Darkness

by Kyle West

  “I don’t mind going,” Michael said. “I know I could be useful in a situation like that.”

  Makara smiled. “You have a family to take care of. I’m not going to risk you again or Lauren will give me hell.”

  “I said I can go,” Michael said. “We all have people we care about.”

  Makara said nothing to that.

  “I’ll go, then,” Julian said. “I’d have to be taught to parachute, but I think I can learn that easily enough.”

  Makara looked at Julian for a moment. It was hard to read her eyes. Was she going to let him go?

  “I can do this,” Julian said, meeting her gaze. “I have no reason why I shouldn’t.”

  “Your family...”

  “We all have families, and people we love,” Julian said. “I want to do my part.”

  She looked from Julian back to Michael. “You both can go, if you wish it. Just...don’t let me explain to either of your families why I let you, alright?”

  Julian smiled. “We’ll be fine. We’ve been in much worse spots.”

  Michael nodded.

  I wasn’t so sure about that. Los Angeles could be more dangerous than even Bunker 84.

  “Alright, that’s Grudge, Michael, and Julian,” Makara said. “I’m only willing to send one more. Who will it be?”

  “I’ll go.”

  Ruth stood in the doorway of the conference room. How long had she been listening outside?

  “Ruth,” Makara said, “I’m glad you want to help out, but don’t you think your place is here?”

  Ruth stared at her for a moment, as if considering that. Then she shook her head.

  “No. It’s not. I can fight. I survived in Bunker 108 when everyone else died. I killed dozens of Howlers in my time there. If there’s anything you can say about me, it’s that I’m a survivor. If you send me down there, I’m not dying. I can guarantee that.” She nodded toward Michael. “Plus, I can make sure he doesn’t kill himself.”

  Everyone looked at her with shocked expressions. Even Rey and the Vegas gang lords seemed to be impressed. Makara continued to stare her down. Everyone looked at the leader of the New Angels.

  “Fine,” Makara said. “Ruth is our fourth.” She sighed. “We have our team.”

  “There was another reason I came,” Ruth said, smiling. “Samuel is up.”

  Suddenly, the conference room became a scene of chaos. Makara’s eyes widened as she ran out, weaving her way through people now standing up.

  She turned her head quickly. “Meeting adjourned.”

  She ran out the door. I heard her boots stomp on the deck toward Aeneas’s medical bay, where Samuel had been transported.

  Anna and I shared a look before we both walked out of the conference room and made our way to the medical bay.

  Chapter 21

  We rushed into Aeneas’s medical bay on the first deck. It was larger than Gilgamesh’s. At least three times the size, it had four beds along with an operating room which was separated from the rest of the bay. Several large cabinets, likely filled with medical supplies, were built into the walls. Despite the fact that the Community had access to this facility, it was clear that it wasn’t used very often, though it was likely they had taken bandages, antibiotics, and medicines when needed.

  Samuel sat up in one of the corner beds, slurping down a bowl of soup. I didn’t blame him – it had been almost a week since he’d had a proper meal and not something fed to him intravenously. He looked thin and pale – a far cry from the warrior he had once been. It was amazing what one week in a hospital bed could do to a man. It was almost as bad as the original injury. A bandage still wrapped his forehead, and heavy bruising discolored a good portion of his head above his left eye.

  Makara knelt beside the bed, looking at his face. For now, Samuel was just concentrated on trying to get the soup down. Lauren observed from beside him.

  “Take it easy,” Makara said. “Not too fast.”

  Samuel paused mid-slurp. “I remember how to eat, Makara. For a younger sister, you tend to act like an older.”

  “Quiet,” she said, “and eat your soup.”

  Makara turned to Lauren. “Is more being brought?”

  She nodded. “I had Ruth go get a second bowl.”

  Ashton entered the bay, striding over to Samuel’s bed. Samuel slowly turned his head to face him.

  “How are you feeling?” Ashton asked.

