashing back down.
"There!" Orion's voice came near Adrian, and the team next to them leapt as one.
"I guess we're next." Charlie said grimly, his eyes on the floor in front of them. Christina's heart was pounding in her throat.
A shining beam of golden light came skimming across the floor towards them, bringing a wave of heat. Christina did not need to be told to leap over it when it got near to her feet. It swept underneath them and receded into the darkness behind them.
"You alright?" Wayde asked her when they had landed, Christina somewhat unsteadily.
"Yeah. What was that?"
"I don't know." Kent said, his turning from the right where he had looked to make certain that the last team had gotten through it safely "But I think it might come back."
They continued forward, but had not gone far when it was Malcolm who spotted it. "It's coming back!"
They leapt again, but when the heat passed safely beneath them it hit the corner they had been nearing and ricocheted back so that they had to jump again.
"It's bouncing." Charlie snarled, then called to the other teams "They bounce!"
"Like lasers on a mirror." Wayde said wonderingly, bending to touch the corner. "How is the physics of this possible?"
"Ask your glowing skin." Malcolm said dryly. "Let's just keep moving."
Charlie nodded, and looked at Kent, who looked at the blurry lights that were the other teams as if to guess the distance with his eyes, then nodded. They kept forward. Every three minutes the bouncer would come back, then every five, then every ten. Sometimes it would bounce around, and once Christina had to leap twice in a row so fast she landed on her back on the floor, feeling the excess heat burn her arms.
Wayde and Malcolm pulled her up. "You alright?" Wayde asked in concern. She nodded, out of breath and rubbing her spine. Charlie and Kent retraced their steps back to her. Asher looked on from the side.
"I'm fine, I just lost my balance." she insisted. She appreciate their attentiveness all the same, however.
Charlie examined her elbows, which were red and stinging from the burns. "No more than second degree, nothing a little time won't fix." he blew on them, then patted her shoulder. "We had to ration out the healing equipment equally, so if it's alright with you we'll save it in case something worse happens."
"Yeah, of course." Christina nodded and wiped her hair from her eyes. "Let's keep going."
"She's a trooper." Wayde smiled and followed the Captains.
In the back of their minds they were all waiting for that one sound, that ear splitting cry of pain that seemed fated to come from somewhere. Christina knew they all feared it would be their own lips forming the agonizing scream, and each jump became more and more desperate. She could tell, also, that the teams were getting farther apart. The winding mess of lights made it impossible to tell if a corner led to a dead end or not, if a path was taking them closer to the heart of the maze or to the sides. Kent's eyes got darker as they continued and more frequently he looked around, locking his gaze onto Adrian, Alpha or Max. Charlie seemed to be picking up some of his restlessness and would scratch his head and look about more often than not. Malcolm became as silent as Asher, and Wayde gave up attempted conversation in favor of rubbing his eyes and muttering what sounded like Shakespearean sonnets under his breath.
The darkness became heavier as the lights became brighter. Christina's head was heavy and her eyes ached. Her feet began to drag and despite the food and water given to her by Kent only a few minutes earlier, she felt weak, much like her first day on the Beach.
After a little while Wayde tapped Kent on the shoulder and jerked his head towards Christina. Kent stopped the walking and turned around to face her. "Getting tired?" he asked kindly.
"Well...yeah, but I'm fine." she said staunchly. His outline was becoming fuzzy. His eyes narrowed, and caught her as she stumbled. "Yes, definitely time to stop and sleep." she heard him say as black spots danced aggravatingly in her vision. "Max!"
Max's voice was faint but audible, and the Captains reached common consensus to stop for six hours.
"We're at a good stretch where we can see if any Bouncers are coming." Kent said as he eased Christina down and handed her a water bottle. "Cage, you and I take first watch."
Christina drank a little water and meditated for a few seconds on the kindness of men before falling asleep, the lights burning in her brain.
There is nothing quite like waking up to the screams of a human in terrible pain. It jerked her out of her slumber so quickly that her head hit her knee as she sat up. "What happened?" she asked, her voice rising in panic.
"Alpha!" bellowed Charlie. "What is it?"
"No one from here!" the voice came back, very faint.
"Adrian!" Kent shouted. "Who?"
There was a tense pause while the scream dissolved into gasps and wails. Then, the light of Adrian's jacket was seen glowing brightly as he stood on top of a wall about half a mile away.
"Giulia!"
"Good God." Kent ran a hand through his hair. Charlie kicked a wall and the remaining four sat silently. Christina felt cold. How bad was it? Was it a Bouncer? Would she live? Her skin felt clammy.
"Get ready to jump." Kent said tersely, pulling her to her feet. "It'll come by here soon."
And it did. Gleaming and burning the Bouncer came by, shining. They all leapt higher than before, remembering the pain in Giulia's voice and having no wish to experience it for themselves.
"Jett's with that team." Malcolm said in a thin voice when they'd landed. "He'll fix her."
"Let's hope so." Wayde said grimly.
"Couldn't we walk on the walls?" Christina suggested timidly.
"I checked, the Bouncers go right through them as well." Charlie said.
"Then how do they Bounce off the corners?" Malcolm asked.
"If I knew, I'd tell you." Charlie snapped. "We have to keep moving."
"Something's going to happen soon, I think." Asher said. It was the first time Christina had heard him speak.
"What makes you say that?" Wayde asked curiously, but with a hint of sarcasm.
"Someone finally got hurt. So now something else has to happen."
"You think that's how it works?" Charlie asked.
Asher jerked his head a little and turned away. Wayde pursed his mouth and kept going down their path. He hadn't taken more than three steps when a rumble like an earthquake filled the maze.
"What the hell?" Charlie stared at the floor, then at Kent, who touched the wall next to him.
"It's breaking." he murmured. "The maze is breaking. Everyone get to the white zone now!"
It must have been a pre-designed plan that if anything went seriously wrong, the group would meet back at the blue zone, because Christina heard Adrian and Alpha echoing the order. Her team began to scramble over the walls. Charlie took her hand and helped her over the shuddering barriers.
Without warning, glowing cracks appeared in the floors. And from them large, pulsating beasts, not unlike the dogs from level two but larger, with more teeth and claws, began to come forth, uttering eerie cries like the dead emerging from their graves.
Charlie and Kent had their guns off their shoulder in an instant, and Wayde only moments behind. Malcolm began to throw knives. The bullets and steel buried themselves in the luminous flesh, and sparkling liquid oozed forth. The beasts shivered but did not stop coming out.
"Get to the white zone, damn it!" Kent sent a barrage of ammunition at the nearest creature, who at last curled up like a bug, and it's light blinked out. Christina started to climb to the top of the wall.
Something like a blade whizzed by Christina's face, cutting her cheek, and she stumbled back. Something grabbed her leg in a spiny grip, and she was pulled off the wall. A monster reared it's claw at her, and instinctively she pulled out the knife Charlie had given her, swinging it wildly from side to side. It advanced, and she shouted for one of her team members, though she knew they were busy and in the din they would not hear her.
Her pessimism was short lived, however, for Wayde saw her plight and in an instant bore down on the creature. Some bullets found their mark but other went pinging from the shell, endangering Christina. Still swinging the knife, she wondered whether it would be better to die by glowing animal or bullets.
The decision did not have to be made, however, for amazingly someone pushed her flat against the wall and used his body as a shield from both aggressors. She heard a low moan and prayed desperately that her savior wasn't getting killed. She clung to the person's shirt and buried her face in it, trying to block out the noise as if it would help her stay alive.
Abruptly the huge light in front of her died and she realized that the beast must have finally been killed. The place still shook, but it seemed that, for now, the danger of the animals was past.
The person shielding her stumbled backwards, and to her coinciding relief and horror, Christina saw that it was Asher, and that he was not dead, but that she had plunged her knife halfway into his thigh in her wild swinging.
She ran to him as he doubled over, breathing heavily. "Oh my...I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, are you ok? Speak, say something, please don't die or something, I'm so sorry -"
He fell heavily to his knees and shook his head, waving her away. She backed up, a tentative hand still on his head.
"Good hit, you got the bastard." said Wayde, and Christina turned with rising anger until the realized that the creature also bore a wound from her knife.
"I got Asher too." she said miserably. "Can't you help him?"
"I'm not sure there's much I can do." Wayde said, his brow furrowing in concern.
"I'm fine." Asher said weakly, and Wayde snorted.
"You won't die." he consented "But you're bleeding like hell. Kent!"
Kent and Charlie appeared, with Malcolm striding behind them. All three were covered in phosphorescent blood.
"Asher got hit from Christina's knife." Wayde explained. "Damn good thing, too, or one of the bullets might have hit her." He slapped Asher's shoulder, then patted it awkwardly as the man's face tightened in pain.
"I'll see what I have." Kent knelt and began pulling things from his pack. A small medicine bottle with a syringe proved to have pain relief and blood clotting ointment, and he injected it near the wound.
"You're a good man, Asher." he said without a trace of sarcasm. Asher didn't move, and Christina hung back, a terrible guilt gnawing at her stomach.
"Are we in the white zone?" Wayde asked, looking around.
Kent looked grim as he stood up from Asher's crouching form. "No. We're in pink."
"Adrian's zone." Charlie said.
"We can help Asher get over." Wayde said, standing up. "Let's get out of here."
No one else moved. Wayde looked around. "Kent, what the hell happened?"
Kent went over to a wall and slammed his fist into the air. It hit a solid, invisible wall.
"We can't get over anymore." he said. "We're stuck in pink until we find a different way through, and my gut tells me that's out."
Wayde grinned and shook his head, but Asher Elliot kept his stoic face smooth and barely even blinked when Malcolm punched him on the shoulder and said "lighten up, old man."
As Asher didn't looked much older than thirty, Christina found this comment more amusing than it was meant to be taken.
She could see the other teams over the walls, and kept Rebecca's blonde hair in sight to her right. To her left, in the blue zone, Giulia waved at her a little.
As they trekked through the path, guns out, Charlie noticed her lack of weapon. "Didn't the Guides give you anything?" he asked in surprise. She shook her head, feeling stupid.
"I guess they didn't think you had much in you. Well, we'll prove them wrong, won't we?" Charlie smiled. "When we stop, I'll teach you how to use a gun. In the meantime, take this." he pulled a thick knife from a sheath and handed it to her. "Just be careful where you swing it."
Christina felt the heavy blade and thanked Charlie, and felt oddly better than she now had a line of defense, if a small one.
Christina had prepared herself for an interminable walk, but they hadn't gone more than fifty yards into the maze when a low whining began to fill her ears. She glanced timidly at Malcolm to see if he had noticed, and sure enough his brown was furrowed and he shook his head slightly.
"Hold it." Kent held up his hand, slowing his steps, and called out "Caster!"
Adrian's voice sounded thinly from the team to the left. "I hear it. Keep your eyes open."
They began to advance more warily, and suddenly Scarlet's voice sounded from the far left "what is that thing?"
"Jump!" said Max in ringing tones, and there was a bang as twelve feet leapt into the air and came crashing back down.
"There!" Orion's voice came near Adrian, and the team next to them leapt as one.
"I guess we're next." Charlie said grimly, his eyes on the floor in front of them. Christina's heart was pounding in her throat.
A shining beam of golden light came skimming across the floor towards them, bringing a wave of heat. Christina did not need to be told to leap over it when it got near to her feet. It swept underneath them and receded into the darkness behind them.
"You alright?" Wayde asked her when they had landed, Christina somewhat unsteadily.
"Yeah. What was that?"
"I don't know." Kent said, his turning from the right where he had looked to make certain that the last team had gotten through it safely "But I think it might come back."
They continued forward, but had not gone far when it was Malcolm who spotted it. "It's coming back!"
They leapt again, but when the heat passed safely beneath them it hit the corner they had been nearing and ricocheted back so that they had to jump again.
"It's bouncing." Charlie snarled, then called to the other teams "They bounce!"
"Like lasers on a mirror." Wayde said wonderingly, bending to touch the corner. "How is the physics of this possible?"
"Ask your glowing skin." Malcolm said dryly. "Let's just keep moving."
Charlie nodded, and looked at Kent, who looked at the blurry lights that were the other teams as if to guess the distance with his eyes, then nodded. They kept forward. Every three minutes the bouncer would come back, then every five, then every ten. Sometimes it would bounce around, and once Christina had to leap twice in a row so fast she landed on her back on the floor, feeling the excess heat burn her arms.
Wayde and Malcolm pulled her up. "You alright?" Wayde asked in concern. She nodded, out of breath and rubbing her spine. Charlie and Kent retraced their steps back to her. Asher looked on from the side.
"I'm fine, I just lost my balance." she insisted. She appreciate their attentiveness all the same, however.
Charlie examined her elbows, which were red and stinging from the burns. "No more than second degree, nothing a little time won't fix." he blew on them, then patted her shoulder. "We had to ration out the healing equipment equally, so if it's alright with you we'll save it in case something worse happens."
"Yeah, of course." Christina nodded and wiped her hair from her eyes. "Let's keep going."
"She's a trooper." Wayde smiled and followed the Captains.
In the back of their minds they were all waiting for that one sound, that ear splitting cry of pain that seemed fated to come from somewhere. Christina knew they all feared it would be their own lips forming the agonizing scream, and each jump became more and more desperate. She could tell, also, that the teams were getting farther apart. The winding mess of lights made it impossible to tell if a corner led to a dead end or not, if a path was taking them closer to the heart of the maze or to the sides. Kent's eyes got darker as they continued and more frequently he looked around, locking his gaze onto Adrian, Alpha or Max. Charlie seemed to be picking up some of his restlessness and would scratch his head and look about more often than not. Malcolm became as silent as Asher, and Wayde gave up attempted conversation in favor of rubbing his eyes and muttering what sounded like Shakespearean sonnets under his breath.
The darkness became heavier as the lights became brighter. Christina's head was heavy and her eyes ached. Her feet began to drag and despite the food and water given to her by Kent only a few minutes earlier, she felt weak, much like her first day on the Beach.
After a little while Wayde tapped Kent on the shoulder and jerked his head towards Christina. Kent stopped the walking and turned around to face her. "Getting tired?" he asked kindly.
"Well...yeah, but I'm fine." she said staunchly. His outline was becoming fuzzy. His eyes narrowed, and caught her as she stumbled. "Yes, definitely time to stop and sleep." she heard him say as black spots danced aggravatingly in her vision. "Max!"
Max's voice was faint but audible, and the Captains reached common consensus to stop for six hours.
"We're at a good stretch where we can see if any Bouncers are coming." Kent said as he eased Christina down and handed her a water bottle. "Cage, you and I take first watch."
Christina drank a little water and meditated for a few seconds on the kindness of men before falling asleep, the lights burning in her brain.
There is nothing quite like waking up to the screams of a human in terrible pain. It jerked her out of her slumber so quickly that her head hit her knee as she sat up. "What happened?" she asked, her voice rising in panic.
"Alpha!" bellowed Charlie. "What is it?"
"No one from here!" the voice came back, very faint.
"Adrian!" Kent shouted. "Who?"
There was a tense pause while the scream dissolved into gasps and wails. Then, the light of Adrian's jacket was seen glowing brightly as he stood on top of a wall about half a mile away.
"Giulia!"
"Good God." Kent ran a hand through his hair. Charlie kicked a wall and the remaining four sat silently. Christina felt cold. How bad was it? Was it a Bouncer? Would she live? Her skin felt clammy.
"Get ready to jump." Kent said tersely, pulling her to her feet. "It'll come by here soon."
And it did. Gleaming and burning the Bouncer came by, shining. They all leapt higher than before, remembering the pain in Giulia's voice and having no wish to experience it for themselves.
"Jett's with that team." Malcolm said in a thin voice when they'd landed. "He'll fix her."
"Let's hope so." Wayde said grimly.
"Couldn't we walk on the walls?" Christina suggested timidly.
"I checked, the Bouncers go right through them as well." Charlie said.
"Then how do they Bounce off the corners?" Malcolm asked.
"If I knew, I'd tell you." Charlie snapped. "We have to keep moving."
"Something's going to happen soon, I think." Asher said. It was the first time Christina had heard him speak.
"What makes you say that?" Wayde asked curiously, but with a hint of sarcasm.
"Someone finally got hurt. So now something else has to happen."
"You think that's how it works?" Charlie asked.
Asher jerked his head a little and turned away. Wayde pursed his mouth and kept going down their path. He hadn't taken more than three steps when a rumble like an earthquake filled the maze.
"What the hell?" Charlie stared at the floor, then at Kent, who touched the wall next to him.
"It's breaking." he murmured. "The maze is breaking. Everyone get to the white zone now!"
It must have been a pre-designed plan that if anything went seriously wrong, the group would meet back at the blue zone, because Christina heard Adrian and Alpha echoing the order. Her team began to scramble over the walls. Charlie took her hand and helped her over the shuddering barriers.
Without warning, glowing cracks appeared in the floors. And from them large, pulsating beasts, not unlike the dogs from level two but larger, with more teeth and claws, began to come forth, uttering eerie cries like the dead emerging from their graves.
Charlie and Kent had their guns off their shoulder in an instant, and Wayde only moments behind. Malcolm began to throw knives. The bullets and steel buried themselves in the luminous flesh, and sparkling liquid oozed forth. The beasts shivered but did not stop coming out.
"Get to the white zone, damn it!" Kent sent a barrage of ammunition at the nearest creature, who at last curled up like a bug, and it's light blinked out. Christina started to climb to the top of the wall.
Something like a blade whizzed by Christina's face, cutting her cheek, and she stumbled back. Something grabbed her leg in a spiny grip, and she was pulled off the wall. A monster reared it's claw at her, and instinctively she pulled out the knife Charlie had given her, swinging it wildly from side to side. It advanced, and she shouted for one of her team members, though she knew they were busy and in the din they would not hear her.
Her pessimism was short lived, however, for Wayde saw her plight and in an instant bore down on the creature. Some bullets found their mark but other went pinging from the shell, endangering Christina. Still swinging the knife, she wondered whether it would be better to die by glowing animal or bullets.
