by Anthea Sharp
I had two younger brothers who relied on me. But the Republic didn’t give two shits about that.
So I did what had to be done. Consequences be damned.
It’d been two weeks since I entered the games.
I needed to get out.
Who knew what trouble those two were getting into without me there to watch over them?
I didn’t know what Jax’s crime was.
I also didn’t care.
Only one thing mattered inside the Helix.
Getting to the next level.
Jax and I partnered up on level six. We each lost a life that time and it didn’t take us long to realize that level six was a two-man job. Between the eight legged freak of a spider and razor winged raven the size of a plane, you needed as many eyes, ears, and guns as possible.
We’d been together ever since.
Inside the Helix, each player was given three lives.
I was on my second. Jax was on his third.
If either of us used up all of our lives before reaching the end, we would cease to exist. Our lives would be forfeit and we’d become a permanent part of the game, our minds hardwired into the code of the game and our bodies discarded in the reality we’d once called home.
You might think we should have taken our sentences in the pits over these odds but no one ever left the pits.
You worked your life away until you died in there. And everyone knew it.
The only way to gain your freedom once you were convicted of a crime was through the Helix.
There was no alternative.
So here we were.
I kicked Jax’s worn leather boots, jerking his attention from one of the Griffin corpses. Its feathers were caked in sand and blood. “Come on.” I turned away.
Griffins once roamed our reality. Stories said they would soar the skies, protecting the people from ancient beings. That was before the Republic was established.
Now, they were monsters of the game here to haunt our nightmares.
How the hell had the Republic trapped them here?
I spat on the ground. What a waste.
“Alright, I’m coming.” Jax slung his .223 armor piercing assault rifle over his shoulder and climbed up from his position on the ground. “I’m going to need a new weapon or I won’t be much help in level ten.”
I eyed his gun and chewed on the pad of my thumb.
The Griffins had been brutal.
The first two we’d taken care of easy enough but just when we thought we were in the clear, three more attacked.
One had clamped its beak over Jax’s gun, cracking the outer casing.
“Will it shoot?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I’m too light on ammo to risk trying it.”
“How many rounds?”
“Three.”
“Shit.”
“You’re telling me.” He checked the weapons cartridge and shook his head.
I had six rounds left in my ramhawk. Level ten would be impossible if we couldn’t defend ourselves.
I chewed my lower lip. “Do you have a blade?”
Jax shook his head. “Never bothered picking one up. I prefer to kill the bastards from a distance.”
Didn’t we all?
I reached into my boot and pulled out a four inch serrated blade. “Here. It’s better than nothing.”
He took it with a nod of thanks. “Maybe we should scavenge?”
I shook my head. “We don’t have time. We need to move. We’ve stayed too long as it is and there’s no guarantee we’d find anything. We’ll have to take our chances.”
“This bloody sucks.”
You could say that again.
Once inside the Helix, it hadn’t taken long to realize that as each level progressed, the pickings for weapons, potions, and health aid grew slimmer and slimmer. Between seven and eight I’d only found a food pack and a med patch. Neither of which did me any good when what I’d needed since level five was ammunition and weapons.
The Republic didn’t want you to win. They didn’t want anyone getting out. So they lured you into a false sense of assurance that with each passing level, you’d have a chance to restock.
Restocking became useless after level four.
I still kicked myself for not picking up more. “Come on.”
Electric bulbs blinked and faded as the scene before us morphed from desert sands to clinical hallways.
“We need to move. Now.” The portal wouldn’t stay open long.
We ran and heard the tell-tale sounds of Republic hovercrafts as they teleported Griffin bodies from the ground.
White walls and tiled floors stretched out in front of us.
Twenty feet to go.
“Almost there. Kick it into gear Serina.”
“If we’d left when I suggested—"
The portal blinked. We both jerked to a stop inches in front of it. The scene rippled like the waves of a disturbed pond.
“What the—" I reached my hand out and poked at the wavering surface.
Air billowed all around us. Sand swirled in the air making me cough.
“Serina!”
“I know! I know!” Did we jump through, or stay back? I’d never seen a portal like this. Between levels we would just walk the path. Sometimes it was paved. Sometimes gravel or smashed grass, but a pathway was always clear.
The portal made the hair on my arms stand on end and my insides do somersaults.
The sound of a hovercraft drew closer.
I chanced a look over my shoulder. The last Griffin body was only a stone’s throw away.
Time was running out.
Jax shifted from foot to foot beside me. His synth suit glinted in the light like oil on asphalt.
“Damn it all to hell.” Jax grabbed my hand and made the jump.
I screamed as my body crashed through what looked like a watery surface but instead was like glass. Tiny filaments pierced my skin like razor sharp needles turning my blood to molten lava beneath my skin.
“FUUUUUUUCK!” Jax yelled beside me.
His hand still held mine in an irontight grip.
The pain lasted only a second and then we both slammed into cold hard tile and the portal blinked out of existence behind us.
My breath shuddered. “What—” I retched. Echoes of pain racked my body.
