The two halves of the valley stilled, and the groaning from the bowels of the earth had gone silent.
But my pulse throbbed deafeningly loud as I ran to the crevice and dropped to my knees at the edge, terrified of what I would see.
I let out a gasp.
Far beneath Webb and me, our third scavenger clung to the craggy wall on the opposite side. Her mask had fallen back, exposing her face that she scrunched in effort.
"Vale!" Webb screamed uselessly after her.
There weren't a lot of things that I could feel any more—be it emotionally or physically—but I felt the heat from the river scald my skin. Down in the chasm, ribbons of smoke rose from Vale's body. She let out a cry as she slid some more, losing a few more feet. The famished river lapped at the walls of the chasm, inching closer and closer to her heels that she had dug into the soil. She wouldn't last much longer down there.
I tripped over some other ruined thing, nearly falling into the crevice along with Vale. But I looked from the gnarled tree roots I'd stumbled over up to the knobby trunk of an old rotting tree at the ravine's edge—another relic from civilizations past that had been unburied by the quake. The decrepit thing looked like it was hardly standing. The hangman's noose dangling from one of its skeletal branches swayed invitingly. I threw myself against its trunk. "Webb! Help me with this!"
The other ghost didn't waste a second. With a yell, he barreled his entire body against the dead tree. With a prolonged and anguished crack, the trunk succumbed to us and fell across the river. The end with the bare skeletal branches collided with the ravine's other side with a dry crunch.
Below our haphazard bridge, Vale cried out when she slid some more. The soles of her boots began to melt.
Webb climbed aboard the fallen tree to reach Vale. To both our dismay, the trunk splintered under his weight, and his foot fell through into the tree's hollow core. Webb swore under his breath and retreated to safety.
My whole body shook. I locked eyes with Vale. She mouthed something to me while she choked on fumes. "Go," she was saying. "Just go..."
I shoved Webb out of my way, ignoring the string of profanities spewing from him. I slowly placed my foot atop the log, testing its give. So far, it held me. I balanced on tiptoe to the other side of the rickety bridge. Kneeling amongst the thicket of scratching branches, I stretched out a hand down to her, as far as I could reach.
My heart lurched in my chest. My reach was too short by multiple feet.
The swinging noose below me caught my attention, and I bit my lip. It had held a body before. It would hold me now. But how was I meant to reach it...?
"Skye! Head's up!" I heard Webb shout. A split-second later, my spear impaled the trunk near me—the perfect handhold to swing myself to the underside of the tree where the noose waited. I shot Webb an appreciative glance. He gave me a solemn two-fingered salute from the edge of the crevice.
I took a breath.
I had no fear.
I grabbed the spear with two fists and let myself fall from the trunk. Momentum propelled me forward. Without giving myself even a heartbeat to reconsider what the Hell I was doing, I let go of the spear with one hand and grabbed the noose.
I have no fear, I continued to tell myself.
Yet my heart pounded in full force as I slid down the rope. My feet caught in the noose's loop. I clung onto the rope for dear life. Something cracked. I gasped and looked up to see the trunk splintering under my weight. Time was running out.
I turned back to the chasm, nearly level with Vale, and met her bronze eyes. Through the steam hissing from our bodies, she reached out to me.
I took her hand in mine.
The stones she clung to finally gave away, and we both shouted when she fell, but I refused to let go of her, even when my flesh burned from the heat.
With a groan, I strained and hauled the other hollow's trembling body up, and she and I scrambled up the noose onto the log. Immediately, the log began to crumble beneath our combined weight. In a blind panic, I took Vale's hand and ran down the log's length toward Webb.
We collapsed on top of him. Behind us, the tree buckled in half and crumpled into the river. There was a hiss from below as the raw lux reduced the tree to red flames and ash in mere seconds.
We let out three exasperated sighs of relief. "Th-thank God," Webb stammered. He gathered Vale and I into the tightest of embraces. "I thought...I thought you two were going to leave me all alone here. I couldn't imagine a worse Hell."
Vale weakly hugged him back. She pressed her face into his hair. "Of course not. I have to keep you idiots out of trouble."
I sat up. Weird how even though I didn't need to breathe, I was still very much out of breath. I brushed her hair over her shoulder, watching as her burns healed. "Are you okay?" I wheezed at her. "Are you hurt anywhere?"