The decision did not have to be made, however, for amazingly someone pushed her flat against the wall and used his body as a shield from both aggressors. She heard a low moan and prayed desperately that her savior wasn't getting killed. She clung to the person's shirt and buried her face in it, trying to block out the noise as if it would help her stay alive.
Abruptly the huge light in front of her died and she realized that the beast must have finally been killed. The place still shook, but it seemed that, for now, the danger of the animals was past.
The person shielding her stumbled backwards, and to her coinciding relief and horror, Christina saw that it was Asher, and that he was not dead, but that she had plunged her knife halfway into his thigh in her wild swinging.
She ran to him as he doubled over, breathing heavily. "Oh my...I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, are you ok? Speak, say something, please don't die or something, I'm so sorry -"
He fell heavily to his knees and shook his head, waving her away. She backed up, a tentative hand still on his head.
"Good hit, you got the bastard." said Wayde, and Christina turned with rising anger until the realized that the creature also bore a wound from her knife.
"I got Asher too." she said miserably. "Can't you help him?"
"I'm not sure there's much I can do." Wayde said, his brow furrowing in concern.
"I'm fine." Asher said weakly, and Wayde snorted.
"You won't die." he consented "But you're bleeding like hell. Kent!"
Kent and Charlie appeared, with Malcolm striding behind them. All three were covered in phosphorescent blood.
"Asher got hit from Christina's knife." Wayde explained. "Damn good thing, too, or one of the bullets might have hit her." He slapped Asher's shoulder, then patted it awkwardly as the man's face tightened in pain.
"I'll see what I have." Kent knelt and began pulling things from his pack. A small medicine bottle with a syringe proved to have pain relief and blood clotting ointment, and he injected it near the wound.
"You're a good man, Asher." he said without a trace of sarcasm. Asher didn't move, and Christina hung back, a terrible guilt gnawing at her stomach.
"Are we in the white zone?" Wayde asked, looking around.
Kent looked grim as he stood up from Asher's crouching form. "No. We're in pink."
"Adrian's zone." Charlie said.
"We can help Asher get over." Wayde said, standing up. "Let's get out of here."
No one else moved. Wayde looked around. "Kent, what the hell happened?"
Kent went over to a wall and slammed his fist into the air. It hit a solid, invisible wall.
"We can't get over anymore." he said. "We're stuck in pink until we find a different way through, and my gut tells me that's out."
The Next Room
Dinner proved to be Victor Cameron assigning Christina to a "table"; a group of people who all shared a ladle. There weren't enough bowls or spoons to go around, so someone from the table would go and fill their ladle from the pot of soup, bring it back, and everyone would pass it around. Then someone else would do the same thing until everyone had eaten their rationed portion. It was messy and inconvenient, but hot soup after what felt like an eternity of salt water and stale bread was like a banquet. Christina ended up in a group that included Rebecca, Asher Elliot, Adrian Caster and Wayde Cage.
"So Christina, tell us about yourself." Adrian said almost the moment she had sat down. He was one of the Captains. He was more slender than the majority of the heavily muscled group, with thick black hair and a tattoo of the Jack of Hearts on his left arm.
"I don't know much, I'm sorry." she muttered, feeling shy. The overkill of testosterone in this company was beginning to make her uncomfortable, as if she had to live up to some kind of expectation set by these soldiers and even by the girls. "My name and my age. It was September twenty-ninth when I came here. I didn't like the dress I came in. And I recognized the book that had writing on it in the lighthouse."
"Most people don't even know that much." Adrian nodded thoughtfully. "I came in February. Valentine's Day, actually. But that's all I know. Time here is different, almost like it doesn't exist. But I'm sure you've noticed that."
Wayde Cage ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair and turned his caramel eyes on Christina. "You gave our Guides a hell of a time on the Beach, you know."
"How'd you mean?" she asked, feeling clammy. She didn't like talking about the Beach.
"Three days? That's longer than a lot of us put together." he barked laughter. "So you've got endurance. That's got to be good for something."
There it was again. Everyone had to be good for something here. The utilitarian mindset made her feel almost worthless, despite the compliment. Inherent value as a person didn't matter here, clearly.
The last man at the "table", Asher Elliot, seemed to know how she felt. He met her eyes for a moment, and inside them she saw a terrible sadness that seemed to reach into her heart and pump it dry of blood. His thick brown hair seemed almost to quiver with the anticipation of something tragic to happen. She bit her lip and looked back down at her food.
When the meal was over, Max called for bedtime after setting the guards of Axel Damon, Kyle Beckham and Reagan Quinn. Christina went to the girl's corner and immediately lay down, listening to the clatter of Victor Cameron gathering the ladles and the low murmur of masculine voices talking.
"Hi." Rebecca dropped a blanket on top of her. "Malcolm said you can have his. Most of the guys give their stuff up for us." She lay next to Christina and turned her head to look at her. "What do you think of them?"
"The men? They're great." she said automatically. "I mean...they seem very useful."
"What did you think of Asher?"
"He - he seems sad." Christina didn't know why she was asking her these things.
"Yeah." Rebecca turned into her back. "He's different."
"He's dressed differently." Christina realized suddenly. "He wears more of a trench coat, and a blue scarf. Every else has more military outfits."
Rebecca didn't answer for a moment, then said "he's not a soldier."
"No?"
"He feels...useless." now that she had brought it up, Rebecca seemed unwilling to talk about it. "I'd like to help him, but I don't know how, you know? I'm pretty useless myself."
"I'm sure you're useful for something." Christina said sarcastically, and Rebecca gave a little laugh, then touched Christina's hand and said softly "goodnight."
"Goodnight." she responded and pressed her cheek against the floor, feeling the thin blanket on her bare arms. She tried to remember what Malcolm looked like, then gave up. The names, she supposed, would come in time.
A loud whistle woke her up, and she sat up very fast, brushing her hair out of her eyes.
"It's wake-up time." Giulia told her, getting up swiftly and rolling up her blanket. "Breakfast in five!"
Scarlet and Rebecca were also on their feet. Christina's whole body ached and she wanted to go right back to sleep, but drowsily she stood and clumsily folded her blanket.
"Anyone have any brain waves last night?" Alpha asked them as he passed, his piercing blue eyes seeming to x-ray Christina's whole body. His strawberry blonde hair didn't seem to match his stern face at all.
"You could use some." said Kyle Beckham as he passed, chewing on a cigar. A hoot of laughter went up from some of the nearby men. He approached Christina and smiled at her, pulling the smoke from his mouth. "If you ever find any of these and don't use them yourself, I'll take them off you hands." he told her, and looked mournfully at the stick in his hand. "I'm down to my last two."
"I'll let you know, I'm sure." Christina murmured. Kyle grinned and sauntered off. Alpha shook his head and followed him.
"Hey, you ladies seen Max?" asked Kent, walking into their midst and turning his head every which way, a hand on each of Giulia ad Scarlet's shoulders. "Morning, Christina. Sleep okay?"
"Yes, thanks." she answered, wishing people would stop talking to her. Now that they were in close proximity, she could easily see the resemblance between Alpha and Kent, besides the fact that their first names matched so perfectly. Both had blue eyes and face that suggested a sweet nature, except that Kent's smile muscles seemed put to far more use than his brother's. Both also had a stocky build and eyebrows with a permanently sad look, or perhaps just a dreary one. Kent's light brown hair stuck up in a sort of cowlick in the front that made him appear younger. Christina tried to imagine everyone asserting that you and another man were brothers when you had no memory of the fact. It must be stressful and awkward, to say the least.
"I think I saw him over there." Scarlet pointed, and Kent smiled in thanks, patting Christina's arm as he went off.
"Come on, I'm hungry." Giulia dragged them over to where Victor was handing out bread soaked in leftovers from the stew.
Back in her small group, Christina listened to the idle talk without much interest in it. She realized that the group she had been put into involved the quietest people in the cave besides Stanton. Wayde and Adrian could discuss a topic at length when given leave, but a short breakfast left little time to debate matters and Asher, Rebecca and Christina did not speak at all unless spoken to.
After breakfast, everyone was put to the task of trying to figure out a way out. It seemed ground that had been covered a dozen, a hundred times. Reilly, Orion and Christina alone seemed interested in the task since they had just arrived the day before. The walls were all identical and smooth. Christina learned that even the ceiling had been tried. After a long time, nothing new had been found and everyone felt discouraged as Victor prepared lunch.
"I think it's a dead end." Scarlet said baldly as they watched Malcolm and Reilly spar with each other. "There's nothing here."
"We just have to think about it logically." Giulia protested. "When you go into a room, where do you expect the door out to be? On the far end. The door here is on this wall" she gestured "so the door out logically will be over there."
"But it's not."
"But it probably is, if we just find it."
"Maybe it's the opposite, and it's right next to the door in." Rebecca suggested.
"Maybe it's not in this room at all." Rebecca suggested.
"Maybe it's on the floor." Christina mentioned, running her fingers over the smooth surface. The soft glow hurt her eyes, and she turned her gaze away.
"I don't think there's anything in here." Scarlet insisted.
"What was in here when you got here?" Christina asked.
"Just some boxes with better guns, and whole lot of light."
Christina scratched her nose and turned to watch D'Angelo punching the wall with his fists. D'Angelo had dark hair flecked with platinum blonde, which made his young face - he couldn't be more than twenty five - appear older somehow.
"He just had dark hair when he got here." Rebecca commented. "Something in the room picked up weird pigments in his hair and it's turning it lighter. It's like a suntan that glows in your hair."
Giulia nodded, then emitted a shriek and clawed at Rebecca's knee. "Becca! I know!"
"Yeah, it's sad." Rebecca said warily. "But, I mean, it's just hair -"
"No, I know what's in the room! And Scarlet was right, and so were you!"
"Let us hear it before you go to Max with some wildfire tale about D'Angelo's hair being the door." Scarlet raised her eyebrow.
"It's the light!" she said excitedly. "In the other room, the one we first came through, it's really dark, right? I'll bet the door to this room was easy to find because the light in here, we've been drinking it up for days, and if we go back out we'll glow!"
There was a silence, and then Rebecca said dryly "we'll glow?"
"Yes! And no one realized it because Reilly and Orion and Christina haven't been here long enough to they wouldn't glow when they came back through!"
"So what's the point?" Christina asked, looking from one to the other.
"The other door must be in the dark room." Scarlet muttered. "Well, it's worth a shot. Tell Max, Giulia."
And for the first time Giulia lost her excitement. "I think I'll tell Kent or Charlie." she said, and got up. "Someone...someone want to come with me?"
"I'll go." Christina stood. They went looking for a Captain.
"Max is more likely to dismiss it, I think." Giulia explained. "Plus he's so high up in command, I think I'd just rather tell one of the others."
"Max isn't that higher than any of the other Captains." Christina pointed out. "They all work together."
"Yeah, but when the rubber hits the road, it's Max who decides. There's Alpha, I'll tell him." she went over to the man, who was in a tank top mending a hole in his jacket with a thick needle and coarse thread, his thick arm muscles straining to keep his fingers going rhythmically up and down out of the fabric.
"What can I do for you?" Alpha asked, his eyes blazing. Christina decided that he couldn't control how bright his eyes were and he surely wasn't always acting as intense as he looked.
"I had a thought." Giulia said, and laid out her plan. Alpha listened stoically and when she had finished, laid aside his coat and stood up. "Miss Ryker, you've brought up a possibility that's been brushed against but never explored. I'll tell Max for you" and the corners of his mouth twitched, as if he understood that Giulia had specifically avoided the main Captain. He walked off, and Giulia turned to Christina, her eyes shining. "Oh, I hope I'm right." she breathed. "I'm going to tell Reilly and see what he thinks!" she called and ran off.
Christina watched her go, then turned to Alpha's jacket and picked it back up, sitting where he had and undoing the messy stitches that crisscrossed over the tear, redoing them neatly. It wasn't perfect but it was far less noticeable than his, and also had successfully closed the hole. As she lay it aside, Max's whistle echoed across the cave, and everyone got up and went towards him, where he stood with Alpha and Giulia.
"Miss Ryker has pointed out a new course." he announced. "The light in this room may have a florescent quality that we have not observed has ingrained itself into our skin. More importantly, she suggested that the way out is not in this room, but rather in the dark room that led into this one. I suggest we enter back into that room and attempt to find a new gateway there."
There was silence until Max took a step forward, and then the men began to talk amongst themselves, several of them going up to Giulia, who seemed a little taken aback at her sudden attention. Christina found Rebecca, who was smiling slightly. "Who knew." she said quietly. "I guess Giulia might be the one who gets us out of here after all."
They followed the crowd toward the entrance, now turned exit, and heard small exclamations of surprise and good amount of swearing. Though packed tightly into the room, it was clear that their bodies were giving off a certain amount of light that lit the darkness as brightly as any of the wall symbols.
"So" Orion said, coming up beside her "I've been through here more than the rest of you. Where the bloody hell is this hidden door?"
"Look for it, Guide." Kyle said, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed. The smoke from his cigar glowed faintly as it twisted in columns towards the low ceiling.
For the amount of time it had taken to figure out how to find the door, the actual location took only a few minutes. Malcolm and Adrian moved aside the step that Christina had sat on when she first came, and found a black iron ladder descending into the depths.
Max didn't waste an instant. "Gather your things and be ready in three! Meet back in this room when you're ready."
Christina went back into the white room, the light almost blinding her. She took her blanket and tucked it into her belt, then approached Malcolm. "Hey." she called, touching his shoulder lightly. "I wanted to thank you for giving me your blanket."
"No problem." he straightened from stashing throwing knives into his pack, pushing his mop of curly black hair away from his face. "Anything for the girls."
With this odd comment he walked off. Christina followed him back into the dark room, where she found Rebecca and stuck close with her as Max stood by the hole.
"We'll go down single file. Caster, Kent, Turner, Cameron, Rochester, Cage, Elliot, Ilium, you first. Miss Ryker, Miss Corentine, Miss Caine and Miss McCoy, you follow. The rest, after me."
Christina watched the illuminated men descend into the depths. She remembered one of her Guides saying something about usually going up to the next level - down seemed a bit unconventional. She wondered whether or not it was the right way to go.
When her turn came, she found that descending was remarkably easy. Though dark, the ladder gleamed faintly in her own dim light. Her fear - and that, she was sure, of Reilly and Orion - was that her light would fade faster than that of the others, but she seemed to be holding up similarly. When she reached the bottom, she looked closely at the others for the first time.
The light emanated faintly from their skin but seemed to have certain points where the beam grew stronger. Eyes, tips of fingers and the back of the neck had a definite increase of light, and when Christina moved to let the others come down, she saw that the loss of pigment in D'Angelo's hair from the white room had caused it to glow like a ceiling light. He kept running a hand ruefully through it as if trying to make it cease gleaming.
The strangest feature, however, was that the black clothing from level two seemed to have taken on level three properties. Lines of sheer fabric she had assumed were just for decoration now lit up like blue, pink and yellow neon lights, piercing the darkness and giving it the feel of a futuristic dystopia. They highlighted arm, legs, chests and neck lines. Christina looked at her own black clothes and saw the same as on everyone else.
"Is everyone here?" Adrian Caster called, and took a quick roll. The whole party was present and accounted for, and then every quieted down to hear what had to be done.
Someone swore loudly, breaking the silence. It was Reagan Quinn, the chains around his neck glinting in the light from his neck. "Bumped into something." he explained to Max. "Feels like a wall, about shoulder high."
Max pointed out three neon hand prints outlines on the wall directly beside the ladder - a large, a medium and a small. He, Reilly and Giulia stepped forward and placed their hands inside of them. Immediately a sound like electric blades slicing the air filled wherever they were. They all turned to look as long ribbons of light that matched the ones on their clothes pierced the darkness and snaked off, illuminating a series of passages. Reagan had been right. A wall, to his shoulder and the crown of Christina's head, was being lit with the lights. There were four entrances, each one outlined in blue, pink, yellow or white.
"A maze." voiced Wayde.
"Thank you, Cage, I think we all apprehended that." Beckham said vaguely, chewing on his cigar and turning to look at Max.
Max's brow furrowed, and he turned to the room at large. "Suggestions?" he asked.
There was silence, then Kent said quietly "Not splitting up."
He was immediately met with a wave of responses. Adrian shook his head and said "the way out could be through any one of those ways, and the walls aren't high. We can still communicate."
"But what if we get too far away?" Alpha retorted. "It's too easy to lose sight of each other."
"We all glow." Charlie pointed out. "We'll be able to shout and see each other."
"We're not the only thing that glows, Charlie." Kent responded. "Everything does. If half of us aren't down with migraines and dizziness in an hour you can have my gun. Seeing anyone who isn't right next to us will be almost impossible."
"We might not be able to find out way back if we take the wrong way." Charlie persisted. "Unless someone brought a trail of breadcrumbs?"
"Splitting up is not the answer." Kent said firmly. "We only have one doctor. We only have one Commander. Or what if something like those hand prints happen and we don't have all the right sizes because Giulia got sent with another group?"
"That's a risk we need to be willing to take." Adrian said. "If we split up there's a good chance at least some of us will make it out."
"And what about the rest of us?" Alpha asked dangerously. "We don't leave anyone behind."
"No one said anything about leaving people behind, Alpha, but it's dividing the force or failing bigger than we ever wanted to." Adrian glowered. "This isn't a game, it's life or death, and our chances of survival increase exponentially if we try all of the ways out, not just one."
"And if someone gets out? How do you tell the others? How do you let them know? We have no way of marking a trail back from an exit to find another group. Anything could be in there." Alpha looked intensely from one Captain to the other, lingering on Kent. "Anything. And none of us wants to look on while one of us is slaughtered and there's nothing we can do about it. We have to fight as a whole or there won't be a fight at all."
The arguments put forward, the Captains looked to Max, who was rubbing his upper lip with his forefinger. Christina glanced at Rebecca, who smiled slightly but whose eyes were dark. Christina didn't know what she preferred - surviving seemed possible both ways.
