by Kevin George
She climbed down the ladder and ended up back in the lone bedroom, once again ignoring the closed door at the end of the hall. She hurried to the closets, but her eyes wandered to the plate of food, which she scarfed down so quickly that she nearly choked. With a boost of energy, Emma dug into the closets, pulling on every spare piece of clothing she could find, her body ending up buried beneath four layers, finishing it off with a heavy winter coat, thick gloves and a face mask that covered everything but her eyes. Sweat dripped down her body, but Emma was sure she’d be glad to capture this much body heat soon enough.
She started to walk away when she spotted a metallic pole in the corner of the closet. Its end had been fashioned into a sharp point, undoubtedly a weapon. Emma hoped not to have to use it on Love, but she took it anyway, finding it difficult to grasp tightly while thick gloves adorned her—
The pole slipped out of her hands, hitting the floor with a ping. Her head snapped toward the door, as if expecting Love to be waiting for her already. He wasn’t. She remained still, holding her breath as the metal pole rolled to a stop across the room, her eyes looking out at the empty hallway. After a few tense seconds, she exhaled, satisfied there was no other noise but the distant howl of wind. She considered leaving the weapon but didn’t know what dangers she might encounter in the Nothingness.
Bending over was difficult with so many clothes on, and she nearly bumped her head on the small table beside the bed. Her eyes flitted to the folder, lingering long enough to spot the phrases ‘The Mountain’ and ‘The City Below.’ She stopped moving and closed her eyes, leaning the weapon against the side of the table, turning her head away as if that might help her ignore curiosity. It didn’t.
“Ignore it. . . just leave,” she whispered to herself.
Instead, she sighed and opened her eyes, ignoring the pole and escape for the time being. She ripped off the heavy gloves and sat on the edge of the bed, grabbing the folder and opening it to several pieces of paper inside. As she read, her head began to shake, especially upon the first mention of the Weller name and its history with One Corp. Her cheeks flushed. She found it increasingly difficult to breathe within the stifling confines of so much clothing. More than once, she considered stopping, dropping the folder and rushing out of the house. But she barely paused reading more than a few seconds each time, finally ripping off the heavy coat and top layer of clothing until she could breathe easier.
She read about the heroic Jonas ancestor. . . about how the world used to be. . . about the ISUs (in which she now found herself). . . about The Mountain’s history and its downfall and the creation of Aviaries (which must be what we call the Sky People, she thought). For all Emma knew, the contents of the folder were an elaborate lie, but everything she read made a total lie of everything the ‘Lord and Jonas’ had preached, which in itself made her likelier to believe whoever had created the folder.
Above had been so much more than the Jonas family led us to believe, Emma thought angrily, though that anger quickly turned to hopelessness if the folder’s contents were to be believed. And now the rest of the world is gone. . .
But she didn’t keep her head down for long. Nowhere had she read anything about the Wellers being anything different than what she’d always been told. She focused on the part about the tunnels beneath this ISU and how they led to One Corp.’s Mountain facility. She didn’t know if that was the path Love intended to take them, but she didn’t plan on hanging around long enough to find out. One door remained in the ISU that she hadn’t checked, one door she hoped to lead her to the tunnel below. She stood to rush out of the room when she noticed a scrap of paper fall from the back of the folder. A glance showed small, handwritten words. Emma told herself it couldn’t be important, but she only took two steps before stopping to look at it.
With a sigh, she bent over to pick it up, her body going numb as she read the short note once. . . twice. . . then over and over. She didn’t know how much time passed, nor did she care. Emma finally let the scrap of paper flutter out of her hands.
“He thought he was hiding the folder from me,” said a voice behind her.
Emma turned slowly. Love stood in the doorway. The Sky Person was nearly a foot taller than she was but not quite as imposing when his wings weren’t visible. She didn’t look at him longer than a few seconds before her eyes wandered back to the scrap of paper.
“He thought I didn’t know about it,” Love said.
