Corridor (A MythWorks Novel)

by Robin Parrish

  He was probably over-analyzing. He was bad about doing that. No, he had grieved for his mother, properly. He felt her loss every single day, yet it did not define him.

  But he missed her. Every minute of every hour of every day. Nothing was the same without her, and it shouldn’t be. The old “normal” had passed away with her, replaced by a new normal. The old normal would forever be locked in his memory as a rose-colored time of perfect happiness. As he had quickly learned, this was the way that loss worked.

  “Troy?” asked Victoria, startling him out of his reverie.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he replied. “I know, gotta hurry…”

  “Actually, I was going to ask you to turn your head. I think I saw a reflection to your left.”

  He looked. There it was, a small steel circle reflecting the fake stars in the fake night sky surrounding the fake jungle sphere. A moment later, he was lying right next to the circle, and he waved his bracelet over it. The hole immediately slid open, and he reached in to retrieve the water canister. He rolled onto his back and held it tight to his chest.

  He forced himself to sit up, and then he opened the cylinder and took a deep drink of the life-giving water. Maybe it was just a placebo effect, but he instantly felt better, like some last ember of energy had been fanned into a flame.

  Troy pushed through the overgrowth all the way to his feet to get a sense of where he was situated on the sphere. But when he reached his full height, his feet left the ground for half a second, as if he’d hopped.

  Only he hadn’t.

  A shiver ran up his still freezing spine.

  “You’re lighter,” commented Victoria.

  He nodded.

  “Hurry,” she said.

  Troy pushed through the vegetation with renewed vigor. His eyes kept finding the huge trees, with their trunks of more than two or three feet in diameter. On an impulse, he turned and made for the nearest one.

  “How much time do I have?” he asked.

  “It’s different every time,” Victoria repeated her familiar mantra. “What are you doing?”

  He reached the tree, grabbed the nearest low-hanging branch, and pulled himself up, already searching for the next one. The lessening gravity made it easier to reach than he expected. “Going to see if I can spot the Exit.”

  “It’s a sphere, remember?” said Victoria. “You won’t be able to see more than a fraction of its surface.”

  “That’s still more than I can see from the ground.”

  Troy climbed as high as he dared and looked down through the branches and leaves, searching. It was clear from here what he hadn’t been able to detect on the ground: the sharp curve of the sphere’s horizon. The entire little planet couldn’t be more than two miles in diameter. Probably less. The foliage up this high was denser than he’d hoped for, and soon he gave up and returned to the ground. His feet hit the dirt a fraction softer than they had before.

  He set out away from the entrance door, and tried to cover as much ground as possible. He found the running a bit easier than before, and he noticed that many of the gigantic leaves were no longer bent over at a severe hunch; they were blooming out now, a few of them even achieving upward angles.

  As he moved, Troy decided to broach another topic that had been nagging him. “You were brought here by the Corridor, too, right? I mean, you were pulled through time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then why are you a Conduit instead of a Runner?”

  “I think about that all the time,” said Victoria. “I only know that I’m not allowed to Run.”

  “Why?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Why wouldn’t the Corridor let her run? What made her different? An even more troubling thought was tugging at his senses, as if he was missing something obvious.

  “If you’re not allowed to Run, if you have no chance of escaping…. Are you just stuck here? Like, forever?”

  Victoria didn’t reply for a few moments. He almost regretted asking it.

  “If there really have been three-thousand-and-some Runners, then there must have been hundreds of Conduits before me. And I assume that none of them were allowed to Run, either. But they’re not here anymore, so...I guess it has to end for me somehow.”

  She had no idea, then. No clue if she was stuck here until she died of old age. Was death her only escape? If Running was the only way out, and she wasn’t allowed to Run, then…what?

  His feet were barely touching the ground now. On a whim, Troy decided to push himself into a big jump. He ascended more than ten feet into the air, and when he came back down, he planted his feet on the leaves and branches. The low canopy was thick, and his body now so lightweight that he could run atop the plants. Not only could he run, he was running impossibly fast thanks to his incredible strides, with inertia and low gravity on his side.

  He couldn’t suppress a grin; he relished the forgotten feeling on his face.

  Perhaps this wasn’t a lost cause. He’d made it this far, right? Which was farther than most Runners seemed to get. And if he’d survived that ordeal in the Blue Room—his running was finally bringing warmth in his skin again—maybe he could survive this, too. Along with whatever came next.

  He darted for the nearest tree and scaled it like a squirrel. It was exhilarating, and despite all he’d suffered, for a moment, he felt invincible. Like a superhero.

  Troy was scanning the gound when he saw movement among the plants below. His heart skipped a beat. Someone—or something—might actually be in the Green Room with him. Was it possible?

  He was about to ask Victoria when a large green frond floated upwards, right in front of his face. It didn’t slow down or stop; it kept going until it was completely free of the sphere’s atmosphere and floating out in the black vacuum.

  Troy gasped as he saw dozens more leaves just like it ascending steadily, all around him. There wasn’t anyone else in here with him; the plants were coming loose from the soil!

  “You’re out of time!” cried Victoria.