Max went over to the pink doorway and stuck his arm through, then inched his body into the maze. He pulled himself up to the top of the dark wall, using the ribbon of light as a gauge, and climbed into the blue zone.
"We can get over, then." D'Angelo stated the obvious.
Max came back through. "We split up into four groups." he said.
"Max -" began Kent, but Max held up his hand. "Peace, Kent." he said. "We can't risk losing time doing every path or leave it up to chance that we pick right the first time. There might not be food in there, or water. We can communicate with our voices well enough, and we can reach each other over the walls. If we get separated too far, then we'll discuss other options."
Alpha shook his head and Kent rubbed his forehead, but they didn't argue any further. The Captains then dropped their voices to discuss, no doubt, the splitting of the teams.
Christina's vision was already becoming blurry from all the lights. She sat down and Rebecca sat next to her. "I think this is a bad idea." she said.
Christina glanced at her. "What other option do we have?"
"What Kent said. Not splitting up. We've never had to split up before, I don't see why we should have to do it now."
"It's ok to be scared." Christina murmured. Rebecca ran a hand through her hair. "Not in this kind of situation it's not. Fear means we did something wrong. It means we're not as strong as we were. I've never had to be scared before. Not since the Beach."
Christina didn't know how to answer that, so she stared at the light coming from her fingertips and let her mind go blank.
"Attention." Max's voice cut through the air. He stood at ease with the Captains behind him. Christina felt as though they were all about to pick teams for capture the flag.
"The dividing of the teams will commence. Team leaders: Myself, Caster, Maximoff, Alpha and Kent."
Definitely capture the flag.
"With me: Miss McCoy, Shade, Ilium, Cameron, Beckham."
Kyle patted Stanton's shoulder to let him know to follow him, and they went to stand beside Max. They all cut impressive figured against the glow of the white door.
"With Castor: Miss Ryker, Damon, Turner, Derrik and Rochester. Of course" he said as the Guides passed him "don't hesitate to come back if someone shows up on the screens. Your team will wait for you."
They nodded, and Christina watched them stand beside Axel. She thought about being in the maze and then seeing someone appear all the way back on the Beach, leaving, going back up through the levels and then coming back down. What if the team had to move on due to some kind of attack before they got back? She shivered.
"With Alpha: Miss Caine, Valentino, Quinn and Pines."
Rebecca got up and went to stand with them, the smallest group. Christina saw where she had mended Alpha's jacket with the thread and wondered whether he had even noticed.
"With Kent and Maximoff: Miss Corentine, Elliot, O'Connell and Cage."
The fact that there were two Captains in her group made Christina feel somewhat less afraid, but she knew that it was most likely to make up for the others on her team - her, the new recruit, Asher, the one who wasn't a soldier, Malcolm, who was younger than most of the other men though older than Reilly. Cage was the only real military man that they had in the group besides the Captains.
They were by the yellow gate. Christina looked over to Rebecca, Giulia and Scarlet, each standing in their respective groups. Max had probably split up the girls for the very concerns that Kent had voiced: a sort of code where they might need a woman to pass. But despite Max's rules, she was concerned being alone with five men.
"We go slowly, and we keep in touch with other teams." Max ordered. "Any concerns go directly to your Captain. They will relay them to another team. If attacked, fight to kill. We don't leave a man - or woman- behind. Stay with your team and don't be a dead weight. Move out." he passed through the white gate into the maze.
"So Christina, tell us about yourself." Adrian said almost the moment she had sat down. He was one of the Captains. He was more slender than the majority of the heavily muscled group, with thick black hair and a tattoo of the Jack of Hearts on his left arm.
"I don't know much, I'm sorry." she muttered, feeling shy. The overkill of testosterone in this company was beginning to make her uncomfortable, as if she had to live up to some kind of expectation set by these soldiers and even by the girls. "My name and my age. It was September twenty-ninth when I came here. I didn't like the dress I came in. And I recognized the book that had writing on it in the lighthouse."
"Most people don't even know that much." Adrian nodded thoughtfully. "I came in February. Valentine's Day, actually. But that's all I know. Time here is different, almost like it doesn't exist. But I'm sure you've noticed that."
Wayde Cage ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair and turned his caramel eyes on Christina. "You gave our Guides a hell of a time on the Beach, you know."
"How'd you mean?" she asked, feeling clammy. She didn't like talking about the Beach.
"Three days? That's longer than a lot of us put together." he barked laughter. "So you've got endurance. That's got to be good for something."
There it was again. Everyone had to be good for something here. The utilitarian mindset made her feel almost worthless, despite the compliment. Inherent value as a person didn't matter here, clearly.
The last man at the "table", Asher Elliot, seemed to know how she felt. He met her eyes for a moment, and inside them she saw a terrible sadness that seemed to reach into her heart and pump it dry of blood. His thick brown hair seemed almost to quiver with the anticipation of something tragic to happen. She bit her lip and looked back down at her food.
When the meal was over, Max called for bedtime after setting the guards of Axel Damon, Kyle Beckham and Reagan Quinn. Christina went to the girl's corner and immediately lay down, listening to the clatter of Victor Cameron gathering the ladles and the low murmur of masculine voices talking.
"Hi." Rebecca dropped a blanket on top of her. "Malcolm said you can have his. Most of the guys give their stuff up for us." She lay next to Christina and turned her head to look at her. "What do you think of them?"
"The men? They're great." she said automatically. "I mean...they seem very useful."
"What did you think of Asher?"
"He - he seems sad." Christina didn't know why she was asking her these things.
"Yeah." Rebecca turned into her back. "He's different."
"He's dressed differently." Christina realized suddenly. "He wears more of a trench coat, and a blue scarf. Every else has more military outfits."
Rebecca didn't answer for a moment, then said "he's not a soldier."
"No?"
"He feels...useless." now that she had brought it up, Rebecca seemed unwilling to talk about it. "I'd like to help him, but I don't know how, you know? I'm pretty useless myself."
"I'm sure you're useful for something." Christina said sarcastically, and Rebecca gave a little laugh, then touched Christina's hand and said softly "goodnight."
"Goodnight." she responded and pressed her cheek against the floor, feeling the thin blanket on her bare arms. She tried to remember what Malcolm looked like, then gave up. The names, she supposed, would come in time.
A loud whistle woke her up, and she sat up very fast, brushing her hair out of her eyes.
"It's wake-up time." Giulia told her, getting up swiftly and rolling up her blanket. "Breakfast in five!"
Scarlet and Rebecca were also on their feet. Christina's whole body ached and she wanted to go right back to sleep, but drowsily she stood and clumsily folded her blanket.
"Anyone have any brain waves last night?" Alpha asked them as he passed, his piercing blue eyes seeming to x-ray Christina's whole body. His strawberry blonde hair didn't seem to match his stern face at all.
"You could use some." said Kyle Beckham as he passed, chewing on a cigar. A hoot of laughter went up from some of the nearby men. He approached Christina and smiled at her, pulling the smoke from his mouth. "If you ever find any of these and don't use them yourself, I'll take them off you hands." he told her, and looked mournfully at the stick in his hand. "I'm down to my last two."
"I'll let you know, I'm sure." Christina murmured. Kyle grinned and sauntered off. Alpha shook his head and followed him.
"Hey, you ladies seen Max?" asked Kent, walking into their midst and turning his head every which way, a hand on each of Giulia ad Scarlet's shoulders. "Morning, Christina. Sleep okay?"
"Yes, thanks." she answered, wishing people would stop talking to her. Now that they were in close proximity, she could easily see the resemblance between Alpha and Kent, besides the fact that their first names matched so perfectly. Both had blue eyes and face that suggested a sweet nature, except that Kent's smile muscles seemed put to far more use than his brother's. Both also had a stocky build and eyebrows with a permanently sad look, or perhaps just a dreary one. Kent's light brown hair stuck up in a sort of cowlick in the front that made him appear younger. Christina tried to imagine everyone asserting that you and another man were brothers when you had no memory of the fact. It must be stressful and awkward, to say the least.
"I think I saw him over there." Scarlet pointed, and Kent smiled in thanks, patting Christina's arm as he went off.
"Come on, I'm hungry." Giulia dragged them over to where Victor was handing out bread soaked in leftovers from the stew.
Back in her small group, Christina listened to the idle talk without much interest in it. She realized that the group she had been put into involved the quietest people in the cave besides Stanton. Wayde and Adrian could discuss a topic at length when given leave, but a short breakfast left little time to debate matters and Asher, Rebecca and Christina did not speak at all unless spoken to.
After breakfast, everyone was put to the task of trying to figure out a way out. It seemed ground that had been covered a dozen, a hundred times. Reilly, Orion and Christina alone seemed interested in the task since they had just arrived the day before. The walls were all identical and smooth. Christina learned that even the ceiling had been tried. After a long time, nothing new had been found and everyone felt discouraged as Victor prepared lunch.
"I think it's a dead end." Scarlet said baldly as they watched Malcolm and Reilly spar with each other. "There's nothing here."
"We just have to think about it logically." Giulia protested. "When you go into a room, where do you expect the door out to be? On the far end. The door here is on this wall" she gestured "so the door out logically will be over there."
"But it's not."
"But it probably is, if we just find it."
"Maybe it's the opposite, and it's right next to the door in." Rebecca suggested.
"Maybe it's not in this room at all." Rebecca suggested.
"Maybe it's on the floor." Christina mentioned, running her fingers over the smooth surface. The soft glow hurt her eyes, and she turned her gaze away.
"I don't think there's anything in here." Scarlet insisted.
"What was in here when you got here?" Christina asked.
"Just some boxes with better guns, and whole lot of light."
Christina scratched her nose and turned to watch D'Angelo punching the wall with his fists. D'Angelo had dark hair flecked with platinum blonde, which made his young face - he couldn't be more than twenty five - appear older somehow.
"He just had dark hair when he got here." Rebecca commented. "Something in the room picked up weird pigments in his hair and it's turning it lighter. It's like a suntan that glows in your hair."
Giulia nodded, then emitted a shriek and clawed at Rebecca's knee. "Becca! I know!"
"Yeah, it's sad." Rebecca said warily. "But, I mean, it's just hair -"
"No, I know what's in the room! And Scarlet was right, and so were you!"
"Let us hear it before you go to Max with some wildfire tale about D'Angelo's hair being the door." Scarlet raised her eyebrow.
"It's the light!" she said excitedly. "In the other room, the one we first came through, it's really dark, right? I'll bet the door to this room was easy to find because the light in here, we've been drinking it up for days, and if we go back out we'll glow!"
There was a silence, and then Rebecca said dryly "we'll glow?"
"Yes! And no one realized it because Reilly and Orion and Christina haven't been here long enough to they wouldn't glow when they came back through!"
"So what's the point?" Christina asked, looking from one to the other.
"The other door must be in the dark room." Scarlet muttered. "Well, it's worth a shot. Tell Max, Giulia."
And for the first time Giulia lost her excitement. "I think I'll tell Kent or Charlie." she said, and got up. "Someone...someone want to come with me?"
"I'll go." Christina stood. They went looking for a Captain.
"Max is more likely to dismiss it, I think." Giulia explained. "Plus he's so high up in command, I think I'd just rather tell one of the others."
"Max isn't that higher than any of the other Captains." Christina pointed out. "They all work together."
"Yeah, but when the rubber hits the road, it's Max who decides. There's Alpha, I'll tell him." she went over to the man, who was in a tank top mending a hole in his jacket with a thick needle and coarse thread, his thick arm muscles straining to keep his fingers going rhythmically up and down out of the fabric.
"What can I do for you?" Alpha asked, his eyes blazing. Christina decided that he couldn't control how bright his eyes were and he surely wasn't always acting as intense as he looked.
"I had a thought." Giulia said, and laid out her plan. Alpha listened stoically and when she had finished, laid aside his coat and stood up. "Miss Ryker, you've brought up a possibility that's been brushed against but never explored. I'll tell Max for you" and the corners of his mouth twitched, as if he understood that Giulia had specifically avoided the main Captain. He walked off, and Giulia turned to Christina, her eyes shining. "Oh, I hope I'm right." she breathed. "I'm going to tell Reilly and see what he thinks!" she called and ran off.
Christina watched her go, then turned to Alpha's jacket and picked it back up, sitting where he had and undoing the messy stitches that crisscrossed over the tear, redoing them neatly. It wasn't perfect but it was far less noticeable than his, and also had successfully closed the hole. As she lay it aside, Max's whistle echoed across the cave, and everyone got up and went towards him, where he stood with Alpha and Giulia.
"Miss Ryker has pointed out a new course." he announced. "The light in this room may have a florescent quality that we have not observed has ingrained itself into our skin. More importantly, she suggested that the way out is not in this room, but rather in the dark room that led into this one. I suggest we enter back into that room and attempt to find a new gateway there."
There was silence until Max took a step forward, and then the men began to talk amongst themselves, several of them going up to Giulia, who seemed a little taken aback at her sudden attention. Christina found Rebecca, who was smiling slightly. "Who knew." she said quietly. "I guess Giulia might be the one who gets us out of here after all."
They followed the crowd toward the entrance, now turned exit, and heard small exclamations of surprise and good amount of swearing. Though packed tightly into the room, it was clear that their bodies were giving off a certain amount of light that lit the darkness as brightly as any of the wall symbols.
"So" Orion said, coming up beside her "I've been through here more than the rest of you. Where the bloody hell is this hidden door?"
"Look for it, Guide." Kyle said, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed. The smoke from his cigar glowed faintly as it twisted in columns towards the low ceiling.
For the amount of time it had taken to figure out how to find the door, the actual location took only a few minutes. Malcolm and Adrian moved aside the step that Christina had sat on when she first came, and found a black iron ladder descending into the depths.
Max didn't waste an instant. "Gather your things and be ready in three! Meet back in this room when you're ready."
Christina went back into the white room, the light almost blinding her. She took her blanket and tucked it into her belt, then approached Malcolm. "Hey." she called, touching his shoulder lightly. "I wanted to thank you for giving me your blanket."
"No problem." he straightened from stashing throwing knives into his pack, pushing his mop of curly black hair away from his face. "Anything for the girls."
With this odd comment he walked off. Christina followed him back into the dark room, where she found Rebecca and stuck close with her as Max stood by the hole.
"We'll go down single file. Caster, Kent, Turner, Cameron, Rochester, Cage, Elliot, Ilium, you first. Miss Ryker, Miss Corentine, Miss Caine and Miss McCoy, you follow. The rest, after me."
Christina watched the illuminated men descend into the depths. She remembered one of her Guides saying something about usually going up to the next level - down seemed a bit unconventional. She wondered whether or not it was the right way to go.
When her turn came, she found that descending was remarkably easy. Though dark, the ladder gleamed faintly in her own dim light. Her fear - and that, she was sure, of Reilly and Orion - was that her light would fade faster than that of the others, but she seemed to be holding up similarly. When she reached the bottom, she looked closely at the others for the first time.
The light emanated faintly from their skin but seemed to have certain points where the beam grew stronger. Eyes, tips of fingers and the back of the neck had a definite increase of light, and when Christina moved to let the others come down, she saw that the loss of pigment in D'Angelo's hair from the white room had caused it to glow like a ceiling light. He kept running a hand ruefully through it as if trying to make it cease gleaming.
The strangest feature, however, was that the black clothing from level two seemed to have taken on level three properties. Lines of sheer fabric she had assumed were just for decoration now lit up like blue, pink and yellow neon lights, piercing the darkness and giving it the feel of a futuristic dystopia. They highlighted arm, legs, chests and neck lines. Christina looked at her own black clothes and saw the same as on everyone else.
"Is everyone here?" Adrian Caster called, and took a quick roll. The whole party was present and accounted for, and then every quieted down to hear what had to be done.
Someone swore loudly, breaking the silence. It was Reagan Quinn, the chains around his neck glinting in the light from his neck. "Bumped into something." he explained to Max. "Feels like a wall, about shoulder high."
Max pointed out three neon hand prints outlines on the wall directly beside the ladder - a large, a medium and a small. He, Reilly and Giulia stepped forward and placed their hands inside of them. Immediately a sound like electric blades slicing the air filled wherever they were. They all turned to look as long ribbons of light that matched the ones on their clothes pierced the darkness and snaked off, illuminating a series of passages. Reagan had been right. A wall, to his shoulder and the crown of Christina's head, was being lit with the lights. There were four entrances, each one outlined in blue, pink, yellow or white.
"A maze." voiced Wayde.
"Thank you, Cage, I think we all apprehended that." Beckham said vaguely, chewing on his cigar and turning to look at Max.
Max's brow furrowed, and he turned to the room at large. "Suggestions?" he asked.
There was silence, then Kent said quietly "Not splitting up."
He was immediately met with a wave of responses. Adrian shook his head and said "the way out could be through any one of those ways, and the walls aren't high. We can still communicate."
"But what if we get too far away?" Alpha retorted. "It's too easy to lose sight of each other."
"We all glow." Charlie pointed out. "We'll be able to shout and see each other."
"We're not the only thing that glows, Charlie." Kent responded. "Everything does. If half of us aren't down with migraines and dizziness in an hour you can have my gun. Seeing anyone who isn't right next to us will be almost impossible."
"We might not be able to find out way back if we take the wrong way." Charlie persisted. "Unless someone brought a trail of breadcrumbs?"
"Splitting up is not the answer." Kent said firmly. "We only have one doctor. We only have one Commander. Or what if something like those hand prints happen and we don't have all the right sizes because Giulia got sent with another group?"
"That's a risk we need to be willing to take." Adrian said. "If we split up there's a good chance at least some of us will make it out."
"And what about the rest of us?" Alpha asked dangerously. "We don't leave anyone behind."
"No one said anything about leaving people behind, Alpha, but it's dividing the force or failing bigger than we ever wanted to." Adrian glowered. "This isn't a game, it's life or death, and our chances of survival increase exponentially if we try all of the ways out, not just one."
