by Keary Taylor
One by one, each of the miners is touched by a Kinduri. I think I know what they’re doing. I think they’re pulling information from those miners’ heads.
Eating Neron grants you certain gifts. It curses you. Makes you into…what they are. But it gives you abilities.
Like the ability to steal thoughts from people’s heads.
Like the ability to find my face inside those miner’s heads.
My heart is thundering in my chest. My palms are slick with sweat.
They’re going to find my face in the memories of those miners. They’ve seen me at the mine. They know how I work with Reena.
And now the Kinduri have Reena’s face, as well.
One by one, the Kinduri go to Cyrillius, whispering words in his ear, their black lips moving, sealing my fate.
When they’re finished, they stand behind their master.
Cyrillius stands tall and straight. He rolls his shoulders back, but there’s a new tightness to them.
“A reward,” he says, his voice loud and clear. “For the head or capture of Reena McDyer, the woman who put this entire planet at risk.”
My heart thunders as he says her name. My palms are slick with sweat.
A reward, for her head. Cyrillius wants Reena, dead or alive.
“And a reward, for the capture of the weapons maker,” Cyrillius says, sealing my fate.
Zayne’s eyes snap to me. But I can’t look away. I’m frozen, rooted. A terrified, frozen corpse of a wanted woman.
Cyrillius steps forward. He folds his hands behind his back.
He’s all angles. His head is covered with russet colored hair, his tanned face splashed with freckles and imperfections. He bears a proud nose and a square chin.
He’s a washed out hue of brown, all over. He should be forgettable, but his eyes are so cold, and his very presence is so commanding, no one would ever forget Cyrillius.
“We cannot allow individuals to put our beautiful Eon Galaxy at risk,” he says. “Dominion’s presence is taxing, but the reward is peace.”
My name. The miners never knew my name.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
My eyes were so focused on Cyrillius at first that I did not even realize what was happening until some of the children call out in awe, pointing at the Nero.
The air around his left hand is glowing blue, and more strands of glowing blue float through the air in electric arc’s that dance and spark.
It’s incredible.
Neron is everywhere. It’s in the air. It’s in every material we used to build this sprawling city planet.
The Nero can pull it out of anything.
They can wield it however they want.
I watch Valen Nero’s hand, and see the Neron flattening out into a long, pointed object. Like a spear.
“No,” I breathe as my blood turns cold. I clutch my bag tighter to myself, needing something to hold onto. Something to keep me grounded.
“We must maintain peace, for the galaxy.” Cyrillius turns back to the miners.
The Nero gives one flick of his hand. And the spear launches so fast, my eyes can’t even track it.
It rockets forward, seemingly passing right in front of all those miners.
But as the Neron spear immediately dissipates, the miner closest to Valen Nero suddenly folds to the ground. Followed by the next, and then the next. One by one, all eleven of those miners’ bodies collapse to the ground.
Screams from the children rip through the building as little lines of blood leak from the sides of each of the miner’s heads.
The Nero shot the spear through all eleven of their heads. Without any effort. Without any thought.
Now they all lie there—dead.
The Nero killed them, and Cyrillius didn’t bat an eye.
All because they were using the Neron he has now laid a claim to.
My stomach is sick. I have to turn away for a minute, leaning my forehead on my father’s shoulder as I take five slow breaths. I’m scared. I feel ill. I can’t think.
Get out of here, a voice says in my head, the voice of logic. There’s nothing you can do. You can’t help anyone. Save yourself and the ones you care about.
I take two more deep breaths. And then I set my bag down on the ground and unzip it.
My fingers wrap around the handle of the axe. I pause like that for several long moments, staring at the Neron core I placed inside the crystal encasement just moments before the world ended.
It’s all changed now.
My life, my world will never be the same.
And I’m so slam ready.
I lift the axe and my eyes rise to see my father looking at me with absolute shock and horror in his eyes. I extend it toward him.
“Getting off this planet isn’t going to be easy,” I say. I hope he listens to me, every single syllable. I hope he feels them in his bones, in his heart, in his blood. “But I’m going to do whatever it takes to get us out of here. You can chew me out later, but right now, we have to do what needs to be done.”
And maybe I don’t know my father as well as I thought I did. He’s horrified, because now he knows: I’m the one that Cyrillius himself said he wants brought to him. But my father’s eyes harden. The set of his lips thin out. And he reaches out and wraps his fingers around the handle and holds it with a confidence I never would have assumed in a million solars.
Zayne understands, because as I take my staff out, he removes his hilt from his own bag.
I dig into mine, and find the bottle of black smudge.
“The Kinduri might not have found my name, but they have my face now,” I explain as I unscrew the lid and dip two of my fingers in it. I draw a line from my hairline, across my brows, to the other side of my hair. I fill it in beneath my eyes until a thick, dark band masks my face. “For all I know, they might have yours, too, Zayne.”
I stand, dipping my fingers into the smudge. I draw a line straight down his face, dividing it in half. I fill in the left side of his face until it is entirely black.