  Where was it, where was it? The Exit had to be here, but he’d been over most of the sphere by now, he was certain. He jumped from the tree and descended far too slowly. Dissatisfied with his speed and starting to panic, he grabbed the nearest limb and climbed down to the ground.

  But when he finally reached the dirt, his feet refused to stick to it. He was simply too light, and he was going to float away into the void at any second.

  Troy tucked his steel canister under one arm and grabbed at the vines, pulling and pushing himself along, just above the surface of the greenery. A single handful and a push was all it took to send him soaring more than ten feet, but he quickly figured out how to time his moves.

  “You still don’t see it?” asked Victoria, sounding annoyed and tense.

  “Does it look like I can see it?”

  He reached for another handhold, but he was drifting upward now and couldn’t reach far enough to grab hold of the next one. He was loose!

  Frantic, he looked around. There was a huge tree nearby that he could grab if he could get closer. He flailed about, his arms and legs wagging all over, and finally tried swimming through the air with a paddle stroke. When this didn’t work, he balled himself up so that his knees were under his chin, and then pushed completely out, so he was straight and rigid. He got a bit of forward motion, and his fingers brushed the tips of the tree branches. With his second try, he made contact with a high branch and held firm.

  His heart jumped for joy when his eyes landed on the Exit, a lonely doorway sitting not far from the base of this gigantic tree. Something told him the Exit would stay firmly attached to the sphere even while everything else turned loose and floated away.

  Just then, the enormous tree gave out a thunderous crack, its roots tearing themselves free from the ground below.

  As fast as he could, Troy pulled himself down, arm over arm, hand over hand, finally clutching nothing but the bark of the trunk, clawing his way back to the surface.
But by the time he reached the roots, it was too late. The tree was already floating more than ten feet above the ground.

  Thinking fast, he flipped down under the tree’s roots, and spun so that the bottoms of his socks touched some solid-looking wooden tendrils. Quickly, he flexed his legs and pushed off as hard as he could.

  He soared through the weightless atmosphere and wrapped his fingers around the lintel above the Exit door.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, he pulled himself down and passed his bracelet key over the door, which instantly unlocked and slid open.

  “Congratulations, Runner thirty-seven thirty-five. You have escaped the Green Room.”

  “Troy, wait! The next Room is the last one I have experience with, and before you go in, there’s something you need to know. It’s the very last thing I can tell you about the Corridor, because once you’re in there, you’ll know everything I know about this place.”

  Troy’s grip was trembling, but he held as tight as he was able. “I’m listening.”

  “I won’t be able to hear you in the Brown Room.”

  Troy blinked. That was pretty much the last thing he was expecting to hear. “Why not?”

  “You’ll understand when you step inside.”

  The more he thought about it, the less he liked it. “Will I be able to hear you?”

  “Yes,” said Victoria. “I mean, if you want me to say anything. If you’d prefer to concentrate on the task or just need a break from all the talking, I understand. If it helps you, I can remain silent.”

  Troy didn’t have to think about it for long. The Corridor had changed this boy who despised talking. “No, I need you to talk to me. Until I reach the Exit. Please. I don’t…. I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to.”

  “Okay. Um…what should I talk about?”

  “Anything. Tell me about the others. The Runners you helped before me.”

  Victoria hesitated. “Oh. Okay. I guess. If you think it’s a good idea. How other Runners failed might not be the best thing for you to listen to while you’re fighting for your life. I mean, I lost my fifth Runner in the Brown Room.”

  Troy pulled himself down to just inches from the open Exit door. “I don’t care. Tell me everything. Just keep talking, no matter what—”

  Troy stopped inside the doorway and spun in place, looking back at the weightless Green Room and the slow, beautiful, unchoreographed chaos of the greenery, the trees, even the dirt floating freely in the void of space. But that wasn’t the reason he’d turned.

  It was there again. The same sound he’d heard twice before.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked.

  Victoria listened for a moment before answering. “I don’t hear anything.”

  But it was louder than before. Much louder. He knew what it was now. “How can you not hear it?” he asked, growing agitated.

  “Hear what?” she asked. “What does it sound like?”

  Troy listened on for a moment longer before passing through the Exit. “It sounds like singing.”

  THE INSTANT HE PASSED through the door, gravity yanked him to the ground, and he was flat on his stomach. Troy was terrified, but not because of the Brown Room’s hard, cracked dirt.

  He heard nothing. Not his breath, not his footfalls, not whatever was waiting for him in this Room.

  He had never experienced a total absence of sound before. It had never occurred to him just how much human beings rely on sound. Troy was the kind of person who enjoyed a little solitude and quiet, but this was something altogether different. Nothing could have felt more alien. How did people who went deaf get used to this? It was a whole new kind of living.

  The cracks in the dried-up ground zigzagged in all directions, intersecting with one another to create random patterns. But as they broke and turned to dust under his weight, the hollow pop he should have heard simply wasn’t there.

  Troy understood now. He could hear Victoria’s voice in here because she was connected to the inside of his head somehow. Her voice didn’t need to travel through the air in the Brown Room. But his did.

