Blindly fleeing ahead, Seth did not notice the stairs. He stumbled against the first step. Before he regained the balance, somebody grabbed his collar and pushed him forwards. The approach of stomping heavy boots motivated him to run even more rapidly. Gripping the railing firmly, he climbed the stairs, jumping over two steps at a time. The sudden bang of the grenade exploding downstairs deafened him. The old door fell down with a dull clatter, and the masked rebels charged inside. Seth clenched his teeth, trying to hear any of the commands or calls, but the ringing and pounding in his head drowned out all other sounds.
“They’re here!” yelled the rebel from below and shot a burst of fire upwards.
The two guards fell down, and other bullets hit the wall several centimetres over Seth’s head. Reaching the top, an Union soldier threw a smoke grenade, plunging the shaft in dense, grey vapour.
Seth straightened up. Breaking through the fog and avoiding the bullets flashing around him, he climbed to the top. Only two exits ran from the narrow, short corridor. Azhi had to enter one of them. Without thinking, Seth slid through a door seen ajar on the left.
He got on to the platform over a vast factory hall. Yellow, bubbling fluid emerged from the tanks beneath him, slowly filling the room, and enormous lifts and elevators, resembling iron claws, dangled from the ceiling like the skeletons of gargantuan mechanical bats. The platform he stood on was connected to the other one at the end of the hall by a narrow, metal bridge.
Seth stuck his head out of the door to make sure that no one followed him anymore. Steps and shots in the corridor died away, and the only sounds he heard were the drone of the damaged pumps and the pops of the draining liquid.
He entered the bridge hung high above the liquid surface. He grabbed the dusty railing and treading warily, he moved step by step, striving not to look down. In mid half, he heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor. Turning around, he opened his eyes wider, and his face froze in an astounded expression as if, contradicting all known logic, he had met with a mythical being that had no right to exist in this universe.
Cerridwen stood at the door with a gun in her hands, aiming at him. Seth saw her in that position for the first time. Dressed in a tattered uniform with brown and red stains splashed on it, she appeared to have been dug out of the grave, and greasy tangled hair, stuck to her scalp, hid half of her face which was covered in sand and scars. The days spent aboard the Annihilator, eating the leftovers of synthetic paste, had left her affected. As Seth gazed into her eyes, loathing and dismay clutched his stomach. Cerridwen's eyes were filled only with a wild, primitive ire as if she was not a civilised being anymore but a ripped from the wild, treacherous jungle beast.
“Rebellion?” whispered Seth, noticing an armband with three circles on her arm. He shook his head. “You joined them?”
“I spit at the ideology of those filthy bastards,” hissed Cerridwen. “I didn’t join them, I just needed them to find you.”
“Me?” he asked, stepping back. “Why?”
“Don’t play an idiot. We both know who killed my father.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Rebels!” he screamed. “The same whose uniform you’re wearing now.”
“No,” she growled, clenching her teeth. “You did it.” Without waiting for her brother’s explanations, she pulled the trigger.
Cerridwen expected a deafening bang, but she heard only a quiet click. She shook the weapon and tried to shoot once more. Only then she understood that she was out of bullets.
Cerridwen threw the useless gun behind. She inhaled the acrid vapour of the room and snarling like an animal, she rushed to attack.
His eyes widening in shock, Seth stepped back and covered his face with his arms.
Cerridwen sprang and using all her momentum, she kicked her brother. Seth blocked her attack, but he had to draw back to not lose his balance. Cerridwen landed clumsily. She got up and dealt a right hook. Her brother gripped her hand and pulled her closer, then punched her head. Cerridwen spun around, hitting the railing with her back. She fell on her stomach. Growling and struggling with pain in her entire body, she rolled on her back and avoided her opponent’s boot, slamming into her ribs.
She got up rapidly, surprising Seth. The Celestian girl clutched his neck with her elbow, but she was too weak to harm him. Seth rammed the barrel with all his body mass, and when his sister let go of him, he recoiled and cracked her hand bone with a half-turn kick. She hit the ground two metres away, with blood oozing from the cut on her head and facial expression of a frantic maniac.
Cerridwen stood up, choking with every gasp. She did not want to face the fact she was losing. It was not why she had travelled such a long distance and risked so much. The adrenaline coursing in her veins ignited a colossal amount of rage and damped the pain down. She darted forward.
Seth had been prepared for such a desperate move from his sister. He punched her face before she even noticed his action. At the moment of impact, she lost touch with reality like a machine suddenly disconnected from the power supply. The force of the stroke threw her over the railing. Still unaware of what was going on, she tumbled down.
Seth did not even look down to check what had happened to his sister. The shock gripped his muscles, and his heart rammed his ribs like a hammer. Seth turned around, and gasping in the suffocating air, he raced forth to the other end of the bridge. He wrenched the door handle until it gave up and sprung open. He ran out of the hot hall to the cooler corridor and looked around. He wiped his watery eyes. Due to his effort, the emotions tormenting him and the acrid smell of chemicals, his face turned red, and his sweaty hair clumped together. He turned right towards the staircase with a hope that Azhi had not left without him.
Cerridwen hit the surface of the boiling liquid, splashing around in the smouldering, yellow waves. She was lucky that she’d closed her eyes before the searing mass swarmed over her. The Celestian girl kicked and swung her hands, trying to swim up to the surface. With every second, her almost boiling skin was covered in large blisters, filled with yellow ooze. Overwhelming her body, pain bit into each of her living tissue like a shoal of piranhas tearing apart its struggling, still alive prey. She felt thousands of jaws filled with razor-sharp teeth, ripping the already charred pieces of flesh out of her. Cerridwen tightened her eyelids with all her strength to save her sight, but she did not know if the boiling liquid had burned her eyes out yet. All she saw was a mass of winking, colourful shapes that blurred and formed into asymmetric, purple or blue figures, changing its shades and dazzling her as real light.
Thrashing like a fish washed on a sun-baked shore, Cerridwen made her last intentional move. She activated a rope ejector that she had on her wrist. She’d stolen it from an inattentive mechanician and planned to use it while climbing through the ventilation ducts of the Annihilator. The hook got entangled in the scaffolding of the elevator, hanging under the ceiling, and the rope began to roll up, lifting the Celestian girl out of the bubbling hell. Her violent moves gave the signal to the mechanism to detach the rope. Cerridwen fell from a height of three metres, hitting the metal bridge and breaking two of her ribs. She lost consciousness. At least, she did not then feel the slow burn of the tissues and her skin tearing apart.
Choose your side
