Sanctuary. That was what the quarantine dome was supposed to be, a place of refuge from the N-Gel and the deadly Neoplague they unleashed on the world.
But we aren't safe here.
Senna is uprooted from her rural life in the outer dome when her mother...
The sky stretched out over Senna, a twinkling field of lights hanging over the vacant skeleton of human civilization. And in that field hung a pale white disk, casting light and shadows in the eerily empty world beyond. Senna had never seen a real sky before, a sky that wasn't held up by thick metal bars. It was breathtaking—a sharp awe-inspiring contrast to the panicked racing of her heart.
Sanctuary's night sky was black as pitch. On the Rim nothing glittered, it simply fell dark. In Central the blue moss had shown, casting a universal night light over the city. But out in the world, the true world—whose name had been forgotten to time—the sky shimmered and shone. In the absence of society it felt like it was all hers. The moon lit the path only for her. The stars twinkled and winked at her, singing their welcoming support. The dust and fear settled behind her. She took a deep breath, her eyes falling back to the blue line that pulled her forward.
In that glittering night, with nothing but the rumble of the bike, there was an odd sort of peace. Had her father fallen in love with the sky? Had he looked out in wonder over the graveyard of crumbling buildings, imagining them full of life and technology?
When he lay dying, had the stars lulled him to sleep?
"Sera?" Senna tried, smothered by the emptiness of the world and the fullness of her thoughts.
"Yes?"
"Can you call Wrench for me?"
"Why?"
Why? The reasons spun through her head. To tell her that she was outside and scared, but the stars were beautiful? Or maybe to distract her from thoughts of her father and provide some kind of company, some aching closeness in all the distance. To say goodbye? That thought chilled her, straight down her spine and into her gut.
"I don't know. Does it matter?"
"I'll try," Sera agreed and for a long moment Senna was back in the lonely silence, the vacant peace. "There's no response."
"Oh," Senna mumbled, her disappointment a lump in her throat that she tried to swallow with a nervous gulp. "Okay. Can you uh... try again?"
"I guess." Sera sounded hesitant, but after a pause there was a ring and the quick click of the call being picked up before the first ring had finished.
"Senna?!" Wrench asked in a voice that was more like a demand.
"Yeah."
"Oh thank Health. Where are you?"
"Yeah so uh, about that..." Senna trailed off, suddenly unsure as to how to break the news. At least it was better than the silence.
"Where?" Wrench repeated, insistently.
"I'm sort of... outside the dome?"
"WHAT!?"
"Don't worry! I'm in a suit, I'm fine."
"You are not fine you are out of your Health-forsaken mind! Get your ass back in the dome right now young lady or so help me!"
"I can't! There was this guy who followed me and he tried to take me back to Zed and I fought him and ran and I'm way outside the dome now and I can't just go back when I've come this far and when people are after me and—"
"Okay okay, breathe."
Senna took a breath.
"How are you holding up?"
"I'm fine, I guess. It's pretty out here. Dark and empty and scary, but pretty."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Are you really determined to do this, then?"
"Yeah."
"Even if it's a trap?"
"Yeah."
A sigh fanned against the microphone in a burst of tired static.
"Alright. Well your oxygen tank is set up on a rebreathing system. The air you breathe out is recycled and a much smaller amount of oxygen is pulsed back in when you inhale, only enough to compensate for what doesn't recycle. Everything should adjust on its own, but if any of the alarms go off stay calm, take deep breaths, and call me. Okay? I can walk you through it."
"Okay."
"Good. Now if the whole system works as it should, there should be about 24 hours on that tank, but the filters might go bad before then. To be safe you should be back in the dome in 12 hours, got that?"
"That should be more than enough time," Senna said, though she wasn't entirely sure. She had never travelled this far on her bike. She wasn't even sure it could go the whole difference on one tank of water.
"Good. Then just worry about that. Get in, get out, get home. And be safe. Understood?"
"Understood."
"I'll distract them on this end of things, keep them from sending too many people after you. I'll make it so they can't focus on you."
"How are you going to do that?"
"I don't know. Maybe I'll start a revolution."
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(Author's Note: Another short chapter! Maybe I'll post Chapter Nineteen in the next few days to make up for it. Could be a Trick... or a Treat? Don't forget to vote and comment if you liked this chapter! If Halloween existed in Sanctuary, what do you think your favorite character would dress up as?)
