Sink: The Complete Series

by Perrin Briar

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be the last thing they would have such an effect on.

  9.

  THE PARENT birds returned before long and deposited a dozen items in the floor of the nest. The vast majority was garbage. It was not delicious food, barely even edible. Nothing that would keep Cassie and Aaron for long.

  There was some meat, one side of a severed snout. They might make something of it if they were forced to. They had to assume there was nothing in the mist to support them. Cassie picked what remained of the unfortunate creature up, wrapped it in dry leaves, and added it to her pack.

  The adult birds preened one another’s feathers with delicate, but firm, movements. The next time the birds took off Aaron and Cassie would attempt their escape. It would be the only opportunity they would get.

  Every few minutes Cassie darted a look at the eggs, half expecting them to break open, for the demons inside to spill out and consume her. They were going to be unstoppable monsters, raging beasts with sharp pointy teeth and armored backs. They would not be able to do anything with them, would not be able to hold them back, would not even be able to hide from them for long. Cassie fully intended on being far from the nest when they decided to present themselves to the world.

  In the meanwhile, Cassie and Aaron prepared their items for their climb down the mountain. If they were going to make the attempt, it would be the best they could do with the resources available to them.

  Something set the parent birds off. They fluttered and hopped on the spot, cheeping and chirruping, flapping their wings in excitement. They nipped at one another before taking off to hunt in another location. At least the love was still alive in some parts of the world.

  “Happy hunting,” Cassie said.

  She turned to Aaron.

  “Are you ready?” Cassie said.

  “Not really,” Aaron said with a grim expression.

  “Help me first,” Cassie said.

  She turned and got down on her knees before him. Aaron picked up the materials they’d made and began to slip them on Cassie’s slender frame. He affixed the straps, holding the small amount of food and water on her back. Next, Aaron took position and Cassie loaded him with his climbing gear. When Aaron stood, they wore matching acorn helmets. They could only imagine the size the acorns must have been.

  “How is it you know how to climb?” Aaron said.

  “Summer camp,” Cassie said.

  “Nice to see how the other half lives,” Aaron said under his breath.

  “Have you done anything like this before?” Cassie said.

  “Yes,” Aaron said. “I used to climb onto the roof of the house whenever I kicked a ball up there by accident. Definitely nothing of this size.”

  “Me neither,” Cassie said. “But if we take our time we might be able to make our way down in one piece.”

  “I like your confidence,” Aaron said.

  Just off center of the nest was a thick stub of wood with a misshapen hook jutting out of it. What it had originally been, they had no idea, but they were pleasantly surprised to find it there. They wrapped vines around it, locking it down tight, and then tossed their ropes over the side of the nest. The vines fell into the mist, disappearing from view.

  “After you,” Aaron said.

  Cassie’s eyes narrowed.

  “Coward,” she said.

  Aaron held up his hands.

  “I’m just being a gentleman,” he said.

  “A gentleman,” Cassie said with a snort. “But still a coward.”

  Cassie held onto her rope and threw her legs over the side. She descended arm over arm to the mist ten feet below. She slowed as she approached the mist, hesitant about entering a world where she wouldn’t be able to see much farther than a few inches in front of her nose. Anything could be in there. And nothing too, a little voice said. In fact, probably nothing.

  Cassie held her breath and lowered herself into oblivion. She was submerged instantly. She held herself in position with her legs and waved a hand in front of her face. If she wasn’t the one waving it, she wouldn’t have known it was there.

  She turned on her vine, taking in the mist around her. There wasn’t one thin spot. Aaron’s boots skidded on the mountainside. Cassie couldn’t imagine he was the most agile climber in the world.

  Aaron drew up alongside her.

  “Thick in here, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Is it obvious comment time?” Cassie said. “You should have warned me.”

  “I’m not sure I can do this,” Aaron said. “My arms are shaking.”

  “Lock your legs on either side of the vine,” Cassie said. “That way you can stop and rest anytime you need to.”