Emma felt empty, her chest and mind alike. She hoped Love would go away but sensed his presence remaining in the doorway. She didn’t want to talk to him, or see him, or have anything to do with him. But the meaning of his words finally computed in her mind. Before she realized what was happening, she found herself asking a simple question.
“Who?”
“The human I met here,” Love said. “He lived here a long time. He was a Jonas—not a real one, mind you—but he thought I didn’t know that. Probably thought I’d be too foolish to understand that he wasn’t the one I was looking for.”
Love obviously hadn’t meant Edmond or Oliver, leaving her to wonder how many other Jonases there were. Either way, a fake Jonas meant a true Weller—an evil Weller—and one question felt more important than how another such person could’ve existed.
“Did you. . . kill him?” she asked.
Love made a noise that sounded part-gasp, part-chirp. “I would never hurt him. I did as he instructed and helped save the two humans stuck in the middle of the storm. I made sure they survived until reaching this place. My friend insisted one of them would be staying but. . .”
Love looked down the hallway and shrugged. He took a step toward Emma, who instinctively recoiled. The few feathers on Love’s forehead turned down as he frowned.
“I would never hurt anyone,” he said, his voice higher-pitched, almost desperate. “I try to help. . . my kind, your kind, anyone. After all, if only there’d been someone there to help me. . .”
Love chirped again, lower and mournful. Emma could see he meant every word he spoke.
“You aren’t helping me,” she said. “I don’t want to be the Descendant. . . I don’t want to go to The Mountain.”
Love extended a hand. “It’s not as bad as you think,” he said, though his head began to flit from side to side. “They won’t hurt you. They promised me they wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Who are they? What do they want me for?”
Love pointed a feathered finger toward the open folder. “You already read about it. You have Descendant’s blood. . . blood to create Aviaries. You hold the secret to make more of me. . . more of my kind. . . not the broken ones tossed over the ledge. . .”
Love’s babbling sounded nothing short of irrational to Emma, who couldn’t even look at him. Everything the Sky Person said sounded so unreal. She refused to believe a single word of it.
“It. . . can’t be,” she mumbled, as much to herself as to Love.
“That scrap of paper says otherwise.”
Emma stared at the scrap, wanting to step on it, wanting to pick it up and tear it to shreds, wanting to throw it outside to let the wind take it far away. But nothing she could do would change what it said. Based on the contents of the folder, it certainly made sense that she’d be a true Jonas since the original Dr. Weller had been described as cruel and Horace Jonas described as heroic.
“My family should’ve been in charge,” she said, a lifetime filled with alternate memories rushing through her mind. “Things would’ve been so different. The City Below would’ve been open. . . freer. . . it would’ve been better.”
Love nodded, but the feathers bristled on his head. “Unfortunately, the eruption wouldn’t have been different had good people been in charge. The people of ISU-Ville had the best intentions from the beginning, but nothing saved them from frozen doom.”
“But my family wouldn’t have been so cruel, we wouldn’t have punished people for trying to explore the tunnels. Maybe an open society would’ve allowed others t
o plan a potential exodus from the city. Maybe we could’ve saved my people from years of pain and suffering.”
Love approached her so quietly that Emma didn’t sense his presence until his hand took hers. She pulled away but he held on tightly, his grip firm yet gentle. Emma didn’t feel threatened as she turned to look at him. His eyes were welled with tears, his expression so sincere that Emma momentarily forgot her own troubles.
“What you wanted to do for your people is what you can do for mine,” Love said. “I know I’m asking a lot, but there are so many that can still be saved. . . so many that could’ve been saved had I found you earlier.”
Love frowned, his eyes wandering beyond Emma, focused on something that only he could see. Emma had no doubt demons of the past still controlled his present, but she needed to ensure the same thing wouldn’t happen to her. When Love wasn’t looking, she slowly reached her free hand toward the object leaned against the table. Love blinked hard and stared into Emma’s eyes.
