by Kelli Kimble
The anger started to build.
“What’s going on here?” We all turned towards the door. Orthos. He shook his head and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “I swear, Thanos. The only thing you were required to do was stay away from her.”
Thanos actually seemed to shrink, before protesting in a high-pitched tone, “I did stay away from her. She . . .” He pointed at Eneece. “She let her get in here, and now, look — the weather machine is fried.”
We all turned to look at the weather machine console. A thin wisp of smoke was emanating from somewhere inside it.
Orthos closed his eyes and bowed his head.
“We’ll just—” Thanos started to say.
But, Orthos held up a silencing hand. “I guess this is up to me, after all. Always left to pick up the pieces.”
Thanos and Eneece exchanged a look. “He really didn’t do anything wrong,” Eneece said. “Nimisila tricked me into thinking she was Thanos. I had no idea she was even inside the building.”
“It’s fine,” Orthos assured her. “It will all be fine. I’ll figure out how to get this going forward again. You two . . . just get her somewhere secure, would you? We don’t need her messing up our plans.”
Eneece moved to grab my arm, but Thanos stopped her. “I’ll take care of her,” he said.
“That’s sick. You’re so transparent,” Eneece said, huffing towards the door.
An unpleasant feeling began to replace the anger.
“No,” Orthos argued. “You’ll take her to a holding cell together. She’ll be difficult to contain. We need her alive, so remember: Don’t hurt her. God, why couldn’t you two just execute the plan?”
The bubble appeared around me, and I fell into a sit inside it. My legs skittered around, trying to find a way to keep it from collapsing on me. After a moment, I realized it wasn’t changing in size, and I settled down.
The three of them were staring at me. Orthos and Thanos wore guarded expressions, but Eneece’s was clear. She was afraid. Terrified, even. Of me.
Stung by his father’s irritation, Thanos turned and stomped from the room.
I floated along in the bubble behind him, and Eneece followed the bubble.
They took me lower into the building via a stairwell. The door at the very bottom had a steel brace over it. Thanos lifted it telepathically, and it grinded open with a rusty creak. He pulled the door open, but there were no lights inside. The weak light from the stairwell bulb cast only a tiny triangle of visibility through the door, and there was nothing to see inside it, except concrete floors. The bubble contracted to fit through the doorway.
I held my breath, still cradling my broken arm.
“You can heal that, you know,” Thanos said without looking back at me. “I’ve seen you repair far worse.”
But I was too absorbed in understanding what was about to happen to me. The door slammed shut behind us. I tried to imagine the room bathed in light, but the bubble held my abilities in check. “You know I can’t heal it right now,” I said.
He laughed. “Oh, yeah.”
In the dark, I lost track of the bubble’s movement. I couldn’t sense motion in any direction. For all I knew, he’d shut the door, and we’d been standing in the same spot for ten minutes without moving.
“You’ll remember a place like this,” Thanos said.
The bubble popped, and my bottom splashed into a few inches of standing water. Somewhere nearby, I could hear water flowing.
“Perhaps it isn’t as confining as your training box,” he continued, “but there’s no way out. So, just relax and get the hang of it.”
This time, when I imagined the space lighting up, I was successful, but only for a moment.
I was inside a concrete box, at least twice as tall as me.
I lurched to my feet and splashed through the shallow water to the side. From the center of the box, I could take a single step in any direction. A pipe sticking out from the wall was pouring a steady stream of water into the box. The light snuffed out, and I pressed myself against the wall, fear clenching my throat tightly.
“Don’t worry,” Thanos continued. “You’ll be alone in the box. No rats or snakes or anything barbaric like that. It’s more of a sensory-deprivation chamber, but it also dampens your ability. This is how I got to be as strong as I am, and we’ll see what it does to you.”
There was a scraping, followed by silence. He was gone.
“Thanos? Thanos!” I curled my good hand into a fist and pounded it against the wall, but I couldn’t hear anything except the water. I retreated into a corner and slid to the floor. Already, the water felt higher than it was before.