  “Thanks,” Aaron said. “That works.”

  “No need to say not to look down,” Cassie said. “You can’t see anything even if you did.”

  “But that’s scary too,” Aaron said. “We don’t know what’s in it.”

  “Are you okay?” Cassie said. “We’ll get through this mist. We’ll just need to take it slow. We’ll be on the ground before we know it. Then we’ll find Mom and Pop and that’ll be the end of our little adventure in this world. All we’ll have to do then is focus on finding the Passage. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can get out of here.”

  Cassie unfurled her muscles and began to edge down the vine, one hand at a time, moving in synchronicity with her legs. Down, down, down deeper into the mist. It looked the same no matter how far they went, endless sheets of white.

  Cassie felt the keen sting of ice against her skin, the vine slippery in her hands. Cassie actually liked the freshness of the air and the cold vapor. She continued to place one hand over the other until her muscles ached and she slowed to a stop.

  “Aaron?” Cassie said. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” Aaron said.

  He sounded a little higher than Cassie, like he needed to come down a little farther if he was going to speak to her on an equal level. He kept coming, slowly, until he drew up to her. Cassie still couldn’t see him. He was out of sight behind the veil of mist.

  “We’ll be out of the mist soon,” Cassie said, though in reality she had no idea how long it would take to remove themselves from this place.

  She shuddered at the thought the mist might never end. And then another idea struck her. The worst she could envision at that moment. What if there was something else in the mist with them? Something they couldn’t see, couldn’t fight? Almost immediately she began to think she could hear something in the fog.

  Suddenly she didn’t want to stay, didn’t want to be there another moment longer than they needed to be. Entering the mist was the worst idea they could have come up with. How could they have been so stupid?

  But they were here now, already halfway through the process.

  “Woah,” Aaron’s voice said. “Is that you?”

  “Is what me?” Cassie said.

  “The thing touching my legs,” Aaron said.

  “You should be so lucky,” Cassie said. “I wouldn’t touch your legs if you paid me.”

  “All right,” Aaron said. “You just needed to say it’s not you. There’s no need to get personal.”

  “Sorry,” Cassie said. “But no. It’s not me. Come on. We have to keep going. The sooner we get on the other side of this mist, the better.”

  They continued to climb, lowering themselves one hand length at a time. It was a strain on their muscles, difficult, hard work, but they didn’t stop.

  And then Cassie felt something brushing against her ankle. She rolled her eyes.

  “Real mature, Aaron,” Cassie said.

  “You’re the one making childish comments,” Aaron said.

  “So you feel the need to touch me the way you’re touching yourself?” Cassie said.

  “I’m not touching you,” Aaron said. “You’re telling me you feel it too?”

  “There’s nothing to feel, besides your sick hands,” Cassie said.

&n
bsp; “Cassie, I’m not touching you,” Aaron said. “How can I? I’m over here, and I can’t even see you.”

  Cassie stiffened when she felt something graze her bum. She slapped Aaron’s hand.

  “What did I tell you?” Cassie said. “I swear, I’m going to call the sexual harassment police when we get home.”

  “What was I supposed to have done now?” Aaron said.

  “You know what you did,” Cassie said.

  “No, I don’t,” Aaron said. “It wasn’t me!”

  “You grabbed my ass!” Cassie said.

  “And you think I have the confidence to do something like that?” Aaron said. “Even if I did, I couldn’t do it to you. It’d be weird. We’re like brother and sister now.”

  Taking a moment to think about it, Cassie supposed that was true. Aaron wasn’t capable of such a thing. She felt the same way with him. He was like a younger brother, though they were actually the same age.

  That left only one logical answer.

  But that couldn’t be true. Could it? What could possibly be in this mist? And what were the chances it was something that wanted to touch her the way it had?

  There were living things in all these worlds they had visited. Some they had seen before, others were new to them, thought to be extinct. Others had evolved of their own accord, like the huge birds that had brought them to this nest. Was it so unreasonable for there to be living things in this mist too?

