by Eve Langlais
He was just happy they never did the same so-called tests on Casey. Her specialness lay in other areas.
Since Cam was already a stupid fuck, he saw no reason not to peek in the crevice. A glance down showed a river of red, hints of mauve and black, even the occasional yellow and orange. It was a moving stream of molten rock. It had to mean there was a volcano feeding it.
It reminded him of the dream he’d had that first night, the bubbling heart feeding the magma veins and obviously the source of the ash and poison air. He’d found the cause, and it did him no good. He’d lost the moment Burton fell into the lava. All he had was his suit, a knife, a big gun, and a smaller pistol. No food or water.
No hope.
Best not think of that. What he needed to do was decide on a direction and start walking because standing around lamenting his ill luck wouldn’t solve anything. But where to go?
Back to the Marshlands meant he would have to admit defeat. If he made it. Several days of driving translated to how many on foot? Too many for a man with no food or water. Leaving what other option?
Completing his task. Never mind he didn’t know how to stop a volcano. Perhaps, had he not managed to lose all his supplies, including those lovely bombs he’d brought, he might have stood a chance. Still, he wasn’t about to give up.
He followed the lava along the edge of the crevice, doing his best to ignore the way his hands burned. The good news was his lungs didn’t. His re-circulatory and filtration system appeared to be working. Now if only he had a way to let Riella and the others know that the suits and sealed vehicles worked—if you stayed out of a lava-filled crevice—so they could send a more prepared group. One that wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel and manage to lose a tank.
How did he ever think he could do this alone? So much for the prophecy about him saving Ozz. He could barely save himself.
Woe is me. He used his annoyance at his own self-pity to power his steps.
He didn’t know how long he trudged. The endless monotony of the falling ash and the lack of any change in the landscape made it hard to track anything. For all he knew, he remained where he started. Perhaps he’d already died and was in Hell, trudging endlessly, bored and alone.
Silence joined paranoia as his other companion. Even though night had yet to fall, the whispers wouldn’t stop, teasing the edges of his consciousness. He knew better than to listen to strange voices. He walked quietly for a man his size, and the soft downy dust didn’t make a noise when he stepped on it but rather rose in puffs.
Following the rift, he entered a forest, the trunks of the trees long calcified, so many branches broken and fallen onto the ground. A few trees had toppled, but of more interest, a big one had created a bridge over the impassable crevice.
Standing on it, he really had to wonder what he was doing. Would it hold his weight? Why was he still going forward? He should be trying to make it back to the Marshlands and admit defeat.
Instead he balanced carefully as he stepped across. At the halfway point, suspended over the hot river, the fallen trunk shifted ominously. Throwing caution to the wind, he sprinted the rest of the way. His boots had barely thumped onto the other side when there was a crack. He whirled in time to see his bridge falling into the abyss.
There would be no going back, which proved almost as deflating as the fact that the other side didn’t prove to be any better. Same dead world.
Was it any wonder he didn’t expect the attack from above?
Chapter 3
One moment Cam was walking, wondering if the road he’d stumbled upon—framed by a marching line of trees—would lead to a village that might have something of use, and the next, something swooped and knocked him to the ground.
“What the fuck!” he bellowed as he rolled and jumped to his feet.
The flying beast had disappeared from sight, but he had a feeling it would return. Let it. He hadn’t lived this long by panicking in shitty situations. In a moment, he had his big gun raised and ready as he waited for it.
The ash made it hard to see. The animal swooped, appearing suddenly, and he shot wild, missing the damned thing. He whirled to try and track it, but the agitation of the ash meant it hung thickly around him, an effective curtain that hid all from sight. The next thing he knew, the creature had slammed into him from behind, knocking him down. He lost the grip on his gun, and before he could roll, the beast had him by the shoulders. It dug in talons that pierced his suit and skin.
It got worse from there. With a flap of its wings, a mini ash storm rose into the air while Cam dangled helplessly.
He’d lost his big weapon, but he did still have his knife and a pistol to shoot whatever captured him. He never even bothered to try. Heck, he didn’t dare move, not when he realized how high they rose. And higher.
They emerged above the band of poison fog, and he saw undiluted sunlight for the first time in days. He blinked as his eyes watered at the brightness. Once his gaze adjusted, he glimpsed a strange sight.
The world below appeared as a rolling pillow of mist, thick enough he couldn’t see through it, broken only by the occasional jutting peak of a mountain or hill. Even odder, those promontories had color. Stubborn trees that might be twisted but determined to grow. He even caught sight of a bird rising from one branch and flapping over to another. A bird much smaller than what held him. What creature had captured him, and carried him, a grown man, as if he were a simple rodent?
Even tilting his head as much as he wanted, he couldn’t see much, not with the helmet in his way. He made the mistake of looking straight down and gulped. The shadow projected onto the fog bank appeared huge, the wingspan massive, the body narrow with a serpentine tail.
Certainly not any bird he’d ever seen.
Whatever the creature, it appeared to have a destination. It flew toward a tall mountain, the tallest in sight. Atop, he saw ruins, what appeared to be a building partially smashed. Was that where the thing headed?
