It’s colossal—stretching to each side like an endless guard with a chilled grey heart. How could anyone build this and call it an improvement to society? God certainly didn’t. I can’t imagine Him speaking the Wall into existence and saying, “It is good.”
Tiny early-morning snowdots dance through the air, windless, but swirling of their own accord—unusual for April, but appropriate for the chill in my soul. None seem to land, but they brush my face as though in cool reassurance.
The guardhouse leans to one side, rickety and breezy. It loses my gaze to the frosty Opening beside it. Even when the guard and Skelley Chase emerge from the guardhouse I can’t stop staring at the carved arch enveloping a smooth, steel door. There’s no handle. I imagine the tunnel stretching for miles through cold rock, infested with bugs and animals anxious to escape the abandoned West.
“You’re late,” the guard barks. “It’s already seven-thirty!”
I can’t breathe. I can’t look away. I’m already trapped in that Wall, clawing against the door, trying to come back to this side. My fingers ache, my ears fill with distraction, my eyes sting. I sway.
My Enforcer gives me a rough shake. I gasp and my clenched hands relax. A tear slides down my cheek.
“Don’t panic yet.” The guard is in his mid-forties, with a cropped haircut, stained brown uniform, and squinty eyes. “It’s even freakier inside.”
I want to flee—the most I’ve wanted to do since leaving Unity Village. The entire ride on the train passed in blurry shadow. I don’t even remember blinking.
Skelley Chase strides forward. “Ready?”
I don’t move, but the Enforcer shoves me forward. Skelley Chase lowers his voice as we walk to the Wall. “I’ll have one week in October for you to return, so don’t miss it. Keep a sharp eye on the dates. And watch for news or updates from me.”
Panic swells again. Skelley Chase holds out his sentra. “Take this. Use it on the other side and send them to me through your nanobook.”
“I have one,” I whisper.
He raises an eyebrow. “You do?”
“Reid gave it to me.”
Skelley Chase shrugs. “Then press this.”
I do and don’t even register the prick. “Is this emotion going in the autobiography?”
“It’s just a biography now. And yes, this is the final emotigraph. Readers will have to follow the rest of your story through updates to their X-books. And trust me, they’ll follow. People love to feel what you’re feeling.”
I doubt any reader wants to feel the terror coating my spine. God, are You with me? I shudder at the idea of meeting Him face to face. What will He say? Not, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” This little phrase is inscribed on the inner Bible flaps of the few steadfast souls. I’ll probably get, “You did okay, wasteful and fickle Parvin.”
I squeeze my fingers together and release a long breath. My terror settles into a petrified calm, filling my body like it’s an empty lemonade pitcher. I allow the silence to dominate.
“Two minutes, girly.” The guard’s compassion must have died with his first Wall victim.
I can’t do this. I breathe deep and think what I wish I could scream: I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave this shadow of a footprint behind for my life.
The guard holds a blank wooden Clock next to a large square hole in the Wall. He sets it inside, places a heavy metal lid over the hole, and pushes a stone button with his thumb. A strong suction sound precedes a loud clunk! The Clock is gone when he takes away the lid.
Skelley Chase stands beside the guard with a slick camera floating at eye height. A round, black disc sits on the grass beneath it. I can’t tell if it’s stone or metal. A red light blinks on the levitating camera. I don’t ask. I don’t care. I can’t bring myself to say anything.
This is Skelley Chase’s doing.
He tips his fedora. I look away and take my first willing step toward the Wall.
“Why do you have on all that traveling stuff, eh?” The guard gestures to my shoulder pack, rope, and garb. “Think you’re gonna survive or something?”
“It makes me feel more at home.” It’s the truth—I’m carrying a bit of each family member with me. Maybe it’s false comfort.
The guard shrugs. “Whatever makes the Good-bye less painful, I guess.” He scratches the stubble on his chin, takes a deep breath, and spews his next words with the speed of an auctioneer. “May you find peace in the afterlife in which you choose to believe and may all hopes and dreams come to fulfillment in your heart and soul as you lie down to rest. I wish you luck, joy, and all spiritual wellness in the course of whatever form death may take in these last minutes. Good-bye.” He takes a breath. “That’s a message from the government of the United States of the East.”