  And then she felt something that could not have been Aaron’s hands.

  It began from the heel of her foot and wound its way around her legs and up her body, all the time keeping contact with her. It sent a shiver up her spine, making her feel sick to the stomach.

  It would have required someone with a remarkably long arm to be able to do that, a basketball player, perhaps. But what were the chances Michael Jordan was inside this mist with them? Not very.

  Terrified and unable to move, hardly able even to breathe, Cassie tensed her whole body, and let the feeling of whatever was running over her complete its assessment. Perhaps it would leave her alone, sensing she wasn’t what it—whatever it was—was looking for.

  She was helpless prey deep in the jungle, trapped within the mortal coils of a dangerous predator. It was going to crush and destroy her, she knew. It was the kind of forethought and knowledge she imagined all prey had before the big crush.

  It ran around her body to her neck, and she felt the icy dampness of its scales on her skin. She was paralysed with fear, the way only prey could feel when they were in the clutches of a predator.

  It was a predator, Cassie knew. It was in the way it moved, the confident manner with which it approached her body, pressing and prying on all sides, sizing her up, judging whether she was a suitable meal or not. It was the reason her hair stood on end the way it was, the way her body had become rigid and stiff, terrified, her every sense heightened for a fight or flight response.

  She was suddenly aware of everything around her, everything in motion. There was nothing she couldn’t miss, for to miss the slightest signal of danger would have meant death.

  The skin that brushed against her wasn’t something a healthy human should have anywhere near their body, unless Aaron had a particularly bad rash he hadn’t told her about.

  Cassie was grasping at straws, her mind working on overdrive to discover something that might explain the facts, without admitting the truth. A creature was wrapping itself around her, and she had no doubt in her mind as to what it could be.

  Its coils were thick and powerful, and there was little she could do to get loose, she knew. She had made a fatal mistake; she had waited too long, and with too much hope for a chance the beast might not be interested in her after all. But unfortunately for her, it did want her. There was nothing she could do now. She could already feel the oxygen being squeezed from her body.

  A shape began to appear from the mist. Its head was an arrowhead, narrow at the nose and broad at the jaw. Its eyes were yellow as the waxing moon, slitted and evil. The mist parted as the snake’s head drew closer.

  It was an ugly specimen, with a scar across its thick lips. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth and quivered in the air, revealing one of its forks was missing. It kissed her cheek. Cassie shivered in its coils, causing the snake to tighten further.

  Cassie giggled. Where that came from, she didn’t know. Inside, she was terrified.

  Aaron was saying something. She could hear his voice, but it was on the fringes of her understanding. It was like he was speaking to her through a watery barrier. He may as well have not existed at all.

  But the snake, the huge reptile, its head larger than Cassie’s own, was real. To Cassie’s eyes it may as well have been all that existed in the universe. It was everything that mattered. She couldn’t make out Aaron’s words. She didn’t need to. They didn’t matter. The snake’s slitted amber yellow eyes glowed, beautiful, dangerous and deadly.

  Cassie’s mind began to wander. It was then that she was really in danger. There was something mesmerizing about the snake, something that lulled Cassie into a false sense of security. She thought about the birds and all the food they brought to the nest. It must have attracted a great deal of pests, and that was what she supposed was wrapping around her body now. The world’s worst pest.

  The quantity of food, the size and quality of it, would have dictated what kind of pests they could expect. Bird seed in a cage attracted rats. Dog meat attracted raccoons. Fully grown swine and chickens and other carcasses the fully grown birds must have brought to the nest at various times… What kind of pests might they attract? Now she knew.

  A stiff breeze blew a hole in the mist, exposing the snake and the surrounding rocks, the pedestal upon which the nest was perched. Daylight brought the nightmare to life, and it was this break in the spell, of the spectral reality of the situation, that awoke Cassie, warning her of the danger she was in.