I concentrated on my surroundings. What was this? What was Thanos trying to accomplish? He couldn’t want me to be as strong as he was, or stronger. Then, what did he get out of putting me in there?
Eventually, the throbbing of my arm overtook my worries. I’d need to heal it, if I was going to figure out how to get out of the box. I imagined delving under the layers of skin in my arm to find the broken shards of bone, but nothing happened. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, let alone see within my own body.
Panic slithered up my limbs, and despite the pain it caused my broken arm, I pulled my knees up to my chest, until I was as small as I could make myself.
I screamed over and over, calling for my parents, Red, Thanos, Orthos, Tabby, Silver, anybody.
Nobody answered.
The water continued to rise. Now, it was over my belly button.
I thought back to the story Abigayle had told me, about how Silver had been born in a tank of water. It gave me the idea the environment could be soothing, if I’d just relax and let it.
Even though the water had now risen to my ribs, I forced myself away from the wall. I stretched out my legs as far as they could go and leaned back into the water. With my uninjured hand, I pinched my nose and held my breath. My feet dragged along the bottom, but remarkably, my torso floated.
Encouraged, I dropped my arm to my side and concentrated on breathing steadily. The water splashed from the pipe, causing small waves to sometimes splash my face. I didn’t like that sensation, and I wished the water would stop.
My eyes were closed, but after a time, I started to think I could see color. A pale pink, then a swirl of purple and blue. It slashed across my vision in jagged ridges, then softened into tiny bursts of color, almost like dandelion fluff.
The water stopped.
Startled, I tried to sit up. My feet couldn’t touch the bottom, and my head bumped against the ceiling. I paddled to where I thought the pipe was and felt for it.
It hadn’t stopped; it was just underwater now, and I couldn’t hear it splashing.
Panic welled up in me. He was torturing me. He knew they’d brought me to the brink of drowning countless times.
I kicked my feet harder, trying to keep my head above the water. That wouldn’t work for long, though. The water was only inches from the ceiling. I used the pipe to hold me up with my good arm, while I scrunched my nose and mouth as far up into the corner of the box as I could. The pocket of air I could reach was nearly gone. I tilted my head back, smashing my nose against the ceiling.
Calm down.
I took a deep breath. Then, another. I needed to get as much oxygen into my blood as I could, before the water reached the top. The water would drain out, wouldn’t it? Orthos had said he couldn’t kill me.
The water covered my nose. I duckbilled my lips above the water and sucked in as much air as I could, just as it reached the top. The pipe suddenly stilled; the water wasn’t flowing anymore. I counted to 30. My lungs were starting to burn. I released a thin stream of bubbles. Then, I gagged, as more air released, and my body tried to draw air in. I fought against it, coughing out bursts of air, until my entire body was screaming for oxygen.
Deep under my feet, I heard — or maybe felt — a strange click, followed by a rush of water. It was draining. The box was draining. I wasn’t goin
g to die. I wasn’t going to drown. It seemed an eternity before there was enough space for me to inhale. Air never felt so sweet.
When I had headspace again, I released the pipe and returned to floating on my back. It seemed the easiest and least-exhausting option, and I’d enjoyed the color show; it was something to take my mind off being confined inside a box.
My heart slowed, and my adrenaline seemed to flow away. In a little while, the colors returned. Then, there were images: a flash of my mother’s face; a view of the ocean; Red, working on our hut. I relaxed further.
I could have been dreaming because the images gave way to scenes. The escape from the experimental lab went through my head. The terrible anger and rage I’d felt was far away, something I knew but didn’t feel. Instead, I felt the fear of my victims, their terror and pain as I indiscriminately mowed them down.
Then, the scene changed. I was in the woods, near home, facing Thanos. He leered at me, his face up close to mine. “They didn’t tell us you were pretty,” he said.
Anger appeared, surging inside me, but it was as if I were only observing that anger. I was separate from it, untouched.
He faded away from me, and instead, Gayle was there. She smiled, then reached out and smoothed her hand over my cheek. “You’re only human,” she said, “and you’re doing the best you can. This is uncharted territory. We’re evolving, and you were the key to that evolution. You’ve got to be the map now, too. You’ve got to mold this into change for good.”