  This place was indeed brown, but not in the way he’d anticipated. The ground, ceiling, and walls were all the chocolate shade of dried dirt. Not content to stop there, the Corridor had made the air a thick brown haze as well. It was no doubt carrying dust particles and God only knew what else, so he guessed that the Brown Room’s air was its first challenge.

  He wore nothing more than his underwear and socks, so he pulled off a sock and soaked it in as little of his precious water as he could get away with. But no matter how bad it got, he wasn’t going to wander around naked. He didn’t want to hear Victoria suggesting the use of his boxer briefs for some survival purpose. Keeping them on was non-negotiable.

  Troy placed the foul-smelling sock over his mouth and nose and prayed that the water would somehow keep whatever wretched stuff was in this air out of his body. Holding it in place with his bad hand freed his other to carry the water canister. Satisfied with the arrangement, he set off. Almost immediately, he felt the sting of dirt in his eyes, but there was nothing he could do about it now; he would have to tough it out and hope he might have a chance to douse his eyes with water when he reached the Exit.

  One foot in front of the other, he set out into the thick haze. There was no way of telling how big the Room was, or in which direction he should walk, so he moved straight out from the entrance and hoped that the Exit was on the opposite side of this space.

  Victoria took his movement as her cue to begin. “Okay. Well, I guess I should start with Paddy. He was my first Runner. It’s an odd name for a boy, isn’t it? It sounded like p-a-t-t-y to me, but apparently it’s a masculine name in Ireland—that’s where he was from.”

  Something Troy couldn’t make out whipped past his face, narrowly avoiding whacking him hard in the head. Without sound, it had literally come out of nowhere, and vanished just as quickly. It was a sobering reminder of the jeopardy he was in. Victoria gasped, as did Troy, but she recovered quickly to continue her story.

  “Paddy was nineteen,” she said, trying not to betray her concern, “and he came from the year 1989. He was trying really hard to get into something called the ‘IRA.’ He went on and on about this IRA bunch, and how much he idolized them. I think they were some kind of freedom fighters, from the way he described them. Though I don’t know why he’d be so interested in joining up with that sort; he wasn’t a very nice person.”

  Troy couldn’t help but grin at her naiveté. She really did belong to a simpler time. But Victoria wasn’t simple; she was sharp as a tack, level-headed—particularly when he was lost in a fit of panic—and selfless. Even resourceful. She wasn’t simple, she was…wholesome. And fully unlike anyone he’d ever met.

  He was almost glad she couldn’t hear him right now because it kept him from having to tell her the truth about Paddy’s interest in the illegal private army called the Irish Republican Army. A part of him even wished he didn’t know so much trivia about things like the IRA, but he just had a strong ability to recall information.

  “Paddy made it to the Purple Room, but he chose to leave the Corridor and go back to the moment of his death, in eighty-nine. It was some kind of training accident, he said. I thought it was rather ironic that here’s this athletic boy who exercises a lot as part of his training, who didn’t even break a sweat while rock-climbing the Yellow Room, and he gives up because he can’t handle the fear. That was when I learned that surviving the Corridor isn’t about physical ability.”

  It’s about how much you want it. Those were Victoria’s exact words from when they first met. Troy remembered them well, and he knew now that she was right.

  “Honestly, when I woke up connected to Paddy, an impatient, unpleasant boy I’d never met, and was expected to be his unseen Conduit as he Ran the Corridor...I thought at first that maybe I’d died and gone to Hell. That this was some kind of weird punishment for a grave sin I could no longer remember. It took a few hours be
fore I accepted that I was still very much alive. Not that I told Paddy; he had enough to deal with, so I kept my uncertainties to myself.”

  What a lonely life she must have led since winding up here in the Corridor. Required to give of herself to help others, while always burying her own thoughts and fears. She never had anyone to talk to or confide in. Not really. The Runners couldn’t be bothered to worry about her feelings, which left no one to care about what she was going through.

  How did she keep from feeling completely nonexistent? Maybe she didn’t.

  “Then there was Merrick. I never understood much of what he was talking about. He came from the year 2079.”

  Troy continued trudging along, but his ears perked up. He knew that Runners could be pulled here from any time throughout history, but it had never really sunk in that there were probably plenty of them from the future.

  “He was twenty-three, and he worked in ‘data trafficking’. I don’t know what that is, but he had this wire he could pull out of his arm and plug in to stuff. It was gross watching him pull it out of a little hole in the side of his arm, but at least it didn’t bleed.”

  Something hard slammed into Troy’s back, right on his burn, and he sank to his hands and knees. Not having to worry about Victoria’s reaction, he let out a vicious scream, although no sound emerged from his mouth. Whatever had hit him, he didn’t see it before it was gone. It wasn’t as hard as rock, though it was certainly hard enough to hurt. It felt more like a big glob of dirt, maybe the size of a bowling ball.

  “Troy! Are you okay?” cried Victoria.

  He threw a thumbs-up into his field of vision for her benefit, but he feared that the impact might have torn his seared flesh. He carefully touched a hand to his back, and it felt hot and wet. But he didn’t look at his blood-soaked hand for Victoria’s sake. Instead, he forced himself painfully back to his feet and tried to carry on as if nothing had happened.