"And if someone gets out? How do you tell the others? How do you let them know? We have no way of marking a trail back from an exit to find another group. Anything could be in there." Alpha looked intensely from one Captain to the other, lingering on Kent. "Anything. And none of us wants to look on while one of us is slaughtered and there's nothing we can do about it. We have to fight as a whole or there won't be a fight at all."
The arguments put forward, the Captains looked to Max, who was rubbing his upper lip with his forefinger. Christina glanced at Rebecca, who smiled slightly but whose eyes were dark. Christina didn't know what she preferred - surviving seemed possible both ways.
Max went over to the pink doorway and stuck his arm through, then inched his body into the maze. He pulled himself up to the top of the dark wall, using the ribbon of light as a gauge, and climbed into the blue zone.
"We can get over, then." D'Angelo stated the obvious.
Max came back through. "We split up into four groups." he said.
"Max -" began Kent, but Max held up his hand. "Peace, Kent." he said. "We can't risk losing time doing every path or leave it up to chance that we pick right the first time. There might not be food in there, or water. We can communicate with our voices well enough, and we can reach each other over the walls. If we get separated too far, then we'll discuss other options."
Alpha shook his head and Kent rubbed his forehead, but they didn't argue any further. The Captains then dropped their voices to discuss, no doubt, the splitting of the teams.
Christina's vision was already becoming blurry from all the lights. She sat down and Rebecca sat next to her. "I think this is a bad idea." she said.
Christina glanced at her. "What other option do we have?"
"What Kent said. Not splitting up. We've never had to split up before, I don't see why we should have to do it now."
"It's ok to be scared." Christina murmured. Rebecca ran a hand through her hair. "Not in this kind of situation it's not. Fear means we did something wrong. It means we're not as strong as we were. I've never had to be scared before. Not since the Beach."
Christina didn't know how to answer that, so she stared at the light coming from her fingertips and let her mind go blank.
"Attention." Max's voice cut through the air. He stood at ease with the Captains behind him. Christina felt as though they were all about to pick teams for capture the flag.
"The dividing of the teams will commence. Team leaders: Myself, Caster, Maximoff, Alpha and Kent."
Definitely capture the flag.
"With me: Miss McCoy, Shade, Ilium, Cameron, Beckham."
Kyle patted Stanton's shoulder to let him know to follow him, and they went to stand beside Max. They all cut impressive figured against the glow of the white door.
"With Castor: Miss Ryker, Damon, Turner, Derrik and Rochester. Of course" he said as the Guides passed him "don't hesitate to come back if someone shows up on the screens. Your team will wait for you."
They nodded, and Christina watched them stand beside Axel. She thought about being in the maze and then seeing someone appear all the way back on the Beach, leaving, going back up through the levels and then coming back down. What if the team had to move on due to some kind of attack before they got back? She shivered.
"With Alpha: Miss Caine, Valentino, Quinn and Pines."
Rebecca got up and went to stand with them, the smallest group. Christina saw where she had mended Alpha's jacket with the thread and wondered whether he had even noticed.
"With Kent and Maximoff: Miss Corentine, Elliot, O'Connell and Cage."
The fact that there were two Captains in her group made Christina feel somewhat less afraid, but she knew that it was most likely to make up for the others on her team - her, the new recruit, Asher, the one who wasn't a soldier, Malcolm, who was younger than most of the other men though older than Reilly. Cage was the only real military man that they had in the group besides the Captains.
They were by the yellow gate. Christina looked over to Rebecca, Giulia and Scarlet, each standing in their respective groups. Max had probably split up the girls for the very concerns that Kent had voiced: a sort of code where they might need a woman to pass. But despite Max's rules, she was concerned being alone with five men.
"We go slowly, and we keep in touch with other teams." Max ordered. "Any concerns go directly to your Captain. They will relay them to another team. If attacked, fight to kill. We don't leave a man - or woman- behind. Stay with your team and don't be a dead weight. Move out." he passed through the white gate into the maze.
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Level 3
"Get up. Azazel's coming."
Reilly gave her a little slap on the cheek and dragged her away from the campsite. "Listen, Christina. There's a cave about fifty yards down the river. Get into the water so he can't smell you and go into there and whatever you do, stay there. You'll hear some noises and see some fire and that kind of thing, but Azazel's a pushover once you've got him cornered. We'll be at level three in less than an hour. Orion will come and get you when Azazel's dead."
Most of this passed her in a blur, but she obeyed him without question, going down to the river. She passed Orion, who was putting together what looked like a large chain of hand grenades strapped to a gun. His fingers flew over the machinery, and when he saw her watching smiled, his black eye sparkling. "It's not fair, really." he said. "The first time all we had was a sword. Then he actually stood a chance."
Christina smiled back weakly and stepped into the water. It was icy cold, but the insulation of her clothes was significantly more than her dress on the beach had been. The sky was a downy pink flecked with eggshell blue and the clear white of early morning. Fish swam by her and brushed her bare toes, and the pebbles under her feet were smooth and slippery. It was almost enjoyable until she heard Orion holler "what the bloody hell are you doing? Get to the cave!"
A terrific burst of fire lit the sky above the trees, and the groaning sound of bending and breaking trees came from behind her. A single word, dragon, flew into her mind, and she splashed like a madwoman away, her heart pounding. The cave wasn't far, and the mouth extended into the water. She quickly went in and pressed herself against the wall, panting. Water lapped placidly at her toes, the calm rhythm not even broken when an earsplitting roar came from the nearby campsite. Christina clapped her hands over her ears and slid into the water, shivering with terror. A crimson light burned almost merrily against the cavern wall. Shouts came from Reilly and Orion, and after a few moments of gut wrenching suspense, a terrific explosion that shook the ground and caused ripples to appear in the water at her ankles. Then there was silence.
They're dead. she though. They're dead and now I don't know what to do. I'm lost in a maniacal world. And for what she was sure was the first time in her life, she almost wished that her heart would simply stop beating.
The sounds of splashing caused her to look up. Orion pushed aside some of the hanging vines and smiled at her. "Come on out." he said, holding out his hand. There was a long burn on his forearm.
"You're not dead." she said stupidly.
"Not yet." he shrugged. "Don't worry, I've killed Azazel a dozen times. The first few times I had some help from Max and then Adrian, but I've got it down to a science now. Come on, then. No need to be so scared." he patted her shaking shoulders and waded back to the campsite.
Reilly was talking to a man in official looking garments who seemed to be crying and laughing at the same time. Corpses of little white, skeletal looking dogs littered the ground, and also that of a large reptilian looking beast (that was, in actuality, much smaller than Christina has expected).
"...cannot believe that one so young has killed one so great! For that, I shall give you the key to the sky!" The man reached inside his robe and pulled out a piece of paper. "Go two leagues into the woods there, and tell them that Magistrate Anomaly has sent you!"
Reilly bowed and took the slip of paper, pulling a long knife out of a dog's body. Christina gingerly stepped around one. Pathetic in death, they looked more like phantasms than physical beings.
"Come on, then, let's get going." Reilly wiped his blade clean and sheathed it on his back. "Are you alright, Christina?"
"Yeah." she lied, doubting if, after everything that had happened, she would ever be alright again. "Are we almost at level three?"
"Just have to go two leagues into the woods." he muttered. "Have some more water, and food. How's your strength?"
"Not great."
"These pills will help." Orion gave her four small capsules. "They're pretty rare so we reserve them for the Guides. But Max usually says we can give them to new people too."
"Is Max your leader?"
"For the most part, but Alpha does a lot too. And of course Kent and Adrian are second in command, but really they all make everything run together. And then -"
Christina lost track of the names. Some she recognized from Greek or English origin, but didn't know how she knew that.
The sunny shadows cast through the canopies of leaves made speckled designs on her hands, and she held them up in welcome when a pool of sunlight appeared. Reilly and Orion, however, continued to hurry her along, and soon they reached a clearing. A man and two girls were milling around a fence gate. Inside the enclosure was what looked like a large collapsed tent. Brightly colored canvas spilled like a burst grape over the soft green grass.
"Who goes there, peasant?" spat the man, his greasy hair swinging as he ambled closer. "This spot is forbidden to any but the Magistrates and me." he puffed out his chest, and one of the girls giggled, making dewy eyes at Reilly and Orion.
"We were sent from Magistrate Anomaly." Reilly waved the piece of paper in the man's face. "This is his permit."
The man took the parchment and held it up to the light, scrutinizing it until his abnormally long nose touched the surface. "Very well." he said at last. "This looks official - though I don't doubt if you just killed the man and took his permit." he stalked off to the gate and waved off one of the girls who was swinging her legs on top of it. "Right this way, young gentleman and miss."
Inside the paddock, the man began to shift about the large amounts of fabric until he found what he was looking for - a large basket, big enough for at least four, that had been buried under the many folds.
"It's a hot air balloon!" she exclaimed in surprise. Ten pairs of eyes turned and stared at her, warning in four of them and surprise in six.
"You've seen one of them before, eh, miss?" the man said suspiciously, starting towards her. Christina looked at Reilly and Orion for help, and Orion calmly went up behind the man and smacked him on the head with his gun. The man gave a little whimper and fell senseless to the ground.
The two girls started to scream. "Oh, shut up." Orion dragged the limp form of the man outside the fence. "He'll be fine next time we come around. You" he pointed to one of the hyperventilating girls "put in the oil."
Muttering and sulking, the girl pushed around the canvas and began to fill the ring on the top of the basket with thick, foul smelling fuel. Reilly and Orion shifted and heaved the balloon until it began to slowly swell. For what felt like a long time they watched and waited, drinking a little and eating.
"Ok." Reilly said at last "let's get it."
The three of them sat comfortably in the large basket, and Christina's heart began to bounce as slowly they began to rise. Orion cut loose the sandbags and they went significantly faster. "Where exactly are we going?" she asked Reilly as he skimmed the top of a tree with his fingertips.
"Level three."
"It's in the sky?"
"It's complicated. You get there from the air but it's not really in the sky. Just wait, we'll get there in a few seconds."
He was exaggerating. Only moments later a pale pink bird flew by, and squawked tantalizingly. Orion deftly caught it by it's tail feathers and forced it onto the ground. "What are you -" began Christina, but then the bird choked, spluttered, and - amazingly - spoke. "You can get to level three through the cloud of my hue." it wailed miserably. "Take some of my plumes and good luck to you!" It disappeared.
"Ok..." began Christina, but Orion shook his head. "That's just how it always is. Here." he handed her a pink feather that the bird had left. "Let's go."
Orion and Reilly each grasped one of her hands and went to the far left of the balloon, which began to sway dangerously. "On the count of three, we have to jump." Orion told her. "See that pink cloud? Land on it. One -"
"What?" she gaped. "Clouds can't hold us!"
"Two, three!" the boys leapt, dragging her with them. They plummeted like rocks towards earth, Christina screaming and the boys' eyes focused in concentration. Then everything turned very wet and cold. Christina saw large quantities of pink mist billowing around her, but her fall was broken. She was drifting lazily down through the cloud, still holding tight to her pink feather and the hands of the Guides. Then, without warning, the loud ringing from the inn filled her head and she felt herself thrown backwards like in a terrible gale. Something hit her hard and then the pink was gone. She was sitting on a large step that seemed to be covered with a kind of thin carpet. She looked around - somehow she was inside a room where luminous symbols, including the odd one that had been inscribed on the rock wall and she now realized had been on the side of the hot air balloon basket, beamed with bright fluorescent colors, cutting through the heavy darkness of the room.
Reilly and Orion were already busy touching some kind of pattern in the symbols. There seemed to be a riddle on the wall about how to open a door, but the boys had clearly memorized the pattern already.
"Ok, the others are only a little way away." Reilly pressed his hand on one last inscription and a door frame appeared in bright blue ribbons of light in the deep purple walls. They two went forward and pushed on it together. It slid away and they went through, followed by Christina.
The room on the other side was an absolutely massive room that was completely white. It probably would have looked even bigger except for the large amount of people who were in it. Christina's eyes drank in many things at once, but her first conclusion was that these must be the others. Not only were there definitely more men than women, but they clearly recognized Orion and Reilly. They were greeted with shouts and hugs from several of those nearest to the door, and had their hair ruffled and shoulders slapped.
Her second thought was that this was a kind of military camp. The people were wearing similar clothes to her thick, padded suit, and most of the men also had heavy boots, guns, short hair and smokes. She hung back against the door, wondering what she should do.
"There she is." a man with more muscles than Reilly and Orion combined strode towards her and stuck out his hand. "Charlie Maximoff."
"Christina Corentine."
"Not bad, that name." he smiled at her and put his hand lightly on her back. "Come on, then, introduction time." he guided her through the crowd. The men stood up as she passed and nodded in greeting, closing in behind her. She supposed there was a kind of routine for this and they were waiting for someone to give the word.
"Max!" Charlie shouted. "She's here!"
Four men were in the corner of the room, bending over some sort of chart. At Charlie's shout they looked up and turned around. The oldest, a man with twinkling blue eyes and frown lines that didn't match approached her and held out his hand, much like Charlie. "Maximilian Riley." he told her in a thick accent, then gestured behind him. "This is Adrian Caster, Remus Alpha and Romulus Kent." The men all acknowledged her.
"Christina Corentine." Charlie announced, and she gave a small smile and nodded. "Age?" Max shot at her. "Seventeen." she answered. He nodded thoughtfully, making her feel awkward as if she had revealed that she had x-ray vision. Charlie patted her shoulder and went to stand next to Adrian Caster. Max took over and stood by her side, then bellowed "Attention!" through the room. The crowd stood military style, then when he said "at ease" looked even more military style. The exception were three women at the end of the line.
Max turned to Christina. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but I'll begin by telling you everyone's name. This is Christina Corentine" he addressed the crowd "and she is seventeen years old. From left to right" he pointed at the long line of people in turn "Victor Cameron, Jett Turner, Kyle Beckham, Stanton Shade, Wayde Cage, Reagan Quinn, Asher Elliot, Axel Damon, Orsino Pines, Malcolm O'Connell, D'Angelo Valentino, Miles Ilium" and here he came to the girls "Scarlet McCoy, Rebecca Caine and Giulia Ryker. You have, of course, met our Guides Orion Rochester and Reilly Derrik, and one of our heads Charlie Maximoff. I don't expect you to remember all of their names" he turned back to Christina, who had only gotten as far Kyle Beckham before forgetting the first one's name "but know that you can go to any of them for anything. You will be staying with Scarlet, Rebecca and Giulia. They will fill in any questions that you have, provided that they know the answers. If you have any medical needs, Jett Turner is our doctor. Now, for the rules." he raised his voice a little and began to pace back and forth. "There are no secrets here. If you know something that you think will be valuable to our cause, tell someone. Preferably tell a Captain: me, Caster, Alpha, Kent, or Maximoff. Any observations or thoughts can be told to another who will then carry it to one of us if deemed valuable. Food is rationed out three times a day. Taking more will result in punishment. Sexual intercourse is forbidden. Wandering off is forbidden without permission from one of the Captains. You will do your work well and quickly, and you will work with us as a team. You will not take anyone else's possessions without permission. You will not touch a weapon that you aren't authorized to use unless you're in the heat of battle. If you find a box, you will inform a Captain of your find." he gestured to the men behind him, then turned back to a dazed Christina and laid a firm hand on her shoulder, bending down to look her in the eye. "Use your intuition. There isn't a person here whose instincts have truly led them wrong. Remember not to touch weird things, and if you find someone who's not in the group, don't talk to them unless it's necessary. Keep an eye and an ear out for anything more out of the ordinary than usual. Lunch is in an hour."
Everyone began to disperse and go back to whatever they had been doing. Christina looked around blankly and shifted her feet awkwardly. She supposed that this is what it was like to start a new school or something. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.
"Hey." the woman with dark brown hair whose name, she recalled, was Scarlet McCoy, smiled at her. It was a pale smile, the kind that implied there wasn't much to smile about around here.
"Hi." she smiled back, wondering how her own lips looked.
"Come on over here." Scarlet walked off. "We girls get a whole corner of this room to ourselves. Privacy is a luxury around here, but for most of our purposes we use this." she pointed to a small stall-like structure made up of jackets. "The guys gave us those to use. You can go to the bathroom in there and all that stuff. They even have maxi pads in some of the boxes." she rolled her eyes. "You should have seen the look on Orion's face when he found them. They're useful, though."
"How do you wash, you might ask?" A girl with the most beautiful black skin and a buzz cut came out from inside the coats. "You don't have to. None of us do. We should all look like crap and be covered in dirt, but we're not. We get cut sometimes, but nothing ever scars. The only things that are permanent are what we came in with - tattoos mostly for the guys, and sometimes scars that they didn't get here. Hair doesn't grow either. Which is nice, because shaving would be hell without any cream."
"It doesn't make any sense, I know." said the third girl, who had short, light blonde hair and soft grey eyes. She looked to be the youngest of the three. "You must have a lot of questions. Anything in particular you want to ask?"
"Yeah." Christina sat down. "Does anyone really know what this place is or why we're here?"
"No." Giulia and Scarlet said automatically. Rebecca ran a hand through her light hair and sat down opposite Christina. "I wish we could give you a different answer. But every idea that's thrown around seems as unlikely as the last. If any of us could remember where we were beforehand -"
"But no one knows anything." Giulia licked her lips. "I mean, there are some obvious clues about who we were at one point or another. Jett has medical training, of course. Most of the guys here are pretty sure that they were soldiers, and Max seems a natural commander. Orsino can sing really well, but I don't know if he did that professionally or anything. D'Angelo can box, he's a natural at hand to hand. Orion says took out twelve of the dogs on his own when they got to Azazel."
"So who came in right before me?"
"Miles. He's over there" Giulia pointed at a man with a ragged scarf around his neck who was polishing his gun. With ammo slung like chains around his body, he looked every inch a soldier.
"And everyone has jobs?"
"Technically yes, but we don't really. The main job is figuring out how to leave this room, really."
"You can't leave?"
