Steel Horizon

Chapter Four

We were both frozen, staring at each other. His face was a mirror image of mine, though I wasn't sure why. Maybe he thought he was the only living person here, and wasn't expecting to find someone else still alive. I would've been shocked too. I was shocked, just for a different reason.

I knew I shouldn't trust him. I didn't trust Scrappers; no one did and no one should. His arm was not human, and the was evidence right there in front of me, marking him a Scrapper. He had to be.

But something about him was different.

Looking past his metal arm, he was just a boy who was as afraid as I was, his eyes filled with the same fear and horror. His torso was bare with loose jeans that hung low on his hips, and his skin glistened with sweat. Smears of oil covered most of his body, outlining the curves of his muscles and chest which fell and dropped rapidly with every breath.

He was human. Even if it wasn't true, I made myself believe it. I needed to believe in something—anything—and this was the best possible answer.

"What happened to you?" I asked, my voice dry and barely audible.

I couldn't stop looking at his arm; the thing I always shied away from and feared. Always being a symbol of death for us all.

He shook his head and whispered, "I don't know."

He meant it.

They did something to him to make him like this.

Where his arm and shoulder connected to his body, the metal seemed like it had attached itself to him, tendrils grabbing onto parts of his shoulder and disappearing beneath his skin. The outer metal plating mimicked his opposite arm, the muscles flowing smoothly and the joints perfectly aligned. The arm itself was actually quite stunning, and not at all ugly like how I saw them on Scrappers.

I couldn't stop staring. His skin outlined the steel with only dark bruises that would someday disappear, but it was otherwise flawless. It wasn't grotesque and bloody, which confused me more than anything. If he was human, how did he become like this?

I finally met his gaze again. There were dark circles under his eyes, fresh with exhaustion.

He swallowed. "We need to get out of here."

A high-pitched alarm pierced the air, making him flinch. A red light flashed down through the grated ceiling above us, pulsing in time with the sound. Panic spread across his face another noise echoed down the corridor behind the closed door.

They were coming.

He took an involuntary step towards the opposite door, still staring at where he came from, and I panicked for a moment, thinking he was going to leave me in this place.

Then he looked at me again. He put aside his own fear for a moment, remembering he wasn't alone in this place. He wouldn't leave; I could see it in his eyes. We were in this together, we would be no better than them if we weren't. They leave their kind behind for the least of reasons, and they didn't know the meaning of relationships. Even their so-called intelligent brains couldn't comprehend the meaning.

That was the major difference between us and them; we were able to love and feel something worth feeling. All they knew was science.

The boy stepped towards me and when he reached out his metal arm, I shied away. Even in his human form, my mind still screamed to run. He paused, unsure and his eyebrows knitted together as he studied me. His gaze slowly dropped down onto his hand as the realization hit him. It's like he had forgot it was there, just for a moment.

He came towards me again and I managed not to shy away this time. I promised myself not to flinch, to think of anything except his metal hand reaching for me. He crouched so his legs were almost touching mine and slowly reached his hands up to the shackles holding my wrists in place. He was so close. I could feel his body heat and his warm breath on my skin.

Metal clicked and my hands were free. Pins and needles ran through my arms as blood brought life into them again.

I said, "Thank you."

We both stood as anything noise echoed down the hall, right outside the door he came from.

The boy spoke again. "We have to go."

Neither of us waited for a response and we moved for the opposite door, not knowing if it was the way out, as long as it went somewhere. He pulled the door open, using his metal arm, and he latched it once we were on the other side.

We turned to face the hallway and escaped still seemed impossible. There was left and right, and we had no idea which way led out.

A crash came from behind the door, causing us to jump away and stare at the metal frame. They were already on the other side.

"Come on," he said, and took a step deeper into the dark hall, away from the crashing door.

I followed him as he took the left. We ran as the hallway broke off a dozen times, forking off into different directions, or just stopping altogether by a locked door. We just turned around and kept going when we met dead ends.

We never stopped, not caring we had no idea which way led out. We could have been running deeper into the complex for all we knew. It didn't matter. The alarm still blared above but just our own footsteps seemed to be following us in the dark shadows.

He stopped short and I almost ran into his back, not expecting the sudden halt. I glanced over my shoulder, hoping nothing would step out of the shadowed hallway behind us.

"Which way do you think leads out?" he asked.

I looked around him at another identical fork. Before now, I'd been following his lead.

"Left," I said, without any reason.

"Left it is then." He nodded once, out of breath just like me. We were both weak, even though we hadn't been here long. They probably didn't keep humans much more than a day so we would still have our strength when they wanted us alive the most.

So we went left and started running again.

Somewhere behind us, there was a crash.

We came to another door and unlike all the others, it wasn't locked.

We burst from the blackness into a white, blinding light, causing me to stumble with a hand over my stinging eyes. The door swung shut behind us, totally forgotten now that we were standing under the open sky, no longer in the building we definitely would've died in.

Frozen air struck my lungs and dry throat like a stabbing knife, and my body shook violently, shocked from the rapid temperature change. The blistering wind tore through my clothes as if they were made from nothing, biting at my sweating skin.

I looked to the boy next to me with the wind blowing my hair into my face. I'd forgotten he didn't have a shirt, but he didn't seem concerned. His hands were in fists, his short hair flying wildly, and his eyes were forward.

I turned and the fear that was beginning to slip away with the strong wind, came rushing back.

We hadn't escaped yet.