“But I don’t know how,” I said.
“You’ll know what to do. Trust yourself. Trust your abilities and where they lead you.” She smiled and wrapped me in her arms.
I felt safe and warm and loved, though the feeling was still distant.
Then, I started to feel cold. Physically cold.
There was an odd sucking sound, and I opened my eyes. Though I couldn’t see anything, I knew what had changed immediately. The water had drained from the box, and I was lying on the bottom. I started to shiver, and I curled on my side in a ball, trying to bring warmth to myself.
It had been a long time since the last time I’d had thoughts of Gayle. She’d needed my protection, and I’d failed. Tears ran down my face. Sobs came unbidden, and I cried until I was exhausted. Even though I was still shivering from the damp, I was so tired that I couldn’t resist sleep when it came.
Sometime later, I woke to splashing again. The box was refilling. I sat up, and even though I couldn’t see, I tried to look around. There was still no discernable source of light. Again, I tried to imagine light — I thought of the moon on a dark evening, then the sun on a bright morning — but nothing happened.
Frustrated, I flopped back onto my back, slopping water against the sides of the box. It splashed back against me. Already, the water was nearly deep enough for me to float in. That had relaxed me before, and since the vision of the colors had been somewhat comforting, I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. The colors came faster this time and were more intense. I drank in the sight and eagerly waited for more. The colors turned to images, and the moon and sun I’d imagined only moments before appeared and paraded across my field of sight.
My gaze dropped to the horizon, and there was Tabby. “We’re coming,” she said. “I know you think we let them take you, but we didn’t. We couldn’t fight them here — not when so many of us are old and weak — but we’re coming to help you. We’ll be there soon.”
“How soon?” I asked. “I’ve been gone for at least a month now. I miss you.”
“Very soon. Maybe even today.”
I studied her for a moment. Her features were flat and placid, and she was wearing unfamiliar clothing.
“Silver would’ve been proud of you,” she said, breaking the silence. “I was wrong to blame you for his death. He knew what he was doing, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to fight.”
“I shouldn’t have let him come,” I said.
“He was stubborn. Like you.”
“Who stayed behind? To care for the . . .” I didn’t want to say old people. It seemed disrespectful.
“Nobody. Everyone still of sound mind agreed the strongest had to come. If humanity is going to survive, we have to win. They understood they might not survive.”
A prickle of doubt began to form around the edges of my thoughts. “All the young people came? Even Red?”
“Red is leading the way. It was he who brought everyone together to discuss it. It was he who convinced the few people who didn’t agree.”
Now, the doubt expanded. Where was this vision coming from, exactly? Even though Tabby was still in front of me, and she continued to talk, my thoughts drifted away from her.
I turned my focus to the day I’d killed the mayor. What had happened, really? I’d entered the mayor’s mind, and she’d been present, but why had she acted so strange? Though her mental image had been calm, her physical body had been shaking. Was it from fear? Anger?
Strength. She’d been fighting to regain control of her body from Thanos. Of course. I didn’t know the mayor personally, but she was a leader. No leader worth their place would stand aside and let Thanos do what he wanted. She’d tried to fight back, but he was inside her head, making her behave the way he wanted. I remembered how she kept looking off to the side, as if she could see something I couldn’t.
Thanos. He’d blocked me from being able to sense him that day, even though we were supposedly working together. He’d intentionally made her bait me, knowing I couldn’t control my anger.
Another vision flashed into my head. It was Orthos, just after he’d come to the mayor’s office. “She made you angry?” The sentence exploded in my head. He knew because he’d encouraged Thanos to do it. I hadn’t killed the mayor; Thanos had baited me and disrupted my projection, and Orthos hadn’t been thoughtful or worried. It had all been his idea.
With a start, I opened my eyes. My nose was touching the top of the box. In a moment, I’d have to endure the lack of oxygen. I started drawing in deep breaths. Stay calm, I told myself. You know the box will drain. They don’t want you dead.