It veered, angling instead for the side of the mountain, not slowing one bit as it arrowed for the hard rock.
Since Cam didn’t need to see the stone wall that would kill him, he shut his eyes tight. The impact, when it came, rolled him. It took him a moment to realize he’d not been slammed into stone, but he still hurt.
His shoulders throbbed and bled from his wounds. His body ached from the impact. More alarming, the face shield on his helmet showed several cracks.
Oh fuck. Forget his hands being compromised. How would he breathe once he got off the mountain?
Sitting up, he did his best to remain calm. Not easy given he noticed the human skull lying not even a foot away. Sightless and stripped of flesh, as were all the bones piled on the ledge.
Movement had him whipping his head around in time to see a monster. A giant lizard-like thing with wings that shrieked at him before darting with its head. He barely managed to dive out of its way. Hitting the ground hard, he grunted with the pain of it, his shoulders protesting the most.
Fuck this. He rolled and pulled his pistol, only to have it knocked out of his hand in the short time he’d used to aim. In his defense, he didn’t expect the beast to be able to aim its tail so precisely. Both guns gone left him at a disadvantage.
He palmed his knife just as the creature lunged for him again. He dove out of its way, using his hands once more to break his fall. The fingers holding the knife protested as he landed on them. He pushed himself off the ground and came to his feet, knife outstretched, as if it would stop the giant beast.
It roared, a shrill sound that ended in a hiss. It wasn’t happy its dinner was fighting back. Too bad.
He only narrowly dodged the next attack and jabbed with his knife, which didn’t end well. For him. The blade bounced off the rough skin, and his pathetic attempt only managed to make his foe angrier, judging by its bellow. His cracked visor made it hard to see, and it wasn’t as if it protected him anymore. He twisted it free and threw it at the monster as it lunged again.
The monster ambled toward him on four legs, its wings tucked to its back. Its head, ending in a snout, showed spined ridges atop it.
He dove for the gun. Aching fingers screamed as he gripped it and rolled to aim. The first shot went wild as the monster dove for him. His second attempt lodged itself in the beast’s side, which caused it to shriek in pain.
Good job on really making it angry. In moving around the ledge, trying to stay out of teeth’s reach, he noticed a crevice in the rock. Probably nothing. But if he didn’t find a way to hide or escape, he’d soon be making his way through the monster’s digestive tract. He holstered his gun, scrabbled to grab the knife on the ground, and headed for the dark slit.
The crack proved a tight fit, but going in sideways, he managed to squeeze in. Not before the monster grabbed hold of his arm and chomped.
“Radioactive fucker!” he bellowed, yanking and screaming as he felt the teeth tearing along his flesh, ripping the fabric from his arm.
Ignoring the agony of being chewed on, Cam pulled free and fell through the crack into a cave. Or so he assumed. He couldn’t see much, given the monster trying to wedge itself in the hole blocked all the light. It managed to only shove inside, and Cam bopped it with the hilt of his knife. For a moment he thought about drawing his pistol, but he worried that firing it in the confined space would have unintended consequences, such as burying him in rock.
The beast didn’t like getting schooled and withdrew with a bellow only to begin smashing at the stone.
Cam retreated from the opening with no idea how far the cave would go or if it even had another exit. He took one step too many and teetered on the edge of something—cliff, pit, it didn’t really matter. His arms flailed, and he tried to keep his balance to no avail.
He toppled, plummeting like a rock, bounced a few times off the hard wall, and landed more softly than expected in water. He knew how to swim, but that required his body to work. So many parts of him hurt. The best he could manage was to float on his back, letting the current carry him, blinded by the darkness, throbbing with his many injuries.
The current quickened and began to buffet him, smashing him against everything in its path. Until a blow to his head knocked him out.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on a pebbled shore only faintly illuminated. To his surprise, he wasn’t dead. His mouth was pasty, his body sore, his eyes burned, and his lungs were ragged. But he was alive. Barely. He dragged himself from the water’s edge, wondering just how much poison ran through it.
Finding a rock that made a good backrest, he leaned on it and shut his eyes. It only amplified the pain. He really should do something about it.
Or not.
“Aren’t you going to stop the bleeding?” Marjo, the doctor, asked, biting her lip as she glanced between an injured boy and the man causing the injury. She was the only one to show Cam any kind of kindness even as she obeyed orders.
“Stopping it would defeat the purpose of the test.” The man Cam liked to call Asshole had the same cold expression as usual. He truly felt nothing when he ran a scalpel over Cam’s skin and split it open.
“But we’ve already done this test before. A few times.”
“Your point being?” asked the sadistic Asshole.
“It’s cruel.”
Cam, tied to a bed tilted upright, felt a flutter of hope.
“There you go being sentimental about the test subjects again.”
“He’s only a child,” Marjo said softly.
“Yes, more the pity. He won’t be ready for breeding for a while yet.”
“Did he inherit his genes from the father or mother?”