  Samuel drained the rest of his bowl, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Like hell. I’ve really been out for six days?”

  “You have,” Ashton said.

  “What did I miss?”

  I laughed at that. At my laughter, Samuel turned his head ever so slightly to look at me. It hurt me a bit just to see how battered he was. A contusion such as he had taken on the head would take months to fully heal – that is, if it ever fully healed. Being in a coma for six days might have had lasting effects. But so far, Samuel seemed alright.

  “I’m being serious,” Samuel said. “I want to know every single thing I missed.” He looked around the medical bay. “Because it seems like a lot.”

  “Well, for one,” Anna said, stepping forward to the bed. “We have a new spaceship.”

  I followed Anna’s steps to the bed.

  “Perseus?” Samuel asked. “Orion?”

  Anna shook her head. “No. This is Aeneas, which we found in Bunker 84.”

  “Bunker 84?”

  “Alright,” Makara said, cutting off my response. “We need to let Samuel recoup for a couple of days before we overload him with information.”

  “Really,” Samuel said. “It’s fine.”

  “That’s an order,” Makara said. “Let’s give him the space he needs and let Ashton run his diagnostic.”

  Even if all I wanted to do was talk to Samuel, and even if that was all he wanted, I could see that Makara made sense.

  Anna pulled on my shirtsleeve. “I think we’re getting kicked out.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Right.”

  We left the medical bay behind. When I reached the corridor, Samuel called out.

  “Alex.”

  Samuel’s voice was loud, but raspy. He hadn’t used it for almost a week.

  “Any word from your friend?”

  It took me a moment to realize who he was talking about. I realized he was speaking of the Wanderer.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Samuel nodded. He looked at me a moment longer before turning his attention back to Makara.

  “Let’s go,” Anna said.

  I followed her out of the medical bay and into the outside corridor. I wasn’t sure where she was leading me. We made our way to the bridge. In the past few days, the deck had been cleaned by Community members. Every vestige of Elias was gone from this place.

  Anna sighed as she sat in the pilot’s seat. I took up a jump seat not too far away. She stared out the windshield that had once been covered with Elias’s slime. Now that it was clean, it revealed the dark hangar outside. Several New Angels walked past below, staring into the bridge.

  “I just wanted us to be alone for a moment.”

  Even though we’d had three days of down time, Anna and I had not seen much of each other. This was our first time to talk since we got everyone settled in here.

  She reached for my hand, intertwining her fingers in mine. I drew the hand toward my chest. Anna followed my pull by standing and sharing her seat with me. Her head settled into my shoulder, her hair caressing my cheek.

  “I just want to stay here for a while,” she said.

  I held Anna close, as if to protect her from everything we had gone through. Her moments of vulnerability were rare, so all I could do was cherish them when they came.

  “You doing better?”

  She nodded into my chest. “Yeah. I don’t know why my nerves got to me up there. I think it was the flying more than anything else. I’m used to copiloting, but piloting is much different.”

&n
bsp; “How so?”

  “How to explain,” she said. “For one, you are in control. Anything that goes wrong is your fault. You control the steering, and in a tough situation, you have to make a snap decision. And it has to be right.”

  “Sounds like a lot of pressure.

  “It is. I’m not sure that kind of pressure is for me. I’m happy just to stab a Howler or two.”

  I felt the same way. Though I had led the team in Bunker 84, it didn’t exactly go well. Everyone had come out in one piece at least.

  I’d played the scenario over and over in my head and I didn’t see how I could have done anything better. If I had pulled everyone out of the Bunker, as Makara had wanted, then we wouldn’t have gained Bunker 84 in the first place and the Community would still be down there with their ship. Maybe Askala would have forced them to come out and they would have actually nuked Los Angeles.

  There was no telling. No one died, which was the most I could hope for.

  “What are we going to do, when the time comes?” Anna asked.

  I didn’t have to ask what she meant: the coming fight with Askala and my part in it. It was something we had talked about before.