"Nope. It's like a big game in here. You can only go places you've already gone unless we figure out something or other. When I came, we were all the way back by the inn in level two. When the candle went out someone would start talking, and then someone came in with a sword and took us to jail. We had to break out of there, Orion and Reilly and I. Next time they tried being quiet, and it worked. This whole thing is a learning process."
"You know" Rebecca murmured "sometimes I think that we all died and this is like, the next life or something. It's the only logical explanation."
"Aliens." said Giulia helpfully.
"You'd think we'd know, though." Scarlet rubbed her head. "After all, it should be proved in the next life that there's no religion, right? But some of the guys here still think there's a chance at Heaven and Hell."
"Maybe that's what Hell is." Rebecca continued. "Maybe it's not knowing why you're there."
"We're good people, though." Giulia sighed. "I don't think God would have done this to us."
"Who knows the mind of God?" Scarlet snorted.
"He's merciful." Giulia insisted.
"To those who fear him in ever generation." Christina muttered. They all looked at her.
"Yeah." Giulia nodded. "You got it. There's a lot more to this than meets the eye. We just have to take a step back and consider it from different points of view."
"So this is all you know?" Christina tried to bring the conversation back to the situation she found herself in. "We're blazing a trail through unknown places and we don't know why? Why don't we just settle down in the town or something?"
"Wanderlust." Giulia answered. "You know, that feeling that you have to get out. I get it all the time. We've been in this room for a week, ever since Orion and Reilly went to get you. I've had it almost the entire duration; the feeling that I have something I have to do, and forward is the only way out. You'll experience it too once the shock has subsided."
"It's almost like we're trapped in a time loop." Rebecca commented. Christina could tell that they had discussed these theories many times before, but were eager to share them with the new girl. "Or everyone else is, but we aren't. Maybe it's something...you know, the place where we all come out. Maybe something happens to us there."
"You mean besides starvation and dying of terror?" snapped Giulia, and they were all quiet for a minute. Ghastly memories of the beach and the emptiness it made inside of her caused goosebumps to creep up Christina's arm.
"It's all that explains the regeneration and why no one recognizes the Guides." Rebecca continued at last. "Why they always say the same thing and the same thing always happens. Everyone else is trapped in a time loop but they don't realize it."
"It's almost like..." Scarlet sighed. "But that's just more improbable theories."
"We've got plenty of those to go around." Giulia lay back on the floor. "Sometimes I'm tempted to believe in magic."
"That would imply that wherever you came from magic wasn't a thing." Rebecca closed her eyes. "Mental note for later."
"How did Max become the leader?" Christina asked.
"He was the first to come." Scarlet answered. "Or at least, the first of our group. He camped in the, you know." she hesitate. "Lighthouse. For days, before Charlie and Adrian showed up. Most of us showed up in groups of two or three, really. All on different sides of the ocean so we didn't realize we were with other people until we reached the shore. Anyway, Charlie and Adrian found Max, and they decided that they had to move on, but before they did Kent and Alpha showed up. We're pretty sure that they're related - cousins, maybe, or even brothers. They wanted to wait for more people but there weren't any supplies so they went down into the hole and started forging the path. Kent would go back every few days to see if there were more people. They found a screen that showed the lighthouse in a box -"
"Those are boxes full of supplies that sometimes show up. They're made of black wood and are usually hidden in corners." Rebecca interrupted.
"-and when someone showed up Kent would go back and get them. They couldn't get back out of the hole but he would wait for them down there, and then go find the others. We never move on while the Guides are missing. We're a team, and we can't make them find us in unfamiliar territory. Anyway, more people started coming, but recently it's trickled down to two or three. The last four -you, Miles, D'Angelo and Asher - all came by yourself."
"Has anyone died here?" the questions blurted out before she could stop it. It had been plaguing her, but everything was so improbable - the dragon, the wild dogs, the hot air balloon, and most of all the Beach - that it seemed a wonder so many people had survived.
There was an uncomfortable silence before Rebecca responded "well, yes. Three people."
"The ocean where we all show up, that got two of them. Kent saw it on the screens while he waited." Giulia said sadly. "Orion saw the other on. Azazel got him. It was when Reilly showed up and was training with Orion. And they still hadn't worked out all the kinks yet, and they only had small guns from earlier this level, in the other room, and, well...there were too many dogs for them all to take out along with Azazel. They lost track of him. Don't talk about this stuff, though. Kent doesn't do Guiding anymore - they need him here, anyway." she said hurriedly. "He's a Captain. And besides, Orion's got it under control. Once they got bigger guns it was all a lot easier."
Christina imagined sitting at the bottom of the lighthouse pit, watching people you were waiting for die with no way to help them - drowning, eaten, burned, any of the horrors on that sandy beach. She looked over to the Captains, and picked out Kent next to who someone who definitely looked like his older brother - Alpha, she recalled. Then she looked at Orion and imagined bringing someone safely that far just to lose them to the dragon.
"But three out of twenty two, that's not bad." Scarlet said quietly. "Twenty three, counting you. We're doing well for what we've been given."
"Almost makes you think we were chosen to come here because we could survive." Rebecca said idly.
"This obviously isn't an accident." Giulia agreed. "Something put us here. I'm still pulling for aliens." she got up. "Come on, Christina. You've got a cool name, by the way. We've all got cool names. Either our parents rocked or someone made them up for us when they sent us here."
Christina got up. "Where are we going?"
"To look around. We have to try and figure out a way out of this, right? Also, look for anything that might hold clothes. We came here in white for the heat of the beach and volcano, and then got this stuff for the outdoors of level two. There's got to be something different for this one."
"What do I look for?"
"Anything that might clue us on how to leave here. It seems like a complete dead end, but if we were waiting for something to happen it would have happened already. Stuff always happens fast here. If we've been here a week (at least I think it's a week, there aren't any clocks here or anything) then we've got to trigger something before something else gets triggered, if that makes any sense." she led Christina over to one of the walls. The rock seemed to be like polished, milky rock that was more man-made than natural. She ran a hand over it, and was surprised to find it almost vibrating, as though it was electric.
"It's not real rock, we're pretty sure." Giulia also put her hand up to it. "And Max suggested that this room is more of a calm before the storm. Maybe something happens to us in here that's necessary and that's why it's so hard to get out."
"And there aren't any symbols or carvings or anything?" Christina asked, remembering the previous room.
"Nothing. We've been over every inch. There's a pretty common consensus that it's something we have to do ourselves, we're just not sure what it is. And we have to be very careful, because a wrong move might kill us. No pressure."
"Appease the gods, I say." Scarlet said sarcastically as she came up behind them. "Flagellate ourselves."
"Well, I'll go get my cup for libations." Giulia responded. "It's good to have someone new here, Christina. A fresh mind might bring something up."
"Shouldn't we focus on what got us out of the other rooms safely?" Christina ran her hand along the wall. "Shelter on the-place where we came. Silence in the inn, symbols in the room before."
"So if it begins with s, it will get us out." Giulia said dryly. "Well, Scarlet, I'm afraid it's up to you then."
"Or Stanton." she retorted.
"Fat lot of help a deaf-mute will be." Giulia muttered.
"He's deaf?" Christina asked in surprise, craning her neck to try and find Stanton, though she could not remember what he looked like.
"Over there." Scarlet pointed to a short, blonde man. "And yeah, dumb too. But I tell you what, Kent says he got to shore quicker than anyone else, and held out against the lighthouse for the longest too. So I bet he'll be useful for something."
"I bet we all will at some point." Giulia sighed and looked around the great room. "I just can't think what we're supposed to do to get out of here."
"That's why we have the Captains. They'll think of something." Scarlet looked over to the five men talking soberly in the far corner. "They always do."
Reilly gave her a little slap on the cheek and dragged her away from the campsite. "Listen, Christina. There's a cave about fifty yards down the river. Get into the water so he can't smell you and go into there and whatever you do, stay there. You'll hear some noises and see some fire and that kind of thing, but Azazel's a pushover once you've got him cornered. We'll be at level three in less than an hour. Orion will come and get you when Azazel's dead."
Most of this passed her in a blur, but she obeyed him without question, going down to the river. She passed Orion, who was putting together what looked like a large chain of hand grenades strapped to a gun. His fingers flew over the machinery, and when he saw her watching smiled, his black eye sparkling. "It's not fair, really." he said. "The first time all we had was a sword. Then he actually stood a chance."
Christina smiled back weakly and stepped into the water. It was icy cold, but the insulation of her clothes was significantly more than her dress on the beach had been. The sky was a downy pink flecked with eggshell blue and the clear white of early morning. Fish swam by her and brushed her bare toes, and the pebbles under her feet were smooth and slippery. It was almost enjoyable until she heard Orion holler "what the bloody hell are you doing? Get to the cave!"
A terrific burst of fire lit the sky above the trees, and the groaning sound of bending and breaking trees came from behind her. A single word, dragon, flew into her mind, and she splashed like a madwoman away, her heart pounding. The cave wasn't far, and the mouth extended into the water. She quickly went in and pressed herself against the wall, panting. Water lapped placidly at her toes, the calm rhythm not even broken when an earsplitting roar came from the nearby campsite. Christina clapped her hands over her ears and slid into the water, shivering with terror. A crimson light burned almost merrily against the cavern wall. Shouts came from Reilly and Orion, and after a few moments of gut wrenching suspense, a terrific explosion that shook the ground and caused ripples to appear in the water at her ankles. Then there was silence.
They're dead. she though. They're dead and now I don't know what to do. I'm lost in a maniacal world. And for what she was sure was the first time in her life, she almost wished that her heart would simply stop beating.
The sounds of splashing caused her to look up. Orion pushed aside some of the hanging vines and smiled at her. "Come on out." he said, holding out his hand. There was a long burn on his forearm.
"You're not dead." she said stupidly.
"Not yet." he shrugged. "Don't worry, I've killed Azazel a dozen times. The first few times I had some help from Max and then Adrian, but I've got it down to a science now. Come on, then. No need to be so scared." he patted her shaking shoulders and waded back to the campsite.
Reilly was talking to a man in official looking garments who seemed to be crying and laughing at the same time. Corpses of little white, skeletal looking dogs littered the ground, and also that of a large reptilian looking beast (that was, in actuality, much smaller than Christina has expected).
"...cannot believe that one so young has killed one so great! For that, I shall give you the key to the sky!" The man reached inside his robe and pulled out a piece of paper. "Go two leagues into the woods there, and tell them that Magistrate Anomaly has sent you!"
Reilly bowed and took the slip of paper, pulling a long knife out of a dog's body. Christina gingerly stepped around one. Pathetic in death, they looked more like phantasms than physical beings.
"Come on, then, let's get going." Reilly wiped his blade clean and sheathed it on his back. "Are you alright, Christina?"
"Yeah." she lied, doubting if, after everything that had happened, she would ever be alright again. "Are we almost at level three?"
"Just have to go two leagues into the woods." he muttered. "Have some more water, and food. How's your strength?"
"Not great."
"These pills will help." Orion gave her four small capsules. "They're pretty rare so we reserve them for the Guides. But Max usually says we can give them to new people too."
"Is Max your leader?"
"For the most part, but Alpha does a lot too. And of course Kent and Adrian are second in command, but really they all make everything run together. And then -"
Christina lost track of the names. Some she recognized from Greek or English origin, but didn't know how she knew that.
The sunny shadows cast through the canopies of leaves made speckled designs on her hands, and she held them up in welcome when a pool of sunlight appeared. Reilly and Orion, however, continued to hurry her along, and soon they reached a clearing. A man and two girls were milling around a fence gate. Inside the enclosure was what looked like a large collapsed tent. Brightly colored canvas spilled like a burst grape over the soft green grass.
"Who goes there, peasant?" spat the man, his greasy hair swinging as he ambled closer. "This spot is forbidden to any but the Magistrates and me." he puffed out his chest, and one of the girls giggled, making dewy eyes at Reilly and Orion.
"We were sent from Magistrate Anomaly." Reilly waved the piece of paper in the man's face. "This is his permit."
The man took the parchment and held it up to the light, scrutinizing it until his abnormally long nose touched the surface. "Very well." he said at last. "This looks official - though I don't doubt if you just killed the man and took his permit." he stalked off to the gate and waved off one of the girls who was swinging her legs on top of it. "Right this way, young gentleman and miss."
Inside the paddock, the man began to shift about the large amounts of fabric until he found what he was looking for - a large basket, big enough for at least four, that had been buried under the many folds.
"It's a hot air balloon!" she exclaimed in surprise. Ten pairs of eyes turned and stared at her, warning in four of them and surprise in six.
"You've seen one of them before, eh, miss?" the man said suspiciously, starting towards her. Christina looked at Reilly and Orion for help, and Orion calmly went up behind the man and smacked him on the head with his gun. The man gave a little whimper and fell senseless to the ground.
The two girls started to scream. "Oh, shut up." Orion dragged the limp form of the man outside the fence. "He'll be fine next time we come around. You" he pointed to one of the hyperventilating girls "put in the oil."
Muttering and sulking, the girl pushed around the canvas and began to fill the ring on the top of the basket with thick, foul smelling fuel. Reilly and Orion shifted and heaved the balloon until it began to slowly swell. For what felt like a long time they watched and waited, drinking a little and eating.
"Ok." Reilly said at last "let's get it."
The three of them sat comfortably in the large basket, and Christina's heart began to bounce as slowly they began to rise. Orion cut loose the sandbags and they went significantly faster. "Where exactly are we going?" she asked Reilly as he skimmed the top of a tree with his fingertips.
"Level three."
"It's in the sky?"
"It's complicated. You get there from the air but it's not really in the sky. Just wait, we'll get there in a few seconds."
He was exaggerating. Only moments later a pale pink bird flew by, and squawked tantalizingly. Orion deftly caught it by it's tail feathers and forced it onto the ground. "What are you -" began Christina, but then the bird choked, spluttered, and - amazingly - spoke. "You can get to level three through the cloud of my hue." it wailed miserably. "Take some of my plumes and good luck to you!" It disappeared.
"Ok..." began Christina, but Orion shook his head. "That's just how it always is. Here." he handed her a pink feather that the bird had left. "Let's go."
Orion and Reilly each grasped one of her hands and went to the far left of the balloon, which began to sway dangerously. "On the count of three, we have to jump." Orion told her. "See that pink cloud? Land on it. One -"
"What?" she gaped. "Clouds can't hold us!"
"Two, three!" the boys leapt, dragging her with them. They plummeted like rocks towards earth, Christina screaming and the boys' eyes focused in concentration. Then everything turned very wet and cold. Christina saw large quantities of pink mist billowing around her, but her fall was broken. She was drifting lazily down through the cloud, still holding tight to her pink feather and the hands of the Guides. Then, without warning, the loud ringing from the inn filled her head and she felt herself thrown backwards like in a terrible gale. Something hit her hard and then the pink was gone. She was sitting on a large step that seemed to be covered with a kind of thin carpet. She looked around - somehow she was inside a room where luminous symbols, including the odd one that had been inscribed on the rock wall and she now realized had been on the side of the hot air balloon basket, beamed with bright fluorescent colors, cutting through the heavy darkness of the room.
Reilly and Orion were already busy touching some kind of pattern in the symbols. There seemed to be a riddle on the wall about how to open a door, but the boys had clearly memorized the pattern already.
"Ok, the others are only a little way away." Reilly pressed his hand on one last inscription and a door frame appeared in bright blue ribbons of light in the deep purple walls. They two went forward and pushed on it together. It slid away and they went through, followed by Christina.
The room on the other side was an absolutely massive room that was completely white. It probably would have looked even bigger except for the large amount of people who were in it. Christina's eyes drank in many things at once, but her first conclusion was that these must be the others. Not only were there definitely more men than women, but they clearly recognized Orion and Reilly. They were greeted with shouts and hugs from several of those nearest to the door, and had their hair ruffled and shoulders slapped.
Her second thought was that this was a kind of military camp. The people were wearing similar clothes to her thick, padded suit, and most of the men also had heavy boots, guns, short hair and smokes. She hung back against the door, wondering what she should do.
"There she is." a man with more muscles than Reilly and Orion combined strode towards her and stuck out his hand. "Charlie Maximoff."
"Christina Corentine."
"Not bad, that name." he smiled at her and put his hand lightly on her back. "Come on, then, introduction time." he guided her through the crowd. The men stood up as she passed and nodded in greeting, closing in behind her. She supposed there was a kind of routine for this and they were waiting for someone to give the word.
"Max!" Charlie shouted. "She's here!"
Four men were in the corner of the room, bending over some sort of chart. At Charlie's shout they looked up and turned around. The oldest, a man with twinkling blue eyes and frown lines that didn't match approached her and held out his hand, much like Charlie. "Maximilian Riley." he told her in a thick accent, then gestured behind him. "This is Adrian Caster, Remus Alpha and Romulus Kent." The men all acknowledged her.
"Christina Corentine." Charlie announced, and she gave a small smile and nodded. "Age?" Max shot at her. "Seventeen." she answered. He nodded thoughtfully, making her feel awkward as if she had revealed that she had x-ray vision. Charlie patted her shoulder and went to stand next to Adrian Caster. Max took over and stood by her side, then bellowed "Attention!" through the room. The crowd stood military style, then when he said "at ease" looked even more military style. The exception were three women at the end of the line.