"I thought I..." Her voice cracked and faded away. She had to swallow before continuing. "I'm okay. I swear. Except now, we have to worry about the Dark itself trying to kill us."
I put a hand to her shoulder, her skin now smooth and healed. Her shuddering slowed.
Webb shook his head in disbelief. "We should all be dead. Like. Dead dead." Then he blanched at something at my feet. "Skye, you've got something on your foot, there." He pointed down at me.
My stomach lurched when I bent and pulled the severed noose off of me. I held it up and looked at the two other hollows through the loop.
The river of lux continued to churn below us.
But over that came the sound of distant animalistic hissing—growing closer by the second.
"If you're sure you're okay," the male hollow said to our friend. "We need to get out of here."
"Right." Vale nodded and led the way to our bike.
"You good to drive?" I asked, shocked, when she mounted it and grasped the handlebars.
"Always!" she answered.
Webb and I climbed aboard behind her while the wind picked up, tossing sand everywhere. Vale throttled the engine. Even with the headlight blazing, it was near impossible to see through the flying sand. The shadows cried out after us as we sped away, eager to tear our flesh.
The engine let out a sudden scream. In the tank, the lux stones shrieked and popped.
"No!" Vale said when a glaring red empty fuel symbol lit up across Elizabeth's dashboard. The bike went dead. "No! No! Fuck!"
The wind wailed like a thousand mournful ghosts. I could barely decipher the landscape through the swirling black sandstorm. The temperature dropped rapidly. No one spoke. But we all knew that if we didn't escape the storm...If we let it swallow us whole...
We'd feed the shadows.
With no other options, we retrieved our weapons from the cargo hold and stood shoulder to shoulder, donning our masks.
The shadows hit us like a tidal wave.
A multi-limbed monster crashed into me, throwing me into the sand. I held up my spear sideways in two hands. The shadow on top of me bit at the pole of it. Strings of black slobber dripped all over one of my lenses. My strength weakened. My scrawny arms were already shaking from the effort of holding the shadow at bay. So I let my arms drop, allowing the shadow's head closer to my own. I bashed my head against the creature's. The shadow spasmed and fell off me, limp and heavy.
I rolled to a crouch, hand clutched to my spinning head.
"Skye."
Perhaps I'd bashed my head a little too hard. But not even the monsters attacking us made my blood chill like that voice did. I turned to the darkness. "Dominic?"
Another shadow leaped at me. I slashed my spear at it, sending it flying. Then I fell to my knees, panting and dizzy. That was too close.
"Skye, I can't see you!"
And I couldn't see him. I couldn't see anyone. "Dominic? Where are you?" I called out.
"There's someone else here, I..." The snarls of shadows nearly drowned out his phantom voice. "I have to go."
Another shadow detached itself from the blackness and charged at me. With great effort, I shakily stood to meet it, spear raised.
But just before it fell upon me, a swathe of black birds swooped from above and pecked at the shadow's white eyes, forcing it to retreat.
And in the beast's stead stood a man.
I didn't lower my spear while the figure and I regarded each other in the near dark. I couldn't see any hint of glowing red lenses on him, nor any weapons. He stood still, as if waiting for something.
I squinted my eyes through the swirling dust. It couldn't be...could it? "Dominic? Is that you?"
At that, the figure slumped in relief. "Ah. English. I am quite good at English."
Instinctively, I jabbed my spear forward at the man. I didn't recognize that purr of a voice.
The man unbothered by the sandstorm just cocked his head to the side, much like a bird would. "Hell of a storm out here, no?" His accent sounded Arabic, and he spoke with an even, lulling tone softened by rolling R's.
"Who are you?" I demanded. My voice came out hoarse. Sand coated my throat.
The figure stepped forward into the red radius of light from my spear. A murder of crows swarmed us from all directions, and alighted with fluttering wings atop his hooded head, on his shrouded shoulders, or at his bare feet in the sand.
The only part of the hidden man's face I could make out was the toothy grin he wore when he answered me.
"Most people call me Crow."
Never knew this curious head of mine
Never knew what is love if kept inside
Nothing but an endless, empty heart
Like laying in the sea within the dark
Give me a piece of your heart, of your heart
Give me a piece of your hands as we go