Aestus, Book 1: The City

Aestus, Book 1: The City | Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Everything was dark.

Jossey wasn't sure she was still breathing.

Everything was dark, and heavy, and she felt as if one of the tunnels had collapsed on her. Something was warm, all over her hands and her arms, and she wondered if maybe it was her blanket overheating again. She tried to shake her head, but found she couldn't move.

Something smelled terrible, rank. Something very close. She could feel it filling up her nostrils. From somewhere high above came the murmur of voices.

She tried to speak, but she couldn't find the air. Her chest felt as if someone were standing on it.

In the darkness, she felt a slight breeze, drifting across her left hand. Just barely. Desperate, she tried to move her fingers.

The voices above her stopped. She tried harder. One finger felt half-broken.

She gritted her teeth and forced it to move.

There was a muffled exclamation from above, and then the weight was being pulled off her, and with a sharp pain in her chest and a gasping rush of cool air to her lungs she could breathe again.

She lay there for a moment, choking, inhaling dust, then rolled over and groaned as pain seeped through her body. Wherever she was, it was very dark, with an odd flickering in the air. She wasn't home, she thought.

The ground beneath her was rocky, gritty. It smelled of dirt and that rank odor. Next to her hand, the remains of a flare smoldered on the ground, bits of hot ash scattered and glowing gently.

She rolled onto her back again and blinked up at the half-familiar faces staring down at her, four images resolving into two and then blurring again. Her head was killing her. "What's going on? Who are you?"

The younger man's brow furrowed. She didn't think she recognized him. The older one was white as a sheet. He looked more familiar, if blurry. Percy? Patrick? She could not remember.

She turned her head to the right and jumped, leaping backward with a shriek.

An Onlar was lying facedown next to her, very definitely not breathing. Jossey pushed herself to a sitting position, inching away from the Onlar, and cradled her head in her left hand as the light from the flare wavered in and out, pulsing unpleasantly in the background.

She realized she was gripping a knife in her right hand. The blade and her arms and torso were covered in blood.

She leaned over and was violently sick on the stone.

The reddish light from the flare was still flickering over the tunnel walls as she tried to collect herself. Why was one of the creatures from the aboveground – She tried to remember. Her head throbbed where she had struck it against the tunnel floor.

"You saved us," the older man said quietly. Perkins, she thought she remembered. She opened half an eye, wincing, and looked up at him. "Who are you?" she repeated.

"Don't you remember?" The younger one.

His uniform said SOLAR CREW 35. Not her crew, then. Sharp silver eyes probed her face. "The accident? The transport?" he said urgently. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

At the word "transport," memories came flooding back, along with a surge of adrenaline that made Jossey grip the knife so hard she thought the handgrip would cut her palm.