“And I won’t risk anyone recognizing you either, Dad,” I say, turning to him. I make an upside down V, with the tip of it starting right between his eyes. I fill the lower part of it in solid.
We look like warriors. Not prey trying to escape.
We need any extra boost of confidence we can get right now.
A scream rips through this level of the school, followed by another. My heart explodes in my throat as I turn back to the scene outside.
Those locals who had gathered, who just witnessed that scene, have swarmed the Square. And they’re fighting.
They’re only throwing trash and a few of them actually have hand weapons that fire metal and spikes.
But it’s a slaughter.
Dominion’s armies carry the most advanced Neron weapons in the galaxy. They obliterate the locals who are only reacting to injustice. They literally blow them to unidentifiable pieces.
My mouth opens and a soundless scream slips out into the world.
This is it. This is how Korpillion goes the way of all the other Neron worlds before it.
“Come on,” Zayne says, stooping to help me zip up my bag. “We have to find a way out of here.”
“This way,” Dad says, grabbing my wrist and tugging me back toward the back end of the school. We dart past dozens of classrooms, all filled with terrified children and teachers who could never be qualified to handle a planetary takeover.
At the back of the school, we come to a restroom. Against the outside wall, there is a large, frosted glass window that lets in the little natural light that makes it down this far.
“It doesn’t open,” Zayne says, searching the frame of it for a way to open it wide enough for us to slip out.
I press the activating button on my staff as I thrust it forward. The arc juts forward, connecting with the glass, and shatters it. I sweep it around the frame of the window, clearing all the jagged glass.
Not wasting another second,
I deactivate my staff, clipping it onto my belt, and climb through, careful to avoid the shards on the ground. Zayne and my father immediately follow. And just behind them is a whole mess of children.
I send out a prayer to the galaxy that they can make it home to their families unharmed. Children are innocent. They shouldn’t get caught up in Dominion’s greed.
“This way,” Zayne says, reaching for my free hand and tugging us back the way we just came. Together, the three of us run, hand in hand, down the skywalks, and then turn left down a sidewalk. My lungs are tired; my legs are exhausted. My heart screams at me to calm down.
But we keep running, turning down street after street.
We burst through the front door of our cube and I slam it shut behind us.
“We need food,” I say, immediately going to the kitchen. We don’t keep a large stockpile here for just the two of us, but I dump every non-perishable item we have into my huge bag. I yell at Zayne to start filling water containers, as much as we can carry.
I dart into my bedroom and grab a few changes of clothes, my extra pair of boots. I stuff those in the already full bag.
Dad emerges from his bedroom with his own bag.
I look around the tiny home that we have shared for forever. We don’t own anything of value. There’s nothing else worth taking.
“Do you need to go back to your cube?” I ask Zayne.
He grabs my bag, shouldering it. “Nothing worth grabbing.”
“Let’s get going,” Torin says. He opens the door wide, and Zayne and I shuffle out.
We’re two kilometers from the Airstrip. My legs are already tired. I feel like I’ve been running all over the city today. I’m used to walking everywhere, but nothing like this. Not under these circumstances.
The world is always noisy, but it was taken to an entirely new level today.
I hear shots being fired. Shots from Neron weapons and Korpillion ones. I hear screams. Class 6 ships zip around the sky now, and I hope and pray that they are only doing surveillance and not getting ready to fire on anyone.
The most direct path to the Airspace takes us within three blocks of the Square. Logic tells me to take a longer route, to steer clear of ground zero.
But there’s no time.
I’m already tired.
I don’t see any other choice but to take the fastest route.
“We’ll be to the Airspace in ten minutes,” I huff. I reach back, grabbing my father’s hand as he lags behind. I tug him faster, and he picks up the pace.
I hear a boom. And then another. It’s followed by the sound of falling debris and the ground shakes.
It sounded ten blocks away. Like a building beginning to collapse. My fear doubles.
Nearly every building on Korpillion is over fifty stories high. If one falls, it could cause a domino effect that could never stop until it reaches the coast.
“Come on!” Zayne yells, looking over his shoulder. I can’t believe how fast he still is, considering he’s carrying my loaded bag, plus his own.
“Dad, give me your bag,” I say through my panting breath. “We need to move faster.”
He gives me this growl that says no way in void I’m going to make my daughter carry my bag. But he picks up the pace and Zayne slows down to let us catch up.
There’s another boom. I hear screams rip through the sky. One of the Class 6 ships shoots over our heads, sending my hair wild and in my face. A moment later, I hear another boom.
A woman crashes into me from the right, the crowd is so chaotic and panicked. She sends me sailing to my side, knocking me underfoot in the crowd. I barely manage to keep hold of my staff.
Someone tramples over me, stepping on my stomach, the toe of their boot catching my chin, which cracks my head back against the skywalk. A startled, painful yelp rips from my chest. I roll to my side, pushing myself up, climbing back to my feet.
The skywalk is packed with frantic people who don’t really know where they’re going, but they feel like they have to be doing something. There are thousands of bodies packed around me, all in this little space.
I can’t see my dad. I can’t see Zayne.