She must be new because the other doctors, including Asshole, knew the answer.
“We don’t know who the parents are. The Incubaii dome suffered a malfunction, and that information was lost.”
“Surely there must be an indication,” she insisted.
“You are showing an awful lot of interest in this test subject.” Asshole turned his gaze to Marjo.
Cam wanted to say something, to warn her, but he held his tongue. A weak coward because he knew if Asshole focused on her, then he might delay torturing him.
“Just curious. I am after all here to help you with your work.”
Work? That wasn’t the word Cam would have used. Asshole enjoyed himself entirely too much when he plied the tools of his trade.
“You weren’t brought here to be curious but to assist. Or perhaps you’d like to join our subject and provide a baseline for comparison?”
Her eyes widened, and she shook her head frantically.
“Then do your job and monitor the results.”
All anybody ever did was their job. Never mind the fact it involved cutting a little boy. Bruising him. Burning him.
Was it any wonder he’d escaped? He then showed those who’d held him prisoner the same sympathy they showed him. He took satisfaction in knowing he never screamed as loud as they did, and at the end of his imprisonment, he didn’t beg them to stop either.
Cam faded from the past to the present and the burning in his body. So many parts of him were on fire. His hands especially. He held them up and saw the reddened, blistered flesh. They wouldn’t be much help in cleaning and bandaging the rest of him. As if he had anything to bind his wounds. A glance at his arm showed the tears along the forearm where the thing tried to bite him. He could only imagine his shoulders where the claws pierced him. It must be bad given he’d not managed to aim properly even once.
Shifting brought an intense wave of pain that pushed him back into unconsciousness, and then he must have been dreaming because he could have sworn he heard a musical voice say, “Where did you come from?”
He cracked open an eye to see a beautiful woman leaning over him and muttered, “Me? Where did you come from? Why are you in my dream?” How could he dream of a beautiful woman the likes of which he’d never seen?
“More like a nightmare, I would think.” The apparition cocked her head. “You’ve been attacked.”
“Ya think?” He shifted, only to gasp. For a dream, he sure hurt a lot. Where was that smelly weed Kyle liked to smoke when a fellow needed to numb his body and mind?
“Are you alone?”
“Not anymore.” Said with a lopsided grin that might have been more grimace judging by the way she frowned.
“How did you get here?”
“I fell.”
“Fell from where?” she asked, looking away from him.
“Dunno but there was water involved.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t drown.”
“Lucky?” He laughed a little too hard and coughed hard enough to throw himself sideways on the ground. He blinked as he noticed the blood on the gritty surface. His blood. From his lungs. Maybe he should have kept the broken helmet on.
“You were outside,” she stated.
“Yeah,” he wheezed.
“That wasn’t a good idea. You’ve got the ash sickness.”
“Talk about a boring name. Should have gone with Acid Breath or Constricted Lung.” It became harder and harder to talk. And think. As for moving? The pebbled shore was feeling mighty comfortable.
“What am I going to do with you?” she muttered.
“Anything you like.” Which might have sounded more suave if he wasn’t face first, bleeding, about to pass out.
“You don’t belong here.”
The sad truth? “I don’t belong anywhere.”
Chapter 4
“What do you mean you don’t belong anywhere?” Kayda repeated the stranger’s words, only to realize she wouldn’t be getting a reply anytime soon. The big man she’d found on the shores of the underground river had lost consciousness.
It was close to a miracle he’d been awake long enough to speak. She’d not failed to notice the extent of his injuries. Blood soa
ked his clothes from the open tears in his body. His face was bruised and his breath ragged.
For an outsider, he’d lasted longer without a breathing mask than most. But even in the tunnel system, where the air was slightly cleaner, he’d die soon enough. Even those born in the Diamond Kingdom succumbed to the poison, except for Kayda and a few others who seemed to be able to handle the tainted air. She’d yet to decide if that was a blessing or a curse.
The stranger’s chest rose and fell with each labored breath. His wounds no longer bled, but she could see the angry flesh, the cuts deep enough to show muscle and bone. He needed more healing than stitching and rest could provide. He was beyond her or anyone’s help.
She turned her back on him. There was no point in taxing herself for someone who would shortly die. Supplies were already stretched. They didn’t need one more mouth to feed, one more body to clothe, another person for Kayda to look after.
Except, she found she couldn’t ignore him. She groaned as she looked up at the ceiling of the cave and exclaimed, “What am I supposed to do?” It wasn’t as if she could carry him. Even dragging was out of the question.
When she’d gone to harvest the shrooms, alone because she’d needed time to herself, she’d not expected to find anyone. Certainly not a stranger. By now, everyone beyond her country’s borders must know the dangers of trying to enter Diamond. The certainty of death.
Yet here he lay, a stranger in odd clothes. An outsider given his coloring gave away the fact he wasn’t a citizen. After twenty years underground and more than that in an icy kingdom, no one in Diamond had the tanned skin or dark hair he bore. Not to mention his garments. What was that strange crinkly material he wore over his other clothes? She could see the regular fabric through the tears.