Max turned to Christina. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but I'll begin by telling you everyone's name. This is Christina Corentine" he addressed the crowd "and she is seventeen years old. From left to right" he pointed at the long line of people in turn "Victor Cameron, Jett Turner, Kyle Beckham, Stanton Shade, Wayde Cage, Reagan Quinn, Asher Elliot, Axel Damon, Orsino Pines, Malcolm O'Connell, D'Angelo Valentino, Miles Ilium" and here he came to the girls "Scarlet McCoy, Rebecca Caine and Giulia Ryker. You have, of course, met our Guides Orion Rochester and Reilly Derrik, and one of our heads Charlie Maximoff. I don't expect you to remember all of their names" he turned back to Christina, who had only gotten as far Kyle Beckham before forgetting the first one's name "but know that you can go to any of them for anything. You will be staying with Scarlet, Rebecca and Giulia. They will fill in any questions that you have, provided that they know the answers. If you have any medical needs, Jett Turner is our doctor. Now, for the rules." he raised his voice a little and began to pace back and forth. "There are no secrets here. If you know something that you think will be valuable to our cause, tell someone. Preferably tell a Captain: me, Caster, Alpha, Kent, or Maximoff. Any observations or thoughts can be told to another who will then carry it to one of us if deemed valuable. Food is rationed out three times a day. Taking more will result in punishment. Sexual intercourse is forbidden. Wandering off is forbidden without permission from one of the Captains. You will do your work well and quickly, and you will work with us as a team. You will not take anyone else's possessions without permission. You will not touch a weapon that you aren't authorized to use unless you're in the heat of battle. If you find a box, you will inform a Captain of your find." he gestured to the men behind him, then turned back to a dazed Christina and laid a firm hand on her shoulder, bending down to look her in the eye. "Use your intuition. There isn't a person here whose instincts have truly led them wrong. Remember not to touch weird things, and if you find someone who's not in the group, don't talk to them unless it's necessary. Keep an eye and an ear out for anything more out of the ordinary than usual. Lunch is in an hour."
Everyone began to disperse and go back to whatever they had been doing. Christina looked around blankly and shifted her feet awkwardly. She supposed that this is what it was like to start a new school or something. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.
"Hey." the woman with dark brown hair whose name, she recalled, was Scarlet McCoy, smiled at her. It was a pale smile, the kind that implied there wasn't much to smile about around here.
"Hi." she smiled back, wondering how her own lips looked.
"Come on over here." Scarlet walked off. "We girls get a whole corner of this room to ourselves. Privacy is a luxury around here, but for most of our purposes we use this." she pointed to a small stall-like structure made up of jackets. "The guys gave us those to use. You can go to the bathroom in there and all that stuff. They even have maxi pads in some of the boxes." she rolled her eyes. "You should have seen the look on Orion's face when he found them. They're useful, though."
"How do you wash, you might ask?" A girl with the most beautiful black skin and a buzz cut came out from inside the coats. "You don't have to. None of us do. We should all look like crap and be covered in dirt, but we're not. We get cut sometimes, but nothing ever scars. The only things that are permanent are what we came in with - tattoos mostly for the guys, and sometimes scars that they didn't get here. Hair doesn't grow either. Which is nice, because shaving would be hell without any cream."
"It doesn't make any sense, I know." said the third girl, who had short, light blonde hair and soft grey eyes. She looked to be the youngest of the three. "You must have a lot of questions. Anything in particular you want to ask?"
"Yeah." Christina sat down. "Does anyone really know what this place is or why we're here?"
"No." Giulia and Scarlet said automatically. Rebecca ran a hand through her light hair and sat down opposite Christina. "I wish we could give you a different answer. But every idea that's thrown around seems as unlikely as the last. If any of us could remember where we were beforehand -"
"But no one knows anything." Giulia licked her lips. "I mean, there are some obvious clues about who we were at one point or another. Jett has medical training, of course. Most of the guys here are pretty sure that they were soldiers, and Max seems a natural commander. Orsino can sing really well, but I don't know if he did that professionally or anything. D'Angelo can box, he's a natural at hand to hand. Orion says took out twelve of the dogs on his own when they got to Azazel."
"So who came in right before me?"
"Miles. He's over there" Giulia pointed at a man with a ragged scarf around his neck who was polishing his gun. With ammo slung like chains around his body, he looked every inch a soldier.
"And everyone has jobs?"
"Technically yes, but we don't really. The main job is figuring out how to leave this room, really."
"You can't leave?"
"Nope. It's like a big game in here. You can only go places you've already gone unless we figure out something or other. When I came, we were all the way back by the inn in level two. When the candle went out someone would start talking, and then someone came in with a sword and took us to jail. We had to break out of there, Orion and Reilly and I. Next time they tried being quiet, and it worked. This whole thing is a learning process."
"You know" Rebecca murmured "sometimes I think that we all died and this is like, the next life or something. It's the only logical explanation."
"Aliens." said Giulia helpfully.
"You'd think we'd know, though." Scarlet rubbed her head. "After all, it should be proved in the next life that there's no religion, right? But some of the guys here still think there's a chance at Heaven and Hell."
"Maybe that's what Hell is." Rebecca continued. "Maybe it's not knowing why you're there."
"We're good people, though." Giulia sighed. "I don't think God would have done this to us."
"Who knows the mind of God?" Scarlet snorted.
"He's merciful." Giulia insisted.
"To those who fear him in ever generation." Christina muttered. They all looked at her.
"Yeah." Giulia nodded. "You got it. There's a lot more to this than meets the eye. We just have to take a step back and consider it from different points of view."
"So this is all you know?" Christina tried to bring the conversation back to the situation she found herself in. "We're blazing a trail through unknown places and we don't know why? Why don't we just settle down in the town or something?"
"Wanderlust." Giulia answered. "You know, that feeling that you have to get out. I get it all the time. We've been in this room for a week, ever since Orion and Reilly went to get you. I've had it almost the entire duration; the feeling that I have something I have to do, and forward is the only way out. You'll experience it too once the shock has subsided."
"It's almost like we're trapped in a time loop." Rebecca commented. Christina could tell that they had discussed these theories many times before, but were eager to share them with the new girl. "Or everyone else is, but we aren't. Maybe it's something...you know, the place where we all come out. Maybe something happens to us there."
"You mean besides starvation and dying of terror?" snapped Giulia, and they were all quiet for a minute. Ghastly memories of the beach and the emptiness it made inside of her caused goosebumps to creep up Christina's arm.
"It's all that explains the regeneration and why no one recognizes the Guides." Rebecca continued at last. "Why they always say the same thing and the same thing always happens. Everyone else is trapped in a time loop but they don't realize it."
"It's almost like..." Scarlet sighed. "But that's just more improbable theories."
"We've got plenty of those to go around." Giulia lay back on the floor. "Sometimes I'm tempted to believe in magic."
"That would imply that wherever you came from magic wasn't a thing." Rebecca closed her eyes. "Mental note for later."
"How did Max become the leader?" Christina asked.
"He was the first to come." Scarlet answered. "Or at least, the first of our group. He camped in the, you know." she hesitate. "Lighthouse. For days, before Charlie and Adrian showed up. Most of us showed up in groups of two or three, really. All on different sides of the ocean so we didn't realize we were with other people until we reached the shore. Anyway, Charlie and Adrian found Max, and they decided that they had to move on, but before they did Kent and Alpha showed up. We're pretty sure that they're related - cousins, maybe, or even brothers. They wanted to wait for more people but there weren't any supplies so they went down into the hole and started forging the path. Kent would go back every few days to see if there were more people. They found a screen that showed the lighthouse in a box -"
"Those are boxes full of supplies that sometimes show up. They're made of black wood and are usually hidden in corners." Rebecca interrupted.
"-and when someone showed up Kent would go back and get them. They couldn't get back out of the hole but he would wait for them down there, and then go find the others. We never move on while the Guides are missing. We're a team, and we can't make them find us in unfamiliar territory. Anyway, more people started coming, but recently it's trickled down to two or three. The last four -you, Miles, D'Angelo and Asher - all came by yourself."
"Has anyone died here?" the questions blurted out before she could stop it. It had been plaguing her, but everything was so improbable - the dragon, the wild dogs, the hot air balloon, and most of all the Beach - that it seemed a wonder so many people had survived.
There was an uncomfortable silence before Rebecca responded "well, yes. Three people."
"The ocean where we all show up, that got two of them. Kent saw it on the screens while he waited." Giulia said sadly. "Orion saw the other on. Azazel got him. It was when Reilly showed up and was training with Orion. And they still hadn't worked out all the kinks yet, and they only had small guns from earlier this level, in the other room, and, well...there were too many dogs for them all to take out along with Azazel. They lost track of him. Don't talk about this stuff, though. Kent doesn't do Guiding anymore - they need him here, anyway." she said hurriedly. "He's a Captain. And besides, Orion's got it under control. Once they got bigger guns it was all a lot easier."
Christina imagined sitting at the bottom of the lighthouse pit, watching people you were waiting for die with no way to help them - drowning, eaten, burned, any of the horrors on that sandy beach. She looked over to the Captains, and picked out Kent next to who someone who definitely looked like his older brother - Alpha, she recalled. Then she looked at Orion and imagined bringing someone safely that far just to lose them to the dragon.
"But three out of twenty two, that's not bad." Scarlet said quietly. "Twenty three, counting you. We're doing well for what we've been given."
"Almost makes you think we were chosen to come here because we could survive." Rebecca said idly.
"This obviously isn't an accident." Giulia agreed. "Something put us here. I'm still pulling for aliens." she got up. "Come on, Christina. You've got a cool name, by the way. We've all got cool names. Either our parents rocked or someone made them up for us when they sent us here."
Christina got up. "Where are we going?"
"To look around. We have to try and figure out a way out of this, right? Also, look for anything that might hold clothes. We came here in white for the heat of the beach and volcano, and then got this stuff for the outdoors of level two. There's got to be something different for this one."
"What do I look for?"
"Anything that might clue us on how to leave here. It seems like a complete dead end, but if we were waiting for something to happen it would have happened already. Stuff always happens fast here. If we've been here a week (at least I think it's a week, there aren't any clocks here or anything) then we've got to trigger something before something else gets triggered, if that makes any sense." she led Christina over to one of the walls. The rock seemed to be like polished, milky rock that was more man-made than natural. She ran a hand over it, and was surprised to find it almost vibrating, as though it was electric.
"It's not real rock, we're pretty sure." Giulia also put her hand up to it. "And Max suggested that this room is more of a calm before the storm. Maybe something happens to us in here that's necessary and that's why it's so hard to get out."
"And there aren't any symbols or carvings or anything?" Christina asked, remembering the previous room.
"Nothing. We've been over every inch. There's a pretty common consensus that it's something we have to do ourselves, we're just not sure what it is. And we have to be very careful, because a wrong move might kill us. No pressure."
"Appease the gods, I say." Scarlet said sarcastically as she came up behind them. "Flagellate ourselves."
"Well, I'll go get my cup for libations." Giulia responded. "It's good to have someone new here, Christina. A fresh mind might bring something up."
"Shouldn't we focus on what got us out of the other rooms safely?" Christina ran her hand along the wall. "Shelter on the-place where we came. Silence in the inn, symbols in the room before."
"So if it begins with s, it will get us out." Giulia said dryly. "Well, Scarlet, I'm afraid it's up to you then."
"Or Stanton." she retorted.
"Fat lot of help a deaf-mute will be." Giulia muttered.
"He's deaf?" Christina asked in surprise, craning her neck to try and find Stanton, though she could not remember what he looked like.
"Over there." Scarlet pointed to a short, blonde man. "And yeah, dumb too. But I tell you what, Kent says he got to shore quicker than anyone else, and held out against the lighthouse for the longest too. So I bet he'll be useful for something."
"I bet we all will at some point." Giulia sighed and looked around the great room. "I just can't think what we're supposed to do to get out of here."
"That's why we have the Captains. They'll think of something." Scarlet looked over to the five men talking soberly in the far corner. "They always do."
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
The Boys
Christina would have struggled but she was much too fatigued. The laughter was somewhere near her right ear, and it sounded like a child's. Were there civilizations down here? With water? Good, sweet, cold and clear water running down a bone dry throat -
Warm, stale water was suddenly thrust into her mouth, but for all the world it could have been the freshest spring water she had ever tasted. She greedily moved her lips to keep it in, then opened them to catch more. The source seemed to be from nowhere, but when the flow abruptly stopped she turned her head slightly to see a hand moving away a flask.
"Let her down." said a voice, too deep to be that of the laughter. Someone fumbled with the ropes beneath her, and she dropped, but several hands caught her around the waist and eased her down.
"Slowly, now."
"That's it."
"You ok?"
Christina saw faces swimming hazily out of the dark. They seemed to be glinting in a faint, orange light that hurt her eyes. Her head swam and her head swung back and she vomited the water she had just drunk all over a floor she couldn't see. The people, however, seemed to expect nothing less and only made a couple of noises before someone gently tipped her head back and dribbled in a few more drops.
"Just let them sit and then swallow - not too hard or fast. You'll just puke again." said the voice. Someone was muttering in an amused voice behind her, and she felt a feeble flit of anger; how would they feel if they had been without water for a week! Or was it that long? It couldn't have been more than three days - there was a rule about that somewhere. Her head hurt.
"Listen, kid, we've got to keep moving." said the same voice that had told her how to drink. Christina didn't think anything had ever sounded less appealing, and she shook her head, still unable to speak.
"I know it's hell." he said quietly; she was sure it was a boy. "But it'll be worse if we don't move. We had to wait awhile for you."
He was making her head spin, so she just shut her eyes and let someone with strong arms pick her up and begin a jog that jolted her aching head and made her feel nauseated again. The sound of running feet followed; there seemed to be more than one person. Yes, of course there were. More than one person had spoken earlier. Why couldn't she think clearly? She wanted more water.
After what seemed an eternity of keeping her mouth firmly closed and trying not to think about her stomach, someone said "that's far enough, isn't it Rye?" and the painful moving stopped. She was put down with a "you're heavy" and she was given a few more precious drops.
"Don't swallow those" she was advised "We have longer to go."
Christina opened her cracked lips and croaked "What...where...who...me..."
"What happened is someone has a damn awful sense of humor. Where you are, you're on level one. Who are we, we're here to bring you up to level three." The answers weren't exactly helpful, but it was comforting to know that someone had understood her garble.
"Your vision should clear in a few seconds." said a young voice helpfully. To Christina's surprise, it did, and the blurry shapes around her solidified as if someone had erased the static outlines.
She was in a stone passage that glowed with an orange light that made the word volcano go off in her mind. The light came in through chinks and cracks in the stone, coloring the walls and floor a dull, musty red.
"Hi there."
She looked up. There were two boys above her, one who looked about sixteen and the other maybe a few years older. Both had oddly flawless, waxy looking skin except for three long scars that ran down the younger one's cheek which looked fake.
"Christina, right?"
"What?" she was surprised and struggled up. Her hair fell in silky lengths to her waste as she shook her head, and vaguely she wondered why it wasn't salt crusted and dirty. She felt her face. It was smooth and free of any kind of blemish.
"Christina Corentine."
"How do you know my name?"
"Right there." one of the boys pointed to her foot. In small, inky black letters was her first and surname tattooed on her heel.
"I don't get it." she said stupidly.
"Welcome to life in The Web." he laughed harshly and held out his hand. "I'm Reilly Derrik."
She shook it absentmindedly and then took the other boy's, the younger one. "Orion Rochester" he said, then pointed out "we need to get going."
"Let's go, then. Can you walk?" Reilly turned to Christina, who felt that she might faint if she even moved another finger.
"Didn't think so. I'll carry her now." Orion picked her up like a sack of meat. "You're pretty young to be stuck here, you know. The other girls are at least twenty."
"Yeah, all three of them. We're mostly boys here. Men, really." Reilly pulled out a cigarette and lit it from one of the cracks in the wall. Christina realized how hot it was and felt sicker.
"Go ahead and faint." Orion said cheerfully. "We'll give you a little more water when you come to. Just rest."
When the black veil had cleared from her vision again, Christina realized how far they must have traveled while she was knocked out. The tunnel was much wider and the light was somehow cleaner and paler. She saw bunches of crystals formed on the rocky walls, and cavernous spaces yawned before her on several sides.
"Morning." Reilly said, handing her the water bottle. "We're almost on level two. Once we're there, just follow our lead. Don't try to do anything stupid. Just let Orion and I handle it."
"Handle what?" Christina let the water drip from her mouth onto the dusty floor, just enjoying the feel of it dribbling around her lips.
"The obstacles." he answered evasively. "We passed three while you were asleep, but it was mostly just following the trail. Level two gets harder."
"What do you mean by levels?" Christina eased herself into sitting position and lay with her head against the wall. Orion came and sat beside her, and gave her a small piece of bread.
"Like a large building, you know? Just different levels. We travel up, and the scenery changes so we call them levels."
"Who's we? How many people are here?"
"A lot. At least twenty, you know, I've never really bothered to count." Orion took a sip from his water bottle. "But there are only three girls, four counting you."
"That's not a lot." Christina's mind flew to sexual violations and inched slightly away from him.
"It's because you need to be tough to survive here, I guess."
"Are they all kids like us?"
"Hey, I'm twenty one." Reilly said coolly, but with a hint of a smile. "But no, not most of them. The age range is from - how old are you?"
"Seventeen. Almost eighteen."
"Sixteen then, sixteen to about fifty three."
"What is this place?"
"The Web, we call it. It was Kyle's idea. Because we're all like flies and somewhere there's a spider watching us and waiting to strike when we pull on the right thread."
Despite the heat, Christina felt cold, frustrated and utterly confused. She noticed that both the boys were wearing a similar outfit to herself. Cream - colored and very light and fine. Almost lacy, like wedding garments, though they both seem to have torn of pieces in efforts to make them more masculine, or perhaps to bear the temperatures more easily.
"Let's get going." Orion said, and got up, crossing to the opposite wall to put his hand on a symbol carved there that looked like a handgun getting eaten by branches. There was a weird ringing noise and a short staircase began to emerge from a long crack in the floor.
"Skip the fourth stair." warned Reilly as he started up. "Max and Alpha both almost died there."
Orion helped her skip the step, and they approached a door in the ceiling that she hadn't noticed before.
"Duck." Reilly said in an almost bored tone, and Orion pushed her down just as a blade came ringing out of nowhere and buried itself in the doorknob where Reilly's head had been an instant before. The door swung open and Reilly pulled himself into the darkness, then reached down a hand to help her up.
The drastic change in temperature made her gasp a little. There was an odd ringing in her head, similar to the one that had opened the door, and when Orion came up he and Reilly quickly dragged her along against the wall.