He holds up a wristwatch shaped like a mini-Clock. “The East Door—this one—will open for fifteen seconds. The West Door’s already opened, but it’ll close after ten minutes. It’s a long tunnel. Better walk fast so you don’t get trapped inside. Ain’t no getting back.”
I look at Skelley Chase, but he gives a slight shake of his head. I guess he has his ways. He can do anything, right? Not that I’ll live to see it.
I stare at the cold door with scrape marks where it’s opened before. The door glides sideways into the Wall, revealing a black tunnel with no lanterns and no sound except my breathing rebounding off the shadow. I step backward.
“Fifteen seconds, girly.”
Does the guard really have to count down?
The black tunnel is endless, cold, and hollow. I’m looking into the darkness of hell.
“I can’t—” I choke, taking another step back. “I can’t go in there.” I meet the pressure of the Enforcer’s body behind me.
“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .” The guard holds his watch up to his face.
I want to die in the light. I can’t see ahead. What if it’s an endless tunnel with no exit to the West? The guard’s voice rings out behind me like an echoing pendulum, “Three . . . two . . . One!” With a shout, the Enforcer shoves me over the rutted threshold.
I twist around, reach out my hand, and release a strangled cry. “Wait!”
The steel door slides shut, slicing away my last beam of familiar light. I barely maintain my footing. The last bit of light fades from my pupils, taking with it the outline of my outstretched hand. My heart pounds so hard it’s bound to leave bruises.
I turn back around, gasping. Everything ahead is new—pitch black and unexplored. I swallow hard and a lump of ice hits my stomach. Packed dirt scrapes under my boots as I force my feet to carry me forward. Hands outstretched like Christ on the cross, my fingers run along the crude parallel rock walls. A pink glow appears ahead—symbolic of old sayings portraying death as the light at the end of the tunnel. With foot over leaden foot, I walk to my death—deep breath, chin high, and a perfected look of defiance.
Sound does not exist. Breath does not exist. I start to wonder if I even exist. My mind shuts out memories with the closing of the East Door. Reid, Skelley Chase, Unity Village, Mother, Father . . . they all fade like dying electric light bulbs. My former acute awareness to the senses dulls into a numbness that not even fear can penetrate. Encompassed in light at the end of all the darkness, death looks less daunting.
I lose the sense of time, but process the fact that the bright arch is growing, growing. I reach out a hand toward the West this time and see my fingers splayed in front of me. Now I run. I sprint toward the light.
Sounds explode from my movement—pebbles skirting across the worn path, my panting grating the walls, the bouncing of my rope as loops slide off my shoulder and trail behind me like a dead snake. The loudest sound is the scrape of boots on dirt as I skid to a halt on the threshold of the West.
A similar steel door waits inside the Wall to cut me off from the half of the
world I’ve come to know. I squint into the light of the West and see what no one in the East has seen.
Across the threshold, two feet from the tips of my toes, is air.
Just . . .
Air.
Red dirt crumbles away into an abyss. Misty clouds with a shadowy cover form a base blanket, as if I’m standing on the tip of a mountain peak. The sun hasn’t made it to this side yet. I stabilize myself against the inner Wall and lean out, glancing to my left and right. The Wall stretches on, like the East side, but the ground extends a foot or less for a hundred feet each direction at the Wall’s base before curving out into a more supportive plateau.
Stretching straight ahead is a lake of sky. There’s no ground—apparently demolished by an earthquake or some other natural disaster caused by the meteor that smashed the West so long ago. The only way out is down—and the guard said this door would close after ten minutes. That could be any moment.
Now I know how I’ll die. I’ve always wanted to fly.
For one silent, peaceful moment, I inhale and survey the scene before me. I’m on the other side of the Wall—a mystery none but the dead have seen. The Newtons, Mr. Foster, and all the other Radicals are waiting for me.