All I see is thousands of unfamiliar faces.
There’s another boom, and it’s so loud, it makes my ears ring and I swear they’re bleeding.
And then there’s a cracking sound. A million pops. Glass shatters.
And the building just up ahead instantly crumbles. It tips. It shatters.
It falls. Right where our group had been running before I fell.
“Dad!” I scream. I take two steps forward, but a huge chunk of concrete lands just four feet in front of me, followed by a pouring rain of shattered glass.
I watch as hundreds of people are shredded by it.
“Zayne!”
And the world in front of me grows dark.
The towering building falls sideways. The top of it hits the next building, shattering glass, making an explosion that rains down on us below. The ground shakes at the impact. But it does not fall.
But the first, it collapses to the street with a thunderous clap.
And all those people in front of me, the hundreds and hundreds of people in the shadow of that building, they’re just gone. They disappear beneath the debris.
I’m stuck for a moment. A scream is lodged somewhere in my throat. But it can’t find it’s way past my horror.
Dad. Zayne.
My ears finally process sound once more, and the air is filled with screams, with mourning, angry cries. There are frantic calls of pain. There are hundreds around me who are injured.
And I stand here, just twenty feet from where a massive building just collapsed, and I don’t have more than a scratch on my left forearm and a scrape across my right cheek.
“Nova!” I hear a frantic yell coming from my wrist.
And emotion instantly springs in my eyes. I raise my wrist up, hearing Zayne’s frantic screaming.
“I’m here!” I yell back. “I’m here. Are you both okay?”
I hear his relieved breath through the connect-link. “We were just on the other side of the building when it came down. We didn’t realize you were gone.”
“I was pushed over,” I say, so relieved. I thought they were dead. I really thought they were both gone and that I was instantly alone. “I’m okay.”
“Stay where you are,” he says. “We’ll come find you.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. I break out of my freeze, making my feet move again. “We don’t have time. You two keep heading to the Airspace. I will meet you there in just a few minutes.”
“Nova, I-”
“Just do it, Zayne!” I yell at him. “I’m a big slam girl. I’ll meet you there in just a few.”
I hang up on him so I don’t have to hear either of them arguing with me.
I head toward the foundation of the building to cut around it and get back on the path to the Airspace. I pick my way through the debris. I tell myself not to think as I step over bodies. I go into survival mode because there’s blood all around me, the destruction everywhere.
The sounds of shooting get farther away, heading in the opposite direction, even though the Square is only two blocks from here. I hear the sounds of thousands of feet making their retreat, desperate to find somewhere safe.
I round the block, hoping to find a clear path, but I find heaps of debris stretching out in either direction.
I have no choice but to climb up and over it.
Tucking my staff into my tunic, I hoist myself up the first boulder of concrete and twisted steel. I grab a bar sticking out of it, pulling myself up. Carefully, I climb over the twisted support beams. Thankfully, all the glass seems to have filtered down through the concrete, trying to find its way to the ground below.
I crest the top of the heap. Looking down, I see more and more piles of debris. And no one in sight, except for those crushed by the buildings.
The end. It’s the end of Korpillion. It’s the
end for that woman lying with her face crushed to the street. It’s the end for whoever is attached to that arm sticking out from beneath that steel beam. It’s the end for whoever belonged to that shoe lying alone.
There are a million emotions ripping through me. But the strongest ones are hate and grief.
He was right. I do miss the boring and the predictable. I’d give anything to have it back, to rewind twenty-seven hours. I hated my life, and I didn’t appreciate the safety.
I begin working my way down the heap, determined that I have to get to the Airstrip. The boulders are unstable and metal groans under the pressure I put on the heap. Everything I’m climbing over is unstable. It could shift and twist and trap me in the mess.
A chunk of concrete rolls as I step on it and I lose my grounding, my right ankle gets caught between something as my left leg rolls forward with the debris. I twist, trying to keep my balance. My hand flings out, darting to catch myself. But it connects with the sharp end of a steel rod, and the tip of it sinks into my flesh, and my eyes widen in horror as I see the very tip of it appear on the back of my hand.
A stifled scream escapes my lips as I squeeze my eyes closed.
Think, Nova, I try to calm myself. You have to get yourself out of here. You have to go find Torin and Zayne and get off this planet. And then you can cry and scream.
Gritting my teeth, I rip my hand away from the steel, immediately pressing it to my chest to keep it from bleeding any more than necessary. With only my right hand, I brace myself, and pull my ankle free.
But the whole mountain of debris suddenly breaks and settles, and I’m falling, bouncing down the pile, hitting concrete and steel, until I land at the bottom.
And my eyes widen as I see three huge boulders smashing and bouncing their way down the same path I just came.
They head directly toward me, and I know I don’t stand a chance at moving out of their way.
Preparing for the impact, I hold my hands above myself, my fingers splayed wide, and I wait to be crushed.
There is one last great crack as the boulders roll and then bounce down the mountain of rubble, and then silence.
I wait. And wait, my face cringed, waiting for a second of pain before it’s all over.