2136: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (Book 1 of the 2136 Trilogy)

CHAPTER 6 - Part I

When you die, do you feel it?

I felt the pounding in my chest before I saw his face. My ribs felt like someone had poured gasoline into my lungs and lit the match. My entire chest screamed in agony with every push of his palms.

My first breath came as a gasp and then an uncontrollable whopping cough. He turned my body over on its side and patted my back.

"Get it all out." I heard him encouraging. He continued to tap the groove between my shoulder blades with his hand until I stopped gagging up black water.

My eyes finally opened and I saw the terror and relief on his face. I remember thinking, if he keeps this up, he's going to age fifty years before the year is up. Never mind that I didn't remember anything past falling down the hole, or spitting out some mysterious dark liquid that I had no recollection of ever swallowing. Never mind my just dying. No, obviously there were more important matters to think about, like Roxx's unnatural aging. What would that make me? Some twisted nihilist or vanity induced narcissist that cares more about others than herself? 

What a strange paradox. Who would have thought falling down a black chute and dying would turn me into an existentialist. I didn't know whether I was insane or just hyper sensitive to the features of men these days. Either way, I'm sure it's not a good thing.

That's it. I'm an oxymoron. A tadpole stuck in the footprint of man, unable to move, trapped in my own solitary with only one savior to rescue me: the man who imprinted my new home.

I rolled over and saw Roxx staring at me with those dark eyes I grew fond of long ago. He was so handsome despite his age. His features were still strong, and his figure chiseled from the constant pounding, ripping, and forging of metal as a Metallic. The secret to staying fit and skinny: work in a furnace and pound metal objects all day with a hammer and tongs. That was it. I just solved the epidemic that had stifled the entire world in the 21st century! Unfortunately, I was a century too late. The cracked ozone solved it for us. Now we were all walking skeletons.

I saw Roxx's hand on my arm even though I couldn't feel it at first.

"You aren't looking too good." I said.

His one dimple peaked its head through the week's worth of hair on his face as he allowed himself a half smile.

"I think I could say the same for you" he smirked. "How are you feeling?"

His eyes darted along my body, lingered on my leg, then back to my eyes.

"What happened?" I said. "I remember the cord starting to snap and falling." At least I thought I had fell.

The feeling was gradually coming back to my limbs. I felt him give me a firm squeeze just above the elbow.

"The wire is fine." he said.

But how? I distinctly remembered feeling a jolt on my body as if I was being yanked down into the chasm.

He must have sensed my confusion.

"The cord didn't snap, but the remnants of the building must have shifted over the years and the exposure to the heat caused the metal to stretch. The cord had too much slack and you fell a hundred feet without any support." It sounded robotic the way he said it. You fell a hundred feet without any support. Oh, is that all? Well, thank you for the clarity.

He brushed a strand of my auburn hair to the side allowing both my eyes to have full vision.

"Luckily, your ankle got caught in the excess and when the cord had finally ran out of its extra slack, it yanked your body along with it."

You gotta love Roxx. Always the optimist even to a fault. I swear, if his mother were still around she'd have given him a good whacking across the back of the head. Luckily? Who was he kidding!

My head felt like two freight trains from a hundred and twenty years ago had played patty-cake with my skull. My vision was blurry at best. All I could really make out for the time-being were shapes and hues. Or was it just that dark down here? I could only imagine what my balance would be like if my vision was this skewed.

His eyes had a glaze about them as if he was going to cry.

"It saved your life." he said.

My arm was fully functional now and I could feel everything. Trust me, not a good thing. All I could feel was the pressure in the side of my head, and the vibrant heat ensuing up my thigh. I couldn't even feel my foot past that. I tried to sit up but felt a surge of pain shoot down my leg. Yup, I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon without help.

"Don't move." he said. "Your ankle could be broken."

Oh? Is that why my foot feels dead? Thanks for the free diagnosis, Doc.

He helped me to a sitting position and I leaned my full weight against the wall. The cold stone felt good against my cheek. Through the dim light filtering from the propane lantern he had lit, I assume he had, otherwise we weren't the only ones down here, I saw that we were in some kind of a tunnel system.

"What is this place?" I asked. I grimaced as needles shot through my temple. My vision instantly worsened.

He turned and peered down the corridor leading into more darkness.

"It's an old friend." he said, and left it at that.

Good. An old friend. A dark, menacing, cold, damp friend who had tried to kill me. Glad to see you have some good friends.

I'm not sure what has gotten into me. I'm not normally this pessimistic. I must have really dislodged something in my brain when I hit the wall. Yeah, that was it. It's the wall's fault. Glad we worked that out, now let's move on.