“I will be with you every step of the way, making sure they only do what they said they would,” Love assured her. “If need be, I will protect you with my life if they try to—”
Emma swung the metallic pole like a club, wanting to apologize for doing so, though she knew it needed to be done. She saw the shock in Love’s eyes as he turned at the last moment, unable to avoid being hit, taking the brunt of the strike in the shoulder, the pole only clipping the side of his head. Love fell with a pained squawk. His wings shot of his back but shuddered, going limp as he lay on the floor in pain, grasping at the side of his head. He was utterly defenseless, and Emma knew this might be her only chance to destroy him. She stood over him and raised the club high, her pulse racing. . .
Shaking her head, she stepped back and dropped the pole, looking with horror at what she’d done. She grabbed the rest of the wintry clothes and hurried out of the room, carefully tiptoeing around Love. She ran down the hallway and threw open the front door, a blast of freezing wind smashing her face. She pulled on her gloves and face mask and looked around, seeing nothing but empty landscape and falling snow. She didn’t know which way to go and felt woefully unprepared to head out on her own. With every passing second, Love had more time to recover. Emma could do nothing but blindly pick a direction and start to run, her body rejuvenated after resting and eating.
She didn’t go more than a few steps when she bumped into something hard and fell into the snow. Though layers of clothing clung tightly to her, freezing temperatures reached her body within seconds, her film of sweat threatening to cover her skin with a thin sheen of ice. Emma scurried to her feet, glancing at a metal frame parked outside of the ISU, wind blowing more of the snow off it. She gave it little thought at first until a distant memory fought its way to the forefront of her mind. She stopped in her tracks and looked back, shaking her head as she closed her eyes.
The Colisseo. . . Chad’s vehicle slamming through the entrance. . .
The snow-covered metallic frame might have resembled that vehicle. . . or Emma might have been looking for any reason to stop running. She turned in a slow circle, searching the Nothingness for any sign of where to go. All she saw was the ISU, but her eyes wandered to the unseen area beneath it, to the tunnels written about in stories within the folder. Emma knew she wouldn’t survive crossing the Nothingness, but there might be a chance to survive another trip through the tunnels.
She hurried back to the ISU, shedding her outermost layer of clothing once inside. She peered down the hallway, relieved that Love was nowhere to be seen. What she did see was the door at the end of the hall, the only area she hadn’t explored. She glanced into the bedroom as she passed and found Love still on the floor, clutching at his head, squawking and moaning in pain. Emma wanted to check on him, she wanted to apologize, but she didn’t want to give him another chance to take her against her will.
She threw open the last door to what appeared to be an empty closet. On the floor was a small hatch, which she wrestled open with a loud squeal. Peering down into a darkened hole, she wondered if the bright, vast openness of the outside world might be better. At least it doesn’t feel cold down there, she thought, carefully grabbing the top rung of the ladder to lower herself down.
Upon reaching the bottom, she turned to a small hallway dimly lit by a single flickering bulb. She walked forward, passing an open door to a small room containing equipment that made strange crackling sounds. Emma thought of Chad again, of how he may have found interest in such equipment, the way he’d always been so fascinated by turbines in The Second. . .
Turbines now engulfed in lava, she told herself, pushing the thought of The Second from her mind. Chad was long gone, maybe alive somewhere in the world, probably not, but certainly with no possible ties to this place. Emma pushed forward, reaching the end of the hallway that opened into a larger room containing several rows of shelving units. Supplies adorned the shelves, but Emma didn’t have time to search them. She bumped into a shelf near the back of the room, knocking a small, cylindrical object to the floor. She wouldn’t have paid much attention to it had a beam of light suddenly not flashed on. She picked it up and pressed its small button several times, turning the light off and on.