  She peered down at this creature, not wanting to see it, but unable to tear her eyes away from it either. The dissipating mist brought the creature’s head further into view, its slitted eyes wide and unyielding black pupils, moving to and fro.

  Cassie was mesmerised by it. But over the slimy wet scales of its head Cassie could make out Aaron. She shifted her eyes ever so slightly away from the reptile and focused on him. She began to breathe once again, and could feel with terrifying precision the snake crushing the air from her body. Its grip somehow, incredibly, grew stronger, and though she grunted, the air was crushed from Cassie’s lungs.

  “Aaron,” she said, the name escaping her lips in a gasping wheeze.

  She found part of her lungs were no longer available to draw in the required amount of oxygen. She was starving to death, starving of oxygen.

  She was going to die.

  The snake’s thick tongue flickered between its thick lips and tickled Cassie’s nose. The snake’s head pulled back, its lips receded, revealing its fangs. They stuck out at a ninety degree angle, large, like the kind of needle used to inject adrenaline directly into the heart. Its eyes rolled back in expectation of the upcoming feast.

  It was going to crush and consume her, Cassie knew. This was the end. And yet strangely, bizarrely, she didn’t really mind. She was numb. She felt her bones rubbing together. They weren’t yet broken, but she could feel the snake preparing to bring all its strength down on her, to snap and crush her bones and ground them into dust.

  Its head jerked to one side and snapped its attention around, turning to find Aaron hanging from his vine, a club in one hand. He had just struck the giant snake on the head. The wind had not only awoken Cassie to the horror situation she was in, but also allowed Aaron to see the scene for himself. It had not been to his liking, and he’d decided to do something about it.

  The snake hissed, its injured tongue flicking, fork jittering like a rattlesnake’s tail. It ducked its head down and looked up at him. Though Aaron had the higher ground, there was no denying which of the parties held the gre
ater number of cards. Thankfully Aaron wasn’t ignorant of the situation. His eyes widened. He couldn’t tear his eyes off the snake, but he managed to open his mouth and some words tumbled out.

  “Cassie!” he said. “Run!”

  It was hardly the most accurate command. How exactly did you run up a vine? His brain hadn’t managed to find the right word and simply plucked the nearest one at hand. Climb. I have to climb.

  There was no way to get free. The snake’s thick coils were wrapped around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides. Its other coils hung from protruding rocks, natural hooks and crannies.

  The thrust of the command was good. Escape. Get out of there. Cassie shook her head. Aaron had already begun to climb his vine, gripping his makeshift club between his teeth and pulling himself up one arm at a time. The snake reached for his vine and coiled itself around it, heading up and chasing Aaron as he pulled himself up faster than Cassie would have believed him capable.

  The snake’s coils were weakening. Cassie was very aware of them, how they clung to her, tight and unyielding. But they were loosening, and soon they would be loose enough for Cassie to begin climbing. But she had to wait, or else risked alerting the snake she was still there, within its grasp.

  She would have one chance to get away, and she needed to be patient. Her breaths were shallow, hollow and crisp in her chest. She felt another coil unwind from her, and the snake’s tail fell, dangling from Aaron’s vine.

  Aaron must have been close to the nest by now, but she wouldn’t know his fate until she reached the nest.

  Cassie’s muscles were free. She began her ascent. She bathed in the luxuriousness of the freedom of her own muscles, operating under her own steam. She lifted up a hand and felt the vine there. She began to lift herself up. It was hard work, her muscles frozen by inactivity.

  A noise. Cassie froze. Listened.

  Nothing came from the mist.

  She listened more intently, for the possibility of hearing a voice. Aaron’s voice. But it didn’t come. That didn’t mean he wasn’t in trouble.

  She reached up and continued to climb. It seemed a lot farther to climb on the way up than it did on the way down. She let her sweat slicken her brow and dampen her fringe. She paused to take a break and breathed in the icy cold of the misty air. It was cool and damp and felt good.