They were in a wood paneled room with a table and a bed. A candle was lit in the center of the floor, and chill wind swept through cracks in the walls, making the flame shiver but not go out.
"Hurry." Orion ripped open a panel and pulled out two brand new suits of clothes. He and Reilly stripped off their shirts and put on the leather jackets and pants that the new clothes provided. "We'll get you some as soon as we get out of here. Ten, nine, eight..." he began to count down, pulled Christina over to a corner and said "stay there and be quiet."
"Three, two, one." Reilly finished, and the moment he had stopped the candle went out.
The darkness was thick, but there was a crack of light from beneath the door and Christina could see both of the boys' heads nodding in rhythm as if they were counting in their minds. Someone stepped outside the door and seemed to pause, and Christina held her breath. Then the boys each grabbed one of her hands and went for the door.
"Left." hissed Reilly, and they went down a hall of what looked like a medieval hotel. The, without warning, Orion ran into the next room and came dashing back out, clutching a purse. "Got it" he said "let's move."
They went down a set of stairs and reached a long tavern room where people were drinking and making merry. "Act casual." Reilly said and sauntered in, pulling her behind him.
"'ello there, miss." a man said, grinning. "Need a draught?"
"I -" Christina looked at Reilly, who turned to the man. "No, and I'll tell the Maker is you bother us again."
The man paled, and spat. "I don't believe yew know the maker." he sneered.
"Try me." Reilly said softly, and the man stalked off.
"Have to be careful with him. We fought him six times before we figured out what would make him back off." They walked out of the inn, Orion shadowing them closely like a hunter, glancing this way and that at the riotous guests in the room.
"What's going on?" Christina looked around. The garb of the people in the wet cobblestone streets was much like what the boys were wearing, and she felt thin and out of place.
"We have to find Dorcas, she makes the clothes here. She'll get you an outfit."
"She's over here, remember?" Orion pulled out his purse and approached and old woman who was bent over her cart. "Hello, Dorcas." he smiled. "Remember me?"
"No, I don't believe so, young master." she scrutinized him closely. "Are you a nephew?"
"No, ma'am." he seemed a bit crestfallen and glanced at Riley. "A suit of clothes for the girl, please."
"That's four coppers, sir."
"So cheap." he murmured, counting out the coins.
"I don't do the work for money, sir." Dorcas smiled sweetly and pulled out a jacket and pants for Christina. "You can change over there, miss, to preserve your modesty."
Blushing, Christina thanked her and went into the abandoned building that the woman had indicated. She stripped off the dress and felt it's folds between her fingers before she pulled on the jacket and pants. They were warm and felt heavy-duty, almost as if they were bullet proof. Stripping off a piece of her dress, she tied up her hair in a ponytail since the wind kept beating it into her face.
Reilly and Orion were talking right outside the door.
"So, you've been here before?" she asked as way of letting them know that she was there. They turned to look at her.
"I've been here twelve times, actually. Reilly's been here eight." Orion looked her up and down. "Good. Just leave the dress, I doubt you'll be a scout. Come on, then."
"Why doesn't Dorcas recognize you?"
"I don't know." he said shortly. "I talk to he nearly every time, so it makes no sense. Everyone here, everyone we talk to, they always say the same thing and have the same reactions to everything we say. It's like we're in a movie or something. There are horses in here." he rapped on a stable door. A thin, reedy voice called out "password?"
"The Spangled Bandit send us." he recited dully. The window opened.
"Who's there?"
"Orion Rochester with Reilly Derrik and Christina Corentine. We need three horses."
"I can't ride." Christina murmured, but Reilly waved that aside and took her wrist. The door opened and a weedy man leered at them. "Anything for those sent from the Spangled Bandit." he smiled. "Come along and choose any nag you want."
"Get the three black ones, they blend in best." Reilly helped Christina mount. "If you see an apple on a tree, grab it. Don't worry about the bats, Orion will take care of them. We'll stop by the river in a few minutes. Don't worry" he smiled slightly "I think you'll find out riding is pretty easy. Everyone seems to know how to do it here."
And to her shock, he was right. It was as if she had known all her life.
"Can I name him?" she called to Reilly as they went over the wet countryside, stars rising in the sky.
"No." he shouted back.
"Why?"
"Trust me, just don't."
But in her mind, she named her black stallion Vulcan.
The ride must have been far but it didn't feel like it. They seemed to go inhumanely fast over the hills, and it wasn't long before Reilly called for a stop beside a ribbon that rushed like a ribbon of darkness itself through the night. Orion was far ahead, circling back and going forward again like a bird of prey.
"Everything's clear." he called when he came back and dismounted, an armload of bats. "I got bitten by one, but nothing a couple drops of nectar won't heal." he pulled out a small vial of golden liquid from his pouch and dripped it onto his arm. Steam billowed up and he winced, but when the smoke cleared his face, which had been drawn with pain, was relaxed. "You and Christina sleep, Rye. I'll watch."
"You always watch."
"There's a reason I've been doing this for longer than you." he smiled slightly. "Get some sleep. Azazel will be here soon."
Christina did not know nor care who Azazel was. Black spots had begun to dance before her eyes, and she she drank and ate a bit of the bat meat that Orion cooked, her exhaustion overcame her.
Warm, stale water was suddenly thrust into her mouth, but for all the world it could have been the freshest spring water she had ever tasted. She greedily moved her lips to keep it in, then opened them to catch more. The source seemed to be from nowhere, but when the flow abruptly stopped she turned her head slightly to see a hand moving away a flask.
"Let her down." said a voice, too deep to be that of the laughter. Someone fumbled with the ropes beneath her, and she dropped, but several hands caught her around the waist and eased her down.
"Slowly, now."
"That's it."
"You ok?"
Christina saw faces swimming hazily out of the dark. They seemed to be glinting in a faint, orange light that hurt her eyes. Her head swam and her head swung back and she vomited the water she had just drunk all over a floor she couldn't see. The people, however, seemed to expect nothing less and only made a couple of noises before someone gently tipped her head back and dribbled in a few more drops.
"Just let them sit and then swallow - not too hard or fast. You'll just puke again." said the voice. Someone was muttering in an amused voice behind her, and she felt a feeble flit of anger; how would they feel if they had been without water for a week! Or was it that long? It couldn't have been more than three days - there was a rule about that somewhere. Her head hurt.
"Listen, kid, we've got to keep moving." said the same voice that had told her how to drink. Christina didn't think anything had ever sounded less appealing, and she shook her head, still unable to speak.
"I know it's hell." he said quietly; she was sure it was a boy. "But it'll be worse if we don't move. We had to wait awhile for you."
He was making her head spin, so she just shut her eyes and let someone with strong arms pick her up and begin a jog that jolted her aching head and made her feel nauseated again. The sound of running feet followed; there seemed to be more than one person. Yes, of course there were. More than one person had spoken earlier. Why couldn't she think clearly? She wanted more water.
After what seemed an eternity of keeping her mouth firmly closed and trying not to think about her stomach, someone said "that's far enough, isn't it Rye?" and the painful moving stopped. She was put down with a "you're heavy" and she was given a few more precious drops.
"Don't swallow those" she was advised "We have longer to go."
Christina opened her cracked lips and croaked "What...where...who...me..."
"What happened is someone has a damn awful sense of humor. Where you are, you're on level one. Who are we, we're here to bring you up to level three." The answers weren't exactly helpful, but it was comforting to know that someone had understood her garble.
"Your vision should clear in a few seconds." said a young voice helpfully. To Christina's surprise, it did, and the blurry shapes around her solidified as if someone had erased the static outlines.
She was in a stone passage that glowed with an orange light that made the word volcano go off in her mind. The light came in through chinks and cracks in the stone, coloring the walls and floor a dull, musty red.
"Hi there."
She looked up. There were two boys above her, one who looked about sixteen and the other maybe a few years older. Both had oddly flawless, waxy looking skin except for three long scars that ran down the younger one's cheek which looked fake.
"Christina, right?"
"What?" she was surprised and struggled up. Her hair fell in silky lengths to her waste as she shook her head, and vaguely she wondered why it wasn't salt crusted and dirty. She felt her face. It was smooth and free of any kind of blemish.
"Christina Corentine."
"How do you know my name?"
"Right there." one of the boys pointed to her foot. In small, inky black letters was her first and surname tattooed on her heel.
"I don't get it." she said stupidly.
"Welcome to life in The Web." he laughed harshly and held out his hand. "I'm Reilly Derrik."
She shook it absentmindedly and then took the other boy's, the younger one. "Orion Rochester" he said, then pointed out "we need to get going."
"Let's go, then. Can you walk?" Reilly turned to Christina, who felt that she might faint if she even moved another finger.
"Didn't think so. I'll carry her now." Orion picked her up like a sack of meat. "You're pretty young to be stuck here, you know. The other girls are at least twenty."
"Yeah, all three of them. We're mostly boys here. Men, really." Reilly pulled out a cigarette and lit it from one of the cracks in the wall. Christina realized how hot it was and felt sicker.
"Go ahead and faint." Orion said cheerfully. "We'll give you a little more water when you come to. Just rest."
When the black veil had cleared from her vision again, Christina realized how far they must have traveled while she was knocked out. The tunnel was much wider and the light was somehow cleaner and paler. She saw bunches of crystals formed on the rocky walls, and cavernous spaces yawned before her on several sides.
"Morning." Reilly said, handing her the water bottle. "We're almost on level two. Once we're there, just follow our lead. Don't try to do anything stupid. Just let Orion and I handle it."
"Handle what?" Christina let the water drip from her mouth onto the dusty floor, just enjoying the feel of it dribbling around her lips.
"The obstacles." he answered evasively. "We passed three while you were asleep, but it was mostly just following the trail. Level two gets harder."
"What do you mean by levels?" Christina eased herself into sitting position and lay with her head against the wall. Orion came and sat beside her, and gave her a small piece of bread.
"Like a large building, you know? Just different levels. We travel up, and the scenery changes so we call them levels."
"Who's we? How many people are here?"
"A lot. At least twenty, you know, I've never really bothered to count." Orion took a sip from his water bottle. "But there are only three girls, four counting you."
"That's not a lot." Christina's mind flew to sexual violations and inched slightly away from him.
"It's because you need to be tough to survive here, I guess."
"Are they all kids like us?"
"Hey, I'm twenty one." Reilly said coolly, but with a hint of a smile. "But no, not most of them. The age range is from - how old are you?"
"Seventeen. Almost eighteen."
"Sixteen then, sixteen to about fifty three."
"What is this place?"
"The Web, we call it. It was Kyle's idea. Because we're all like flies and somewhere there's a spider watching us and waiting to strike when we pull on the right thread."
Despite the heat, Christina felt cold, frustrated and utterly confused. She noticed that both the boys were wearing a similar outfit to herself. Cream - colored and very light and fine. Almost lacy, like wedding garments, though they both seem to have torn of pieces in efforts to make them more masculine, or perhaps to bear the temperatures more easily.
"Let's get going." Orion said, and got up, crossing to the opposite wall to put his hand on a symbol carved there that looked like a handgun getting eaten by branches. There was a weird ringing noise and a short staircase began to emerge from a long crack in the floor.
"Skip the fourth stair." warned Reilly as he started up. "Max and Alpha both almost died there."
Orion helped her skip the step, and they approached a door in the ceiling that she hadn't noticed before.
"Duck." Reilly said in an almost bored tone, and Orion pushed her down just as a blade came ringing out of nowhere and buried itself in the doorknob where Reilly's head had been an instant before. The door swung open and Reilly pulled himself into the darkness, then reached down a hand to help her up.
The drastic change in temperature made her gasp a little. There was an odd ringing in her head, similar to the one that had opened the door, and when Orion came up he and Reilly quickly dragged her along against the wall.
They were in a wood paneled room with a table and a bed. A candle was lit in the center of the floor, and chill wind swept through cracks in the walls, making the flame shiver but not go out.
"Hurry." Orion ripped open a panel and pulled out two brand new suits of clothes. He and Reilly stripped off their shirts and put on the leather jackets and pants that the new clothes provided. "We'll get you some as soon as we get out of here. Ten, nine, eight..." he began to count down, pulled Christina over to a corner and said "stay there and be quiet."
"Three, two, one." Reilly finished, and the moment he had stopped the candle went out.
The darkness was thick, but there was a crack of light from beneath the door and Christina could see both of the boys' heads nodding in rhythm as if they were counting in their minds. Someone stepped outside the door and seemed to pause, and Christina held her breath. Then the boys each grabbed one of her hands and went for the door.
"Left." hissed Reilly, and they went down a hall of what looked like a medieval hotel. The, without warning, Orion ran into the next room and came dashing back out, clutching a purse. "Got it" he said "let's move."
They went down a set of stairs and reached a long tavern room where people were drinking and making merry. "Act casual." Reilly said and sauntered in, pulling her behind him.
"'ello there, miss." a man said, grinning. "Need a draught?"
"I -" Christina looked at Reilly, who turned to the man. "No, and I'll tell the Maker is you bother us again."
The man paled, and spat. "I don't believe yew know the maker." he sneered.
"Try me." Reilly said softly, and the man stalked off.
"Have to be careful with him. We fought him six times before we figured out what would make him back off." They walked out of the inn, Orion shadowing them closely like a hunter, glancing this way and that at the riotous guests in the room.
"What's going on?" Christina looked around. The garb of the people in the wet cobblestone streets was much like what the boys were wearing, and she felt thin and out of place.
"We have to find Dorcas, she makes the clothes here. She'll get you an outfit."
"She's over here, remember?" Orion pulled out his purse and approached and old woman who was bent over her cart. "Hello, Dorcas." he smiled. "Remember me?"
"No, I don't believe so, young master." she scrutinized him closely. "Are you a nephew?"
"No, ma'am." he seemed a bit crestfallen and glanced at Riley. "A suit of clothes for the girl, please."
"That's four coppers, sir."
"So cheap." he murmured, counting out the coins.
"I don't do the work for money, sir." Dorcas smiled sweetly and pulled out a jacket and pants for Christina. "You can change over there, miss, to preserve your modesty."
Blushing, Christina thanked her and went into the abandoned building that the woman had indicated. She stripped off the dress and felt it's folds between her fingers before she pulled on the jacket and pants. They were warm and felt heavy-duty, almost as if they were bullet proof. Stripping off a piece of her dress, she tied up her hair in a ponytail since the wind kept beating it into her face.
Reilly and Orion were talking right outside the door.
"So, you've been here before?" she asked as way of letting them know that she was there. They turned to look at her.
"I've been here twelve times, actually. Reilly's been here eight." Orion looked her up and down. "Good. Just leave the dress, I doubt you'll be a scout. Come on, then."
"Why doesn't Dorcas recognize you?"
"I don't know." he said shortly. "I talk to he nearly every time, so it makes no sense. Everyone here, everyone we talk to, they always say the same thing and have the same reactions to everything we say. It's like we're in a movie or something. There are horses in here." he rapped on a stable door. A thin, reedy voice called out "password?"
"The Spangled Bandit send us." he recited dully. The window opened.
"Who's there?"
"Orion Rochester with Reilly Derrik and Christina Corentine. We need three horses."
"I can't ride." Christina murmured, but Reilly waved that aside and took her wrist. The door opened and a weedy man leered at them. "Anything for those sent from the Spangled Bandit." he smiled. "Come along and choose any nag you want."
"Get the three black ones, they blend in best." Reilly helped Christina mount. "If you see an apple on a tree, grab it. Don't worry about the bats, Orion will take care of them. We'll stop by the river in a few minutes. Don't worry" he smiled slightly "I think you'll find out riding is pretty easy. Everyone seems to know how to do it here."
And to her shock, he was right. It was as if she had known all her life.
"Can I name him?" she called to Reilly as they went over the wet countryside, stars rising in the sky.
"No." he shouted back.
"Why?"
"Trust me, just don't."
But in her mind, she named her black stallion Vulcan.
The ride must have been far but it didn't feel like it. They seemed to go inhumanely fast over the hills, and it wasn't long before Reilly called for a stop beside a ribbon that rushed like a ribbon of darkness itself through the night. Orion was far ahead, circling back and going forward again like a bird of prey.
"Everything's clear." he called when he came back and dismounted, an armload of bats. "I got bitten by one, but nothing a couple drops of nectar won't heal." he pulled out a small vial of golden liquid from his pouch and dripped it onto his arm. Steam billowed up and he winced, but when the smoke cleared his face, which had been drawn with pain, was relaxed. "You and Christina sleep, Rye. I'll watch."
"You always watch."
"There's a reason I've been doing this for longer than you." he smiled slightly. "Get some sleep. Azazel will be here soon."
Christina did not know nor care who Azazel was. Black spots had begun to dance before her eyes, and she she drank and ate a bit of the bat meat that Orion cooked, her exhaustion overcame her.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
The Beach
Christina woke up on September the twenty ninth in the middle of the ocean, and she was quite certain that she had not fallen asleep there. Floundering in the middle of vast, rolling blue waves and spitting out salty water, her first thought was of sharks, their great dorsal fins encompassing her helpless form, and she, bare legs flapping in the dark water, unable to see where or when they would strike. She then began to question the reality of her situation - perhaps this was a dream; yes, it had to be that. People did not fall asleep in the ocean, much less wake up from a sleep in one.
There was a spat of land a few miles to her northeast - or perhaps it was the southwest; Christina’s sense of direction had never been acute. With a muttered prayer she struck out in the direction of the land mass, cutting through the water as best she could in her - what was she in? Peering down at herself, Christina saw that she was attired in a sort of white dress, and its creamy folds were billowing about her, making her feel like a melting marshmallow. It was very lacy, frilly, and long, and Christina thought it rather tasteless and too girly for anyone with taste. There was, however, little time to waste on pondering the oddness of her situation when her arms were already beginning to tire and she had barely swum two yards.