But why not? Something told me the only way to find out was to let them think I’d drowned. Obviously, someone was monitoring me — probably Thanos, since he’d managed to project thoughts into my head. I didn’t know of anyone else in the experimental program who had that ability.
The water again closed over me, cutting off my breath. I wanted to inhale the water — It was the only way to force Thanos to open the box — but I wasn’t ready yet. Something told me I still had more thinking to do.
Why didn’t they want me dead? They were afraid of me, but they needed me. For what?
My lungs ached, and I waited. The drain wasn’t opening. I pushed my hands against the ceiling, trying to break it free. I needed air. I was going to inhale, but I didn’t. Just at my breaking point, the drain clicked and glugged, and the water began to recede. I used the pipe to push my face up against the top of the box and dragged in a draught of air. The air burned my lungs and throat, but I couldn’t get enough. I gulped it in, until the fear receded.
Why the box? Why did it cycle the water?
I ticked off the things I knew for sure: Thanos and Eneece were working together. Eneece was doing something for Thanos because he was holding something over her. Also, maybe because she wasn’t as powerful as him. Orthos may or may not be in charge, and he might have orchestrated the plan. They needed me alive for something, and they wanted the weather change to go forward.
I paddled around the box, waiting for an epiphany. Nothing came to mind. I submitted again to floating on my back with my eyes closed.
Wait a second. My arm. It wasn’t broken anymore. I ran my hand over the spot where I knew the break was. I tried to imagine seeing inside my own body and touching the bone. I strained to the edges of my consciousness, and just when I’d given up and pulled back, I saw a brief glimpse.
My arm was fine.
I flexed my fingers and made a
fist. It didn’t hurt. At all.
Had Thanos healed me? When did I last remember my arm hurting? It was while I was inside the box — that I knew for sure — but time didn’t feel like it was passing in the dark. I had no idea how long the box took to fill or drain, and I didn’t know how long I’d slept while it was empty. I wasn’t hungry, so I couldn’t have been inside for more than a day.
I relaxed into the water again. When I rested my head back to float, I could hear the water gurgling out of the drain. I concentrated on the sound. I needed to figure out what the purpose of the box was.
Chapter 15
The water filled and receded until I lost track of how many times it happened. It became routine, a marking of time. I didn’t get any closer to understanding why I was in the box, but my focus became sharper each time the box cycled, so much so that I was able to summon light. The inside of the box had a series of wires along the walls. They were embedded flush in a series of parallel lines down the side of the concrete. When I summoned the light, I could feel a humming sensation coming from the wires. I touched the wire closest to me. At first, it didn’t feel like anything, but then the humming grew louder, the light got brighter, and I felt suddenly fatigued. The light became so bright that I crossed my arm over my eyes, breaking my contact with the wire. The humming stopped, and when I pulled my arm away, the box was darker than before, since I wasn’t used to the darkness.
I floated around the tank, afraid to summon my ability again. Something about the wires made me uncomfortable. I stayed in the middle of the tank and waited. They’d have to take me out of the box eventually. For food, if nothing else, right? By now, days had passed, but an inventory of my bodily functions found I didn’t have to go to the bathroom, and I wasn’t even the slightest bit hungry. Odd.
The next time the box drained, I felt around on the floor until I found the drain. The wires seemed to be radiating from the drain in the center. I scratched with my fingernails and found the delicate wire. A piece of it frayed from the drain housing, and I picked at it until there was enough length for me to pinch it between my pointer finger and thumb. Then, I pulled. The wire zipped up from the floor until it hit the wall, then I easily yanked it from the wall to a point just above my reach. I went back to the drain and repeated it with another wire, then three more, before the water began to refill and got too deep for me to reach the drain. When I was floating near the top, I yanked the wires all the way up the wall. They twined together at the ceiling and ran to a small hole. I spent the next four water cycles pulling all the wires free, until I had them all out of their position. I held them and wrapped them around the back of my hand twice for leverage. Then, I braced my feet against the wall and pulled.