The sun sends light rays above, breaking over the Wall edge, brushing the clouds, and twinkling in each wispy snowdot. A bird flies in the distance, but no people or cities are present—none of the government-free Independents. I suppose we did end up needing the government to survive.
The air smells cold and a rush of wind along the Wall blows my free hair across my face. I don’t care if it tangles, these are my last minutes. I don’t need to fear if I’ll survive. The answer lies before me in cloud form: Death.
I spread my arms high, embracing the chill, and scoot my boots to the edge of the cliff. My toes raise me up in a short second of final balance. A smile graces my lips. I lean forward at the same moment the door zips shut. The last feelings I register are the lurch of my stomach as I entrust my bodyweight to gravity, the rush of air around my tense face, and a fierce thrill over my searing heart.
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Something crawls around my neck and up my left arm—a blazing serpent, licking blisters on my skin. Stretching. Igniting. Hammers on my head. Hammers. I can’t breathe. The serpent tightens, turning red-hot then black. My Numbers scream.
My eyes snap open. Awareness follows an instant later. The world is twisted, upside-down and confused.
No, I am confused. I shake my throbbing head. The hammers don’t stop. The burning around my arm and neck isn’t a snake, it’s my rope, twisted three times around my suspended arm like a candy cane stripe, holding all my weight.
My blurry eyes struggle to focus on the stretches and crinkles in my exposed skin, straining against the rough fibers. The end of the rope is caught around my shoulder pack, coat, and hair. I’m lucky I wasn’t hung.
A groan reaches my ears. It comes from my own choked voice. Choked. The rope rubs like a dull saw on my neck. My senses awaken and with it my survival instinct. Things seem clear now. The scraggy rock face scratches my shoulder blades, my feet dangle like wind chimes below me. Blood trickles down the creases of my left cheek. My right arm clutches a handful of my coat and vest over my heart.
My heart.
I’m alive.
Why?
The pain in my arm takes precedence over the questions in my head. I grab the rope and pull up, loosening the tension. With my free hand, I spin myself to face the cliff and unloop the cord from my neck and head. The slack releases the rope from my shoulder pack and I rotate, unraveling my body. Now my feeble strength holds me up.
Several yards above, the taut rope stretches over the edge of the cliff. Is it caught in the closed door? All desire to free fall and plummet to my death disappears.
If I climb down, the rope will have to remain here against the cliff, abandoned. I could climb up, though—shimmy to my left until the ledge fans out to solid ground. I should at least climb back up to the closed door and leave a note for the next Radical, not that they have much choice against a plunge.
My feet scrabble for a hold, but the rock face slants away from my body. Using both hands, I pull against the rope. My elbows bend a fraction of an inch. Muscles tremble. I kick against the stone, but drop back against the cliff. Limp. Weak. Flimsy.
Already, my arms fight for strength. I need to make a decision. Soon. Climbing up isn’t going to work—not with my pathetic muscles. Reid was right. I’m too skinny, too frail.
Below me, ragged rock and crumbling red dirt plunge into the misty clouds. There must be a bottom. I can always find a trail to hike back to the top. Maybe the Newtons are down there. They might have climbed.
The blood flows back into my throbbing arm. Needles sweep through my skin. I lower myself a few inches. Hand-over-hand, I descend the rope. My body is so heavy. I mustn’t fall now.
My arms quiver. Once I start, I go faster—faster than my body’s ready to handle. The grain in the rope fibers burns my hands. My own weight pulls against me. A few minutes later, my feet kick the air and scrape rock pebbles into the abyss. I’ve reached the end of the rope.
I hang for a moment, tempted to drop and hope there’s a canyon bottom somewhere within two hundred feet of the mist. I take a deep breath and peruse the rock in front of my face. The cracks are defined and thick. I could fit several fingers in them. Rock bumps and crevices stretch below me. Somewhat promising.