Shining the light at the back of the storage room, she spotted the outline of another door. She pulled it open and found her way into another tunnel, this one tighter than any she’d ever traveled. She immediately felt a wave of heat rushing at her. Fearing more lava, she clicked off the flashlight and stared ahead, looking for any sign of orange glowing. She saw nothing. Shedding another layer of clothing, she turned the flashlight back on and rushed forward, where the small tunnel intersected with a larger one. Not knowing which way to go, she turned left, deciding to explore both ends for any clue about where to go.
The warmth intensified as Emma walked, but less than a minute passed before she reached a wall of debris. She shined the light all over it, searching for any path through but finding none. When she put a hand against the debris, she yelped and recoiled, finding it scalding to the touch. She turned and rushed in the other direction, passing the side tunnel to the ISU, glancing inside to find the slightest hint of movement within the darkness.
Her heart nearly exploding, she ran down the tunnel, the beam of light bouncing all around, her breath coming in loud, labored gasps. She considered shutting off the light and pressing herself against one of the walls, but she didn’t know if the Sky Person’s vision would allow him to see her hiding. Instead, she kept running, unable to ignore the echo of flapping wings behind her. Though Emma was glad she hadn’t seriously injured him, she hoped he wasn’t too angry and worried what he’d allow ‘them’ to do to her now.
“Please,” she called back into the darkness, “just let me go. I don’t want to go with you. I need to get back to my people. . . try to help them if I can.”
“You are the Descendant,” Love’s voice boomed, seeming to come at her from all sides. “I must bring you to The Mountain to save the others. . . to save all of the mothers. . .”
“But that’s not me,” Emma cried out, growing short of breath. “I’m not who you say I am.”
Another loud flap echoed, followed by a nearby whoosh. The flashlight caught a blur of movement speeding past her. Emma stopped so suddenly that she nearly tripped. Love landed in front of her, his wings spread wide. A few feet beyond him was another blockage of debris. Emma didn’t know which sight disappointed her more. She shined the light on Love’s face, his eyes squinting, his head flitting from one side to the other. A small streak of red ran down the side of his face. He winced as he gently touched the blood with the tip of his wing, but he didn’t appear too angry when looking at Emma.
“I didn’t want to do that,” she said.
“I wish you hadn’t.”
“You left me no choice,” she said.
Love snorted, releasing a tiny chirp in the process. “I’ve never had a choice in my entire life.”
“You do now,” Emm
a said, taking a step toward him. Love immediately retreated a step. “Nobody’s making you do this. Nobody’s here to stop you from letting me go. You know it’s the right thing to do.”
Love frowned, his brow furrowing. “I. . . I can’t,” he said, appearing to be genuinely torn by Emma’s suggestion. “You don’t understand how many have died. . . how you could’ve stopped it all. There’s nowhere else to go, at least nowhere you could make it on your own.”
“If there’s one thing I learned during a lifetime in the City Below, it’s that being anywhere is better than being a prisoner,” she said, clenching her jaw. “You’ll have to kill me to stop me.”
She walked around him, stopping in front of one of his extended wings. Emma expected Love to try stopping her, but his wings retracted, letting her pass. He followed a few steps behind, allowing her to reach the pile of rubble. She reached for a piece of debris and found it cool to the touch. This section of tunnel wasn’t nearly as hot as the other, though Emma didn’t sweat any less. She shined the light around the entire pile, desperately searching for any sign of a way through. There seemed to be a small path through the pile near the floor, but when she pushed on a single piece of debris, more rocks and concrete and dirt rained down, filling the hole.
Emma fell to her knees, knowing it would be impossible to get past the pile. Behind her would’ve led to the city and to the lava and to the destruction of everything she’d ever known; in front of her would’ve led to The Mountain and an unknown future, likely ending in the hands of mysterious people—or Sky People—that wanted her for. . . something. Neither scenario was ideal, but both would’ve allowed Emma to maintain a semblance of control over her own destiny. When she glanced back at Love—his wings retracted, staring down at her with sympathy—Emma knew her future wasn’t her own.