  “The Wanderer told me,” Anna said. “That I would lose the one I loved.” She looked at me with a mixture of pain and longing. I was held by her gaze, those beautiful eyes that had captured me time and again. I hated to see them looking at me like that.

  I touched her face, stroking her left cheek with my thumb. “You need to smile.”

  She did, but the sadness still lingered. The sadness I could never take away, no matter what I tried. Because, like it or not, the Wanderer’s words held true. I would have to sacrifice myself. Whether he meant death, or something else, Anna was going to lose me. I was going to lose her. It was the price that had to be paid. If everyone else in the world could be saved, what was our love in comparison to that? Our love was our world, but it wasn’t theirs. Our sacrifice would be worth it if thousands or even millions would go on to love because we had sacrificed ours upon the altar.

  Even if this thought made sense logically, every part of me screamed against it. I didn’t want to be with Anna merely now – I wanted to be with her forever. When all of this was over, I wanted to settle down with her. Marry her. Have kids...

  Unbidden, tears came to my eyes. These thoughts were cruel and I didn’t dare mention them aloud. Anna only held me. She kissed me on the cheek, twice, her mouth trailing down my neck. I relaxed into the chair.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t...”

  I pulled her close, silencing her with kisses. She responded in kind – but we couldn’t go on. We couldn’t take this any further because it would only make it more painful, in the end.

  At last, she desisted and rested her head on my shoulder. We sat there for a while, enjoying each other’s warmth in a cold world. It was as sweet as it was painful.

  “I love you,” I said. “I needed to tell you that.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  Anna didn’t answer.

  “Don’t say don’t,” I said. “It’s what I wanted to say, even back in the arena.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long while. Even if she didn’t return the words, I could rest content, knowing that I’d told her.

  “I know you love me,” she said, finally. “I see it every day in your eyes. And I’m sorry.”

  “I...thought you felt the same way.”

  “Of course I do. It’s just...don’t be sorry. About anything. And don’t feel pressured to...I don’t know. Haven’t you thought that it might be better not to love?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But isn’t the cat already out of the bag?”

  “I already told you I loved you, Alex. But I guess you weren’t listening.”

  “When did you say that?”

  “The Wanderer,” Anna said. “Don’t you remember? He told me I would lose the one I loved. That the one I loved would...”

  She sighed, and never finished. She gripped my back, nestling even closer to me.

  “I just wish it were different,” she said. “I feel like every day that gets closer...”

  “Just don’t think about it,” I said. “Just...enjoy the moment. What’s simpler than that?”

  Anna said nothing. I felt troubled the longer the silence went on. After a while, I looked down at her, seeing that her eyes were closed. Soon, her breathing was even. She had fallen asleep right on top of me, arms wrapped around my torso as if she never wanted to let go.

  Since I wasn’t going anywhere, I closed my own eyes and also fell asleep.

  ***

  Anna woke me sometime later. We had probably dozed for fifteen minutes or so.

  “Come on,” she said.

  She led me to her cabin aboard Gilgamesh. She led me to her bed, where we lay down together.

  “I want you to be near me,” she said.

  We crowded onto the tiny bed and covered ourselves in the blanket. Anna cuddled against me.

  “This is better,” she said.

  I wrapped my arms around her, kissing the top of her head. I’d never felt about any girl the way I felt about Anna.

  “When the time comes...” Anna said.

  “Don’t talk about it.”

  Anna was quiet for a moment.

  “When the time comes,” she began again, turning to face me. “I will save you. I will find a way. I promise.”

  I knew she meant it, and that was what pained me the most. There was nothing I could say to dissuade her from that. So I said nothing.

  She kissed me on the lips.

  “We’ll find a way,” she said. “The Wanderer doesn’t know everything, does he?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  Anna’s eyes showed her hurt. “Don’t tell me to not to worry about it, Alex. Because it’s all I can do. I have nightmares about losing you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t used to anyone feeling that way about me, so it felt...wrong. I didn’t know how to explain it. It made me more afraid than I’d ever been in my life.