The transfer from rope to rock is precarious. My boots are clumsy and I scuffle for a foothold, but my fingers clamp the rock with muscles I didn’t know they possessed. I hold my breath, feeling fifty pounds heavier without the rope as a lifeline. If my fingers don’t hold me, every bit of my body will plunge to the canyon bottom.
I try to peer at my feet, but my forehead hits the rock. “Okay, rock wall. Cooperate now. I’ve never done this before.”
Climbing down proves much trickier than I expected. My fingernails scrape against rutted stone and gather dirt and grime. Some split and snap backward. I wince. My head is heavy and dislikes balancing on my aching neck. The blood from my forehead snakes down my neck into the collar of my shirt.
I straddle a small rock spine and hug it with my knees and elbows, locating cracks and bumps with the eyes in my fingers. My thumb snags a spider web. A large crevice to my right runs deep into the cliffside shadows.
My downward movement slows as I enter the cloud. The silence turns eerie now that the light is more hidden. A tiny ledge provides a few minutes of rest. My forearms tense, shaking. I continue. Mist thickens. I grip the rock in a moment of panic. What if there isn’t an end to this descent? What if this canyon was caused by an earthquake and split the Earth so deep that it’s an endless abyss? How long do I descend?
I peer back up. Mist. Below me, mist. Dare I keep going?
God, I’m afraid. My arms shake. I close my eyes and inch downward. The rock is cold against my fingers.
Mere minutes later, the cliff base meets piles of giant boulders like they’re old friends. My foot tests for stability, then I rest my full weight on a boulder—and collapse against the rocks. Sweat soaks my vest beneath my pack and my sticky hair clings to exposed skin. My shoulders whimper beneath my pack and I adjust it before crawling to the next boulder.
I squeeze down in a crack between two boulders and meet hard dirt with tiptoes. The bottom. Bluish-grey mist blurs the shadows of scraggly trees fifty or sixty yards ahead and silence rests on the air.
I survived.
I step from the rocks into the openness of the canyon floor and slip on a stray chunk of rock. I flop to the ground with a yelp. My tailbone meets an unrelenting stick. I yank it out from under me and throw it. It clacks against something else. With a squint through the mist, I recognize its form.
A long, white bone.
Human.
Ahead, my foot rests on a small human skull staring sideways into my eyes. I gasp and kick it away. I scramble to my feet and scan the canyon floor with hitched breathing.
Skeletons surround me like a lifeless welcoming committee. Their pieces stretch across the visible space to the sparse forest ahead. Spiders in eye-sockets, web-strung nets between ribs, scraps of torn clothing, pale elbows and knees bent upward and backward, scattered fingers clawing the earth—Halloween spread on the ground like a human carpet.
This would have been my grave. This is what I would be, had my rope not stopped me—empty Numbers lying with other empty Numbers.
I scream.
My fists squeeze over my eyes and I stumble backward, back to the cliff, to the boulders. Pounding. Pounding. My heart won’t stop. It won’t slow. My legs shake beneath me. The bones rattle.
I open my eyes. The ground is shaking. The bones clack like a morbid symphony. Mist starts to rise, sunbeams peek over the cliff ledge and sift through the cloud. The treetops across the open graveyard move in drunken sways. Earthquake?
The shaking continues, growing stronger. Bones clacking. Clacking. Growls. Snarls. Yapping. Howls.
I retreat in slow motion, too terrified to look away from the forest and run. Where can I run? Where can I climb? What’s coming?
My pack hits the boulder and I stop, holding in any sound or air that might break loose. My nerves trample my skin like a stampede of hysteria. I fight it until my eyes land on what plows through the trees to meet me with wide open jaws, bristled grey hair, and manic eyes.
Wolves.
Enough wolves to tear me in more directions than I ever want to travel. They slow to a menacing advance, paw over paw, lips twitching for blood. Behind them, three bears—two black and one grizzly—sit on matted haunches. Hesitating in the trees, a line of coyotes waiting for the wolves to move aside. Leaning backward over the boulder, me. Paralyzed. But the dinner guests know as well as the meal that there’s no way out.
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