“I don’t bloody know but I have a feeling we need to get moving. Now.”
The lights flickered all around us. Nineties horror films flashed across my mind.
I stumbled to my feet and tried to keep pace with Jax.
He held the blade I’d given him in his right hand and slowed his steps as the first door neared.
I followed suit, pulling out my sword and holding it in a two-handed grip.
We walked silently across the hallway leading toward a set of double doors fifty yards ahead of us.
Either side of the hallway was lined with doors. Something could jump out at us at anytime. And likely would.
“I don’t like this,” I whispered under my breath.
“You think I do?” he ground out.
“This isn’t like the earlier levels.”
“None of the levels are like earlier levels, but this is the farthest either of us has ever gotten. Stop whining and let’s do this.”
I bit my cheek to keep from cursing at him. He was just on edge. I’d give him a pass this once.
We passed another door.
Then another.
No monsters jumped out at us.
My boots slid silently across the tile. The flicker and hiss of the lights the only sound in the still hallway.
Jax’s breaths were heavy, and sweat glistened on the hard angles of his face.
A snick froze both of us in place. The sound was small, but it boomed in the quiet space.
I held my breath.
We were almost within arms’ reach of the double doors.
The doorknob turned of its own volition. The movement
painfully slow.
Jax and I each took a step back and raised our weapons.
The doors parted and light flooded in, blinding us.
I blinked hard and when my vision cleared a small girl stood before us. She wore a pink dress with a white collar and dark black ballet flats.
Her pale blonde hair hung in two braids on either side of her face and a smattering of freckles dusted her cheeks.
I lowered my sword and stared dumbfounded at her.
When Jax didn’t follow suit I smacked him in the arm.
“It’s just a girl.” I told him.
Jax shook his head, but fear shone bright in his wide eyes. “Nothing is ever just in the Helix.” His words were grave and pained.
“Jax?”
“You’re not real. You’re not her.” His eyes hadn’t left the little girl.
I scowled in her direction. She couldn’t be over eight or nine years old. But there was something familiar about her.
She had an arrogant tilt to her smile. And the same emerald green eyes as —
“Jax?” My voice rose an octave. “She looks like you.”
“She’s not real.” He backed up another step. “You’re not real. You can’t be real.” Panic coated Jax’s words. Whoever this little girl was, she had him seriously freaked out.
The girl had yet to speak or move.
I stepped closer. Whatever was going on here, it was part of level ten and this little girl was our obstacle. Real or not.
“What is your purpose in the Helix?” I asked.
She shifted her attention from Jax to me.
“To stop those who reach my doors at all costs.” Her voice was robotic. There was no inflection. No emotions.
“We only have to pass you?” I asked. Seemed simple enough.
A single blood red tear leaked from the corner of her eye, leaving a scarlet trail down her cheek.
She didn’t bother wiping it away.
Her eyes turned back to Jax. “Would you do it? Would you leave me here to die? Again.”
Still there was no emotion, but something in her words brought Jax to his knees.
Anguish washed over his face. “Never.” Jax shook his head vigorously. “I would never leave you Hannah Bear. I swear it.”
She smiled and razor-sharp teeth filled her mouth. Her eyes took on a metallic glow. I lost myself in her gaze, but only for a second before snapping myself out of her hypnotic glare.
I grabbed Jax by the color of his synth suit. “Get up. Whoever you think that is, it isn’t human.”
He didn’t budge.
“Get up!”
“She wants to hurt me.” The little girl said. She cocked her head to the side studying me. “She’ll walk through the doors and I will die. Don’t let her kill me, Jaxy. Please don’t let her kill me.”
He was shaking his head. Tears fell in twin rivulets down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Serina. Please forgive me.” The words were forced through his throat before he launched to his feet and the blade still held in his grip slammed into my chest, knocking the air from my lungs.
I rocked back on my heels and stared down at the blade still sticking out of my chest as Jax took several shaky steps back.
The world careened around me and the ground rushed up to meet my face.
Whack!
I sucked in a pain-filled breath and turned my head against the floor to meet Jax’s stricken face.
“Why?” I wasn’t sure if he could hear me.
My fingers trembled, and I tried to get them to obey my commands. I wasn’t dead. Not yet. I still had time to salvage this.
I couldn’t go back to level one.
I’d come too damn far.
“She’s my baby sister.” Regret was stamped across his face.
I pushed myself into a seated position and dragged my body until I could slump against the wall.
“So what’s the plan. You wait for me to die and then you run off into the sunset with that?” I coughed and blood came away on my palm. I spat and shook my head. “It’s not your sister, Jax. It’s part of the Helix. It isn’t real. Don’t look into its eyes. I think that’s how—”
“Finish her!” Fake Hannah said.
My sword had fallen from my grasp when Jax stabbed me, but now my fingers closed around the hilt.
“I’ve still got one life left Jax. This won’t kill me. I’ll just be back.”