  “Just accept everything for what it’s worth.”

  I looked into Anna’s face, realizing just how very young she was. How young we both were. We were both technically kids, and yet the world had turned us into something different, something in between. Right now, I saw her fear, her vulnerability. All of the things she had been hiding from the others, and I loved her all the more for it.

  “Whatever happens, it’ll be alright,” I said.

  “No, it won’t,” Anna said. “You won’t leave me alone in the world.”

  “And leave the world to die?”

  Anna didn’t respond to that. She knew I couldn’t just abandon my mission. But I couldn’t abandon her, either. It was a dilemma I was not prepared to face. I couldn’t see how anyone could face it.

  “I will find a way.” She smiled. “Don’t make me repeat it again or I’ll bonk you in the head.”

  I kissed her forehead. “Let’s just not think about it. Let’s just...be.”

  Anna sighed, pulling me close and settling her head against my chest. I wanted nothing more than to protect her. And yet, the only thing I couldn’t protect her from was myself and what I had to do.

  Then, a thought struck me. There was one thing I could do. It was a small chance, but perhaps it was possible.

  “What are you thinking?” Anna asked.

  I didn’t answer for a moment. Would it work?

  “I need to see Askal.”

  Anna pulled back, looking up at me. “Askal?”

  “I haven’t seen him since Bunker 108. Does he know where we are?”

  “Yeah,” Anna said. “I think he followed us here. You were asleep pretty much the whole way, so...”

  I nodded. “Where is he, then?”

  “He might have returned to the Great Blight by now,” Anna said. “There isn’t much fungus up here to eat.”
>
  I guessed that much was true. What was I planning on doing, anyway? Riding the dragon all the way in the bitter cold to the Great Blight so I could speak to the Wanderer and see if there was another way?

  Then again, maybe there was a way to communicate to the Wanderer across distance. Elias, after all, had communicated with Askala. The Wanderer had appeared to me in a vision when I’d been knocked out by the sleeping spores released by the Xenolith. Maybe it had only been an effect of the spores, but maybe I could try to talk to him again. I didn’t know how I’d go about doing that – but I did it in a way that I had not done in a long, long time.

  I began to pray.

  I have no idea if you’re listening. But I need to talk to you.

  I tried to make my thoughts go across the distance, not knowing if it would help or not.

  Something’s changed, I continued. I don’t know if I can go through with this. Please. Talk to me. Tell me there is another way.

  I listened for a moment, almost expecting an immediate response. I heard nothing. It had reminded me of the many times I had tried to pray as a kid. Bring my mom back. Bring my sister back. The bring-back prayers always seemed to hit an invisible wall, because when God took something, he didn’t mean to give it back.

  Anna’s breaths were even. She had fallen asleep. Perhaps it would be best if I did the same.

  Chapter 22

  The dark sky swirled with hellish red clouds. I stood on a ridge. Instantly, I knew where I was.

  Ragnarok Crater.

  I looked down. My vision, at first blurry, cleared to the point where I could see every detail of the Crater, even in the dim light. The entire ridge stretched around in a haphazard circle, softened only by a thick layer of pink and orange fungus. An iridescent glow covered the land, let off by the fungus, from which sprung spindly trees and twisted limbs, interconnected in a webby labyrinth of alien growth. Strange chortles and shrieks sounded from a xenoforest that reminded me very much of a jungle.

  And then, there was the Crater itself, where the vegetation was so thick that I could hardly see into it. In the very center was a molten glow out of which lava churned. Ragnarok had to have cut deeply into the crust of the Earth for the magma to bleed out like blood. That wound would take centuries to heal. The ridge marched all the way around, almost like a wall. There looked to be no discernable way to get down from the outside. The only way was to come in by air – and somehow not be killed by all of the monsters living in the pink trees and vegetation, or to die from the lava spewing from the cracks in the surface. If someone had taken me here and told me it was Hell, I would have believed them.