Pepper's skin turned to ice.
Fear straddled her bones.
Dark, icy water swamped her senses.
She dug her hands into the recess beneath the hull, searching for the masks and snorkels that Gnit and Gnat had loaded into the kayak in Silver Hollow. Pepper's knuckles mashed against floating lunch canteens and sodden blankets before brushing against soft, moulded plastic. She snapped the mask over her eyes and stuffed the snorkel into her mouth. Both items were almost useless at this point—both mask and snorkel already loaded with water—but Pepper felt a little braver for having them on.
Despite increasing water pressure, the humpback dragged both kayaks effortlessly, submerged beneath a ceiling of undulating rock. Pepper bit into the rubber snorkel. Her lungs felt like they were going to burst. She tried to release her breath slowly but, with no end in sight, spikes of panic arrowed through her.
Air bubbles escaped.
Fire burnt in her chest.
The overwhelming desire to open her mouth and allow the oceans in was almost too much to resist.
Pepper pressed her forehead to the glass. Below, the world tumbled in great waves, carrying cars and hotdog trucks and garbage bins and desperate waving arms along Main Street. Fisk sat with his back to the glass. He couldn't dare look. His tears fell to the hardwood floor, his Starscream transformer gripped in both hands. 'Where are they?' he asked. 'Where are Pop and Ma?' But Pepper didn't know. 'Lost,' she replied after a time, and Fisk wailed. 'We'll find them,' she told him. 'How?' Pepper turned from the window and cuddled up beside her brother. 'With courage, bravery, and unflinching optimism.' Fisk frowned. 'Whatever it takes,' she explained. 'Whatever it takes.'
Pepper felt the world shift. The whale and the kayaks were ascending at a phenomenal rate. They appeared to be inside a giant stone column. Above, she could make out a slither of light. Dazzling stars flickered on dark tides. The edges of her vision darkened. The air in her lungs dwindled to nothing. Sharp, stabbing pains bloomed in her lungs. Pepper's lips quivered again, fighting the urge to part.
The light grew. The water became thick and warm. The walls of the cavernous well zipped by as the humpback pulled them up and up, closer and closer to the surface.
The pressure on her skin evaporated.
The sun on her skin felt amazing.
The air in her lungs: a golden nectar.
She choked violently, spewed out lungfuls of water, and collapsed against the hull.
Erin's kayak crashed against hers.
The Viking Twins released the rope from the humpback fin, who swished his tail happily and sent huge plumes of moisture into the air.
"Pepper?" Erin said, grasping the side of her kayak. "Are you okay?"
"I'm dead this time," Pepper choked. "Definitely dead."
"No," Erin said, removing her snorkel and mask and adjusting her glasses. "Still alive and kicking."
Raven cleared his throat theatrically and shook his drenched feathers. "I presume you haven't taken the time to observe our surroundings."
Pepper struggled to lift her head.
What was he talking about? How could he be pessimistic about their surroundings? There was air and sunlight. They were alive. All of them.
"How bad can it be?" Pepper said, pushing sodden hair off her face. "Can't you be upbeat for one minute? It could always be worse. We could be dead."
"Well," he said darkly. "You might wish you were."
Pepper took two long breaths, spat out yet more water, and felt her heart rate ease. Smiling, she found Erin's eyes. But they were not filled with relief or kindness. A stark horror had taken them. Pepper sniffed the air and felt like vomiting again.
What was that?
Rancid meat?
Spoiled fruit?
Rotten eggs?
Acrid smoke?
The odorous cacophony stalked Pepper's senses. What was creating such an abhorrent stench? Blinking several times, she sat back and focused on the familiar turbulent clouds. They were split by beams of blazing sunlight and infused with cracks of lightning. Miles overhead, thunder rumbled like a tractor engine.
But below.
Oh, below.
The world was unrecognisable.
Screams reared in her throat.
Erin gripped her hand as the two girls rose and surveyed the horrors.
Gnit and Gnat were slowly paddling the two kayaks across a stretch of black water, surrounded on all sides by towering mountains, sheer and impenetrable. Nooks and crevices scored the cliff faces. Rotten branches and withered shrubs yawned and creaked under a circling wind.
Mist skittered off the water, bending and flowing around them in mesmerising arcs. Pepper stared through the mist at the motionless sea of black. At first, she wondered if this was the culmination of an oil tanker catastrophe or a geological disturbance somewhere far below on the crust of the earth.
But there was little time for contemplation. A huge raft of unimaginable size, white in colour, mounted with small out-buildings and dominated by a bone-chilling cathedral at the centre, broke through the mist.
Harsh light reflected off the structure. Pepper's eyes ached from staring at it.
An eerie silence engulfed this forsaken place.
"Where in God's creation are we?" Pepper said.
Raven croaked worryingly.
"This is the source," Erin said.
"Don't be ridiculous," Pepper replied instantly.
"Black Nectar," the girl insisted.
"But this is—" Pepper started, "—some sort of living hell."
Erin rinsed her wet pigtails. "Look around you."
"Hard not too."
"We're sailing on a sea of black," Erin said. "A sea of...Black Nectar."
Raven shook his feathers once more. "This place is death," he said. "The smell, the ghastly, sickening smell. I'd know it a mile away."
Pepper dared not sniff the air again yet she could taste the decay and corruption on her tongue. "But the Queen said Black Nectar was the lifeblood of the world."
Erin wrung more water from her hair. "The Queen has never left Silver Hollow. Her connection to Black Nectar is limited to the Warrens and sacred rituals that she alone has decreed. She has not been here, to the source, and seen the horrors that made her who she is."
The Awesome Fighting Viking Twins drew them closer to the enormous white raft. As they approached, Pepper's eyes could barely believe what they were seeing.
A floating city cast in some strange white material loomed before them.
What was it made from?
Chalk?
Hardly.
Marble?
Impossible.
And as the neared, the true horror revealed itself. A horror so terrifying that she buried her head in her hands. "No," she screamed. "No. Not this. Not here!"
She'd often wondered where they'd all gone.
There were thousands out in the Great Wastes.
Piles of rags and bones.
Bleached and baked by the sun.
But where were the billions of bodies washed away during the Savage Storm?
Part of her had dreamt they'd been swept into some imaginary place beyond the gaze of human eyes. She wondered if they'd been dragged into the depths, buried beneath millions of tons of silt and sand.
Not for one minute had she dared to imagine this.
Skulls bobbed in the black water.
Rib cages and thigh bones spun in helpless circles.
Rags and refuse drifted by under mist and silence.
And through the mist, the floating city revealed itself in all its wretched glory. A city made of the dead. From the dead. A city of bones. Just like Hope's Ruin, this place was formed by the materials that surrounded them. Where Pepper's hometown was filled with shacks and cabins made from dissected aeroplane fuselages and burnt out camper vans, this city was constructed from bones. Huge bones, tiny bones, human bones, whale bones, skulls of rams and rats and boys and girls. Threaded together with twine and rag, they formed cottages and lodges, streets and fences. And, rising above it all, the colossal cathedral was a perfect cube of finely orchestrated remains, mounted with a dome of skulls.
"This is the end of all things," Raven said.
Pepper's hands shook against her skull staff. She could barely look at Alderson's macabre creation now. It would forever remind her of this place. Of the stink in the air and the horror in her heart.
Green light flashed in her eyes.
A jaunty jingle erupted from water-logged speakers.
A DOS prompt blinked steadily.
Flake 99's motherboard honked.
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