Jax was nodding as he stepped closer and crouched down in front of me. He ripped the blade from my chest and I screamed a battle cry or rage and pain right before I lifted my right arm and plunged my sword into his stomach.
Shock widened his eyes, and he fell back.
I drew my ramhawk and fired two rounds at the little girl in the doorway.
Her image flickered and then disappeared.
I swore.
Jax fell back against the opposite wall and slid to the ground.
“Fuck you, Jax. Fuck you and your fucking emotions. I told you she wasn’t real.”
My fingers were numb and cold was working its way through my body.
Jax sobbed across from me. “She was my sister. My baby sister.”
I ripped open my back and pulled out the health aid I’d snagged two levels ago. Tearing it open I slapped the patch over my chest and sighed in relief when the warming sensation of morphine mixed with helix rex flooded my bloodstream.
Any longer and it would have been too late.
As feeling worked its way back into my fingers and toes I stared over at Jax. The idiot deserved to die on this level. He stabbed me in the back.
But he’s saved me too.
Indecision warred through me.
“You fucked up.”
“I know. I’m sorry. SHIT! I’m so sorry.” He pulled my sword out of his chest and blood ran like a waterfall out of the wound.
“Do you have any health aid?” I asked him as I staggered back to my feet.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”
“You’re a real sonovabitch you know that? You’re leaving me high and dry three levels away from the end. We were almost free.”
“You’ll make it out. I know you will, Serina.” He smiled up at me. “When you do, find my sister for me, will you? Tell her I’m sorry.” He coughed and more blood leeched from his stomach.
“Tell her yourself you asshole.” I gripped the data guard on his wrist and with two buttons, transferred one of my two remaining lives to his sentence.
“You better get your ass out of here and find me on the outside. Got it? You owe me, so get your shit together and get out. When you hit level ten again, shoot that fucking little girl right between the eyes before she has the chance to fuck with your head. Okay?”
He stared stunned up at me.
“Okay?” I asked again.
He nodded and the Helix flickered around me.
“Why.” His voice was hollow and shock was still stamped across his face.
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t. I had no fucking clue why I’d given away one of my lives for a man I’d known less than two weeks who’d stabbed me in the back.
I stood up and moved toward the doors. It was never a good idea to linger. “I have to go.”
I turned but Jax’s voice had me stopping just outside the doorway. “I’ll get out and find you. I promise.”
I didn’t turn around. I took another step and the double doors slammed closed behind me.
“Congratulations. Level ten complete.”
From the Author: I hope you’ll stay tuned for more of Serina’s adventures to come. Right now I’m actively working on the full-length story and I can’t wait for you to read it. Be sure to visit my website and sign up for my newsletter if you want to be notified as soon as Serina’s story is released. www.Danielle-Annett.com You can keep an eye out for it in Fall 2019.
Tales of Inadon 1: The Disc - Avril Sabine, Storm Petersen, and Rhys Petersen
Note: This story was written by Aust
ralian authors using Australian spelling.
Carissa paced back and forth in the lounge room, occasionally peering through the security screen of the front door. What was taking her father so long? He should have been back by now. Returning to pacing, she glanced down at the medieval style clothes she wore. A basic tunic with a belt and pouch around the waist, plain trousers tied with a drawstring and soft leather boots. It was the first time she'd worn them. They felt strange. Comfortable, but strange.
She returned to the screen door. Her father's car was nowhere in sight. Had something happened? Taking a deep breath, she pushed away the fear that always rose when he was late. It brought back memories of the senseless shooting that had taken her mother's life nearly two years ago. Her father, Ross, had never been the same after Laura's death. Not even the move to Brisbane, late last year, had helped with its change of scenery.
The only thing the move had meant was that they didn't have to listen to people point out that the shooter had been caught. As if that made a difference. It couldn't bring her mother back. Or that her mother hadn't been the only one to lose her life. That didn't make it any better either. Here no one knew their past and no one made comments that had her hands curling into fists and her teeth clenching together at the angry words she wanted to speak. Words that had the person telling her they'd only been trying to help and she didn't have to carry on. Taking deep breaths, she tried not to think about it, but that only had her thinking of how late her father was.
She played with the end of the plait her mid-length, brown hair was pulled back in to keep it out of the way. Should she ring him? About to turn away and collect her mobile phone, she spotted his car coming along the road. Equal amounts of anticipation and fear raced through her. She still wasn't certain all this was real.
When her father had first told her about dark forces creating a distorted world based on Earth, linked to Earth so they could use it to cause havoc here without interference, she'd thought he'd lost it. He'd convinced her to meet Dorset and his wife Richelle, local Guardians Of The Round Table, and somehow they had her mostly believing the role-playing game style world of Inadon not only existed, but it was accessible to those found worthy to fight against the dark forces. Or at least those who were eighteen. Which had annoyed her since she'd needed to wait until her recent birthday. Their policy that no guardian or potential guardian could journey alone to Inadon had meant her father had told her about its existence when they'd approached him. She wasn't sure if he would have told her otherwise.