There is something intrinsically frightening about deep water. Whether dangerous or odd creatures swim it or not, the idea of drifting along in an unfathomable depth of crushing black water, alone, without even a branch of driftwood for support, and nothing between you and the merciless tide is not often a welcome one to even the most courageous of people. Christina had never deemed herself courageous, and she continually imagined something striking her from below, rushing upward in a ghastly silence, and then with an earsplitting crack breaking the surface upon her, spraying her with stinging water and bringing down mighty jaws and fins upon her fragile human body. At any moment she might see something moving that was not the waves, creeping eerily closer in the slightest ripple of the water, striking fear into her heart with the sheer inability to do anything about it. In a split second, an unannounced colossal head might emerge right next to her, and what could she do but scream? The stillness of the vast sheets of water around her was terrifying; the only noise to break the stillness were her own tinny breaths, struggling feebly to motivate her to land.
Christina became vaguely aware of a sensical watchfulness, as if something was peering at her from a hiding place. Immediately she turned in the water, splashing and gasping, just waiting to see that flick of a tail that meant her doom was near. But the water was still and undisturbed. With renewed vigor spurred by fear, Christina again swam for shore. Her legs were beginning to stiffen and not respond, and her arms burned with a fire that the cold water would not soothe; and yet her mind was so iron-willed not to die in this ridiculous, completely inexplicable situation that she found strength in desperation, and the tide began to help, speeding her progress and giving her needed motivation. Her lungs began to sear, and about a mile offshore she stopped, and shut her eyes, trying to float, trying not to think of sinking into the silent water, deep and dark, immersing herself in its blanket of cool serenity, just letting her aching muscles relax and rest, but when she began to go under, a terrible fear of the beautiful power that lay under the waves forced her cramped limbs to begin frantically splashing and paddling again. Black spots began to sprinkle themselves into her vision, and more than once a splash of salt water made her dry mouth gag and choke. The pain in her limbs was forgotten in the fiery agony of her chest, making deep breaths and a smooth oxygen flow difficult.
And then, when she felt her eyes begin to cross and waves of dizziness as violent as the ocean water surge over her, her toes brushed sand. Relieved, she looked down, and saw that she had reached a sandbar. Christina stumbled on until she could sit without her head going under, and collapsed, waist deep in the green-blue water winking naughtily at her from the reflecting sun’s rays. Her shaking arms and legs began to relax as she slowly gathered her strength for those last long yards to the shore.
Imagine the horror she felt when the sand bar beneath her erupted in a thick geyser of wet sand, being tossed twelve feet into the air like a thick pillar and then falling heavily down on her like hailstones, weighing her head and exhausted body down. Gasping and scrabbling at her eyes to clear them, Christina saw a deep jagged crack in the sand, as if someone had taken a serrated knife to the bar. It rippled oddly under the water, making it seem like the shadows inside were shifting and moving. Still attempting to wash huge globs of sand off of her body, Christina peered down into it.
A single, vast black eye opened directly beneath her left hand.
Not even strong enough to scream, Christina instead gave a sort of guttural gasp and fell back clawing her way to standing, grabbing bunches of her garment into her arms and running along the bar towards land, forcing her weary feet just one step further, another inch, another foot, slowly growing closer, nothing in her mind but blank terror and a need to escape.
And then the sandbar ended in a drop off. Christina tripped on the edge and plunged into the blue sea, sinking down into it. It was so quiet there under the water, and if she had been in the state of mind to think, she might have considered staying there forever. As it was, she fought violently for the surface, her wet dress dragging her down, making no noise in her vicious gestures to swim back up; but her endurance had not yet given out, and she at last broke through, the itchy sand mercifully washed from her body. Treading water, Christina turned herself about and looked back at the sandbar.
A vast, glittering grey shape with mother-of pearl skin and horns was rising from the crack, water cascading in torrents from it’s body as it rose, higher and higher. At any moment Christina expected it to stop, but it simply kept going, shooting up into the sky like a skyscraper to the moon. A serpent, huge and terrible, with an inky black eye that had nothing but wanton animal hunger.
And Christina, wallowing in her blatantly white dress, probably looked very tasty. She turned and began to swim with all her might towards the island, not even noticing her pain, with land the only goal in a mind wiped clean with fear. How close it had seemed before, and yet it appeared to get no closer in her painfully slow progress. She refused to look behind her again, but she could imagine the snake at last ceasing it’s upward charge, and then blinking, looking about, and seeing her, a tiny cream blob in a vast plain of blue, swimming pathetically for shore. It would be coiling now, opening it’s mouth, preparing to dive down and chew her up with it’s needle-like teeth.
And then suddenly, wonderfully, her feet scraped against bare rock. She had reached the shallows, and began to run in the neck deep water, pulling her cumbersome gown along, splashing along, her feet bruising and bludgeoning against the ragged rock bottom. Seaweed coiled about her legs and hindered her progress - the water was filling her dress and making it balloon out behind her. Still she scrabbled along as the water got shallower and shallower, changing from its majestic blue to the green brown of sand and vegetation.
A devastatingly loud sound, high pitched like the shriek of a woman, in a long unbroken note dotted with a noise like the pistons of a train letting off steam caused Christina to let go of her fistfuls of fabric and cover her ears, moving even slower towards the shore. The serpent, she realized, was hissing its rage and hunger.
And then the water was ankle deep, and her feet touched dry sand, and she was running without the water flowing against her, only the salty air whipping her face, streaking towards the shelter of a huge land formation, red and purple rocks piled high on top of each other. There seemed to be nothing else upon the bit of land at all, but Christina did not bother to explore. She threw herself behind the first rock that faced the sea and flattened herself against it, panting, choking; she then threw her head forward and vomited on the clean sand. Wiping her mouth, she pulled the folds of her dress back towards her to hide them as well and held them in her arms. Water dripped down and hit a little shelf of rock near her knee with a steady pitter-patter. There was no other sound.
A mighty crash on the shore told her that the snake had thrust its head onto the sand in search for her. But it could not find her, and because of her time in the ocean she knew that she smelled just like the rest of the land - fishy and salty. There was no indication that the serpent slid back into the sea, but five minutes later Christina poked her head around, the the beach was deserted. She waited a moment longer before coming fully into view and prepared to run, but animals are not like humans - if they’re prey disappears, it is gone, and they do not lie in wait for it to return. The creature had returned to its home.
Christina fell down onto the beach and closed her eyes; now that the imminent danger was past, all her pain on her body came back. Shutting her eyes and nestling into the warm sand, Christina panted and tried to slow her breathing and pounding heart, letting her tense body relax and calm itself. It took a long time of lying in the sun as if dead, not moving a muscle, wishing she would sleep.
But her mental state was far from her physical. Question burned at her mind as steadily as the sun burned her Irish skin, and after approximately half an hour she sat up, then got up and walked down towards the water.
The sky was a dazzling Caribbean blue, and the water stretched as far as she could see in sparkling hues of deep blue and purple. Small white capped waves foamed lazily towards shore, and farther out the golden sheen on the sand bar rippled innocently.
And yet, a beautiful as the water was, it was dreary and sad. The sea grass waved in the wind that mourned and cried with every breath, and the lonely cry of a gull pierced the otherwise quiet air. Christina saw, for the first time, a lighthouse that stood solitary and desolate on a rocky arm. It was battered and dirty; dust and grease clouded the windows that had once shown the light, and the white stone of which it was made had been scratched and broken by the constant lashing of the sea storms, and perhaps the sea creature that lurked beneath the waves. Christina shuddered and turned away, to look across the island. It was very small, so small that she could see the glimmer of the sea on the opposite shore. All that blocked a clear line of sight were the odd rock formations that twisted around each others in the middle of the isle. Some were rough and some were smooth - Christine guessed that once they had simply been a single massive rock, but corroded over time to the contorted shapes they were today. That was the extent of the landscape, but the lighthouse proved that at least once someone had come here.
Christina took a good look at her body; she fingered the end of her hair and tried not to imagine how it looked, then examined her dress. It was a simple cut, tight at the bust and waist, then flowing out in folds that Christina thought must once have been silky and soft but were now stiff with salt. There were three cloth buttons on the breast, and lines of foamy lace were interspersed in the two foot long train. Christina saw that while in the back the dress was long, it barely came down to the top of her knees in the front. A sort of high-low wedding dress? Christina didn’t remember getting married, and knew that even if she had been she would have chosen a more tasteful style.
What happened to me? she wondered, sitting down again and trying vainly to pull up the front of the dress, even though no one else was around. She threw back her memory as best she could, trying to recall something before she had landed in the ocean. Her name was Christina, but she couldn’t remember a last name. She was a modest but fashionable dresser, because she didn’t like this dress and it was about as far from both as you got. She was...what? Seventeen, she was sure, though she had a feeling her birthday was soon. And it was September the twenty-ninth. It was a pathetic amount of information, and Christina could remember nothing of family, a house, school, friends, a room or a toy or trinket. There was an empty feeling in her stomach, not because she was sad about losing these things but because she was sad that she could not remember what they were. Her entire life was now her name, an ugly dress and September.
Her mind burned too much, and she was too tired and thirsty to think clearly, so Christina got up and decided to look for water on the other side of the island. Perhaps the lighthouse would have been an easier choice, but something about its mournful stature made her wary to go anywhere near it, much less go inside and poke around. Therefore she shook off her weariness and began her hike towards to opposite end of the island. The skeletal rocks arched high above her like the burned red rib cage of a great beast that had died on this godforsaken island. Christina brushed one with the edge of her fingertips as she passed, felt the warm, smooth rock that came off in a chalky red dust on her hand, touched the layers that were piled on top of one another like brick-colored pancakes.
It didn’t take long to reach the other side, but Christina’s throat was already burning, and it became apparent that this side of the beach was a mirror image of the other, with the exception of the lighthouse. There wasn’t even a branch of driftwood with which to make a fire, and Christina would not have gone back into that sea for all the water in the world.
She made her way back and sat in the sand, staring at the brilliant sky and trying to figure out a way to get off of the island. It seemed a completely hopeless situation, because she did not know either how she had gotten here or where “here” was. No hope of a boat, and by the looks of it small hope of getting rescued. If she had not been so dehydrated and exhausted she would have cried; as it was, she crept close to one of the rocks and put her head in the warm sand, closing her eyes and forcing the sensation of acid trickling down her throat to the back of her mind. The sun seemed to sear her eyelids, making the light an ugly ochre color - but despite her discomfort, her exhaustion won over her body and she fell asleep in the golden sand.
It was her thirst that woke her many hours later, as the sun was sinking down into the sea and the sky was aflame with scarlet, pink and orange colors, as if someone had taken a match to the heavens. The water was becoming darker, and Christina peeled her eyes for a sign of the beast that dwelt in the sandbar, but nothing moved beneath the midnight blue waves.
No hope of water made Christina want to throw herself on the sand and scream, but she feared that the noise might arouse the creature, and anyway her bones ached too much to move, so she contented herself with creeping back into the shadow of the rocks and trying once again to fall asleep. The night was steadily closing in, and the silence made Christina want to cry. Even the seagull had flown away, and the shape of the lonely lighthouse towering on the bay filled her with sadness. It wasn't long until she couldn't see it at all.
Christina woke suddenly - had she fallen asleep again? - to a terrific crash that jolted her out of her uneasy sleep. Blearily she looked around, but it was still dark. Peering up at the sky she saw storm clouds gathering in angry, billowing folds, tinted with red and purple. Flashes of lightning could be seen through them - Christina was quite sure that normal storm clouds didn't roll and tumble in that sickening fashion. She stood up and dusted the sand from her skin and hair - some had even gotten in her mouth, and it was coarse and grainy. Spitting it out as she stumbled along the beach, Christina looked out to the ocean. The water was churning like an invisible finger was spinning and splashing it, and the wind coming from the sea was picking up steadily, whipping the sand against her legs and face, forcing her to cover her eyes as it grated harshly on her skin. Through the cracks in her fingers she watched looked for a place to shelter in in case of rain. The lighthouse was the obvious choice, yet she still felt a sinister vibe coming off of it, so instead she turned her back to the wind and let it rake along her shoulder blades as she reached the rocks, and flattened herself against a particularly large, overarching sculpture that diverted the sand. It was there that she sat for what felt like several hours. Christina sang every song she knew, though she didn’t know how she knew them, and sang them again. This did not appease her throat, which with every song became more inflamed and raw. She began to feel distinctly dizzy; the idea of going to find water in the lighthouse became more and more appealing, but she was unable to loose the feeling that somehow that was exactly what she was supposed to do, what someone wanted her to do, and therefore she should avoid it as much as possible.
But how long she would last, Christina did not know. She began to retch a bit on the second day of her entrapment on the island, and though the skies promised clean, freshwater rain, the cloud never opened and the downpour never came. Christina spent the long hours in torturous thirst, crouched against her rock, thinking of useless ways to escape as the sand blew and the thunder crashed. And always the lighthouse stood, promising hope of living, and Christina would turn her gaze away and focus upon drawing pictures in the sand and imagining a little stream of ice water trickling down her throat. The rule of three - three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food - was vying for the forefront of her thoughts, and she found herself daydreaming about turning into the rocky red bones for the next poor soul doomed to this place.
On the third day, Christina fainted.
She came to in what looked like many hours later, with her legs half covered in the sand, and weakly pushed herself up onto her elbows. As she gazed through the whirling sand at the beach, she thought longingly of water and the lighthouse was so tempting, so near...but how could she know if there was water in it at all? Quite possibly it was as empty as the rest of the island; quite probably, she thought. She could see the ocean, still spinning into small whirlpools and then dispersing again, crashing against each other and spraying sheets of water everywhere. The purple clouds seemed angry at her; impatient, almost, and they growled menacingly.
With a terrible crack and a blinding flash of light, a ball of lightning collided with one of the rock structures and crumbled it into ash. The broken pieces smouldered in front of her, breaking down into powder and getting swept up in the wild wind, blowing against her face. It was hot. Terrified, Christina stared at the sky, where the angry clouds were at last rolling together so tightly that they opened, and began to empty the rain that had been building inside them for so long.
Christina ran from the shelter of her rock, astonished at her speed, and staggered to the beach, where swollen whitecaps burst on the shore and licked at her feet. She threw up her head and opened her mouth, sticking out her purple tongue like a child, but this was inefficient and she tasted nothing. Cupping her hands, she held them up, and caught the fast falling rain. When they were only a quarter full, she stuck her face into them and drank.
Coughing and retching she emerged, the water dripping from her face as she knelt on the shore and gagged, bitter disappointment, pain and hopelessness burning her eyes. It was salt water. After all she had waited, all she had suffered, the refreshing rain was undrinkable. Her throat seemed twice as dry as the salt evaporated any trace of moisture left, and Christina stomped her foot and screamed, kicking at the sand and grabbing fistfulls of it, throwing it around as the rain pounded around her and the sky rumbled and flashed.
The terrible sound she had heard two days ago suddenly split the air, and she stopped her rampage to look out across the raging water. The twisted neck of the serpent was rising from the sandbar, silhouetted against the ugly clouds, rain distorting its horrible figure.
With a brilliant flash, the sky sent down another ball of fire that landed quite near to where Christina stood. She was flung aside at the impact, and lay face down, trying to muster the courage, strength and even volition to get up. She lifted her head, and saw that she was facing the lighthouse, scarred with many a storm that had tried to get inside, but had never succeeded. As she stared at those eerie windows, her resolve melted away, and she got up, flung an elbow over her face to block the grit and ran for the door.
Once inside, the pounding of the storm was dulled to a dull roar. Amazing at the sudden silence, Christina tentatively poked her head from her arm, and began to brush the sand from her face and clothes. She was in the base of the lighthouse, a circular kitchen-and-sitting room with a winding staircase in the center of the the floor, dimly lit by the violet-grey light that filtered through the grimy windows. A stove, a sink and an oven were to her right, all cast-iron and in pale pastel colors that looks as if they simply didn’t belong against the black-painted walls. The stove was missing a leg, and the towel rack on the oven had broken, leaving the towels in a dirty heap on the dusty stone tile. Christina approached the sink and turned on the faucet, barely daring to hope, but nothing came out. She ran a hand over her eyes and felt her fatigue threatening unconsciousness again - quickly she made her way to the couch that faced the kitchen and sat down. The cushions were covered in soft plaid cloth, and they sank down pleasantly when she took her seat. Christina wanted to stay there forever, but as she was about to close her eyes, something caught her gaze; a small piece of fluttering white paper, caught in the throes of a breeze that came from a crack in the wall. Willing herself to move, she got up and crawled rather than walked over behind the chiffon armchair where the she had seen it.
Taped to the tile was what looked like a page from Madeline L'Engle's’ A Wrinkle in Time; the first page, if Christina correctly remembered the text, beginning with the words “It was a dark and stormy night”. Ironic, she thought grimly, and fear pulsed through her veins as she wondered if perhaps it was not ironic at all.
Scrawled on the paper in block letter were the words “Emergency Water Supply” - words were so wonderful she almost laughed. And yet still, in the midst of her suffering, she waited and poked the paper tentatively, and searched for a copy of the book as if in hopes that the page was legitimate. It was nowhere to be found, and Christina took to staring at the black ink that made up the letter. The page lay on top of an iron ring that no doubt led to a cellar, a cellar full of water, clear, sweet water that would make her live again, help her get strength to somehow escape this island prison. Christina listened to the drumming rain, and, her head spinning in another fainting fit, at last gave in and pulled hard on the ring. A square in the floor comprised of nine tiles came up with it, revealing a cavity that was full of darkness.
Her instincts ignored since she had gone this far, Christina only briefly wondered how deep it was and if it would break her legs if she jumped before she gathered her train and lowered herself down until she hung by her arms. Her feet did not touch any floor, and she was beginning to have misgivings, but in her weakened condition there was nothing for it, and her fingers slipped. Then she was falling, falling, and had promptly decided as she plummeted to her death that there was no water here at all, and regretted the fact that her bones wouldn't be making an architectural addition to the island, when she hit something that sagged with her weight and tossed her back into the air like a spongy trampoline. It was a net, and beneath it someone was laughing.
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