Echo

by H Waters

  The vent we were sitting in was very high above the ground, overlooking a massive room. In the center of the room was a strange floating cube, about as big as a soccer ball. It glowed a vibrant green, like fresh leaves in the spring. It floated above a strange circular fixture that was mounted to the floor. The fixture was sleek and shiny white, covered in all kinds of red and black buttons. It seemed to be drawing some sort of power from the cube. From the bottom of the white circle sprawled hundreds of hoses, each about one inch in diameter, pulsing with the same green glow as the cube. The hoses ran out across the floor in every direction, each one eventually connecting to one of several large glass chambers along the wall. The chambers were filled with a foggy, green liquid and were big enough even for a human the size of Alaric to fit into.

  “That’s the machine your key is for!” Kallen said in astonishment.

  “The white shiny circle with all the buttons?” I asked.

  “No, the cube.”

  I pulled the small wooden box out of my pocket and spun the lock. The number clicked as I settled on each one: thirty-six, forty-five. I slid the top of the box off, revealing a small iron key. It looked more like an old house key than a doomsday weapon. “How on earth would this fit in that cube?” I asked myself.

  The sound of a door opening echoed across the room. I slid the lid back on the box, locking the key safely back inside, then put it back into my pocket.

  “And how are my new babies coming along?” an unrecognizable female voice said from out of sight.

  “Going well, yes very well,” a male voice stuttered. “But we need a new power source — our, uh, reserve is quite low.”

  “Show me,” the female insisted.

  The sources of the two voices came into sight as they approached the machine in the middle of the room. The female was tall and quite pretty; she was wearing a stylish red leather jacket with skinny jeans and had long, flowing black hair. The male was short, with a hunched back and a hooded lab coat that covered most of his face. The rest of his face was covered by ridiculous large goggles.

  “Claire,” Scarlet angrily muttered.

  “She looks more like a model than a demonic witch,” I whispered back. Scarlet just ignored me.

  The man pressed a button on the circular fixture. After a moment’s delay, a small piece of the floor began to rise up next to the fixture, revealing a glass chamber like the rest except the foggy liquid inside it was red, not green. The man pushed a second button, and the red liquid drained from the glass chamber. Once it was fully drained, the only thing left inside was a skinny, frail old man, who looked very much dead.

  “Nikolai,” Alaric gasped.

  “His strength is gone; we need a replacement,” the man told Claire.

  “I have just the thing,” Claire said with a smile. “Bring him in!” she yelled.

  The sound of chains began to ring through the room as the vultures dragged in the hooded man from outside. Most of the vultures hung back near the entrance and out of sight, but a small group of ten brought the prisoner to Claire.

  “Another Saint?” the man asked with glee.

  “Not just any Saint,” Claire said, pulling the hood off the prisoner’s face. “The one we used in the attack on their temple.”

  It was the Prophet, the man who gave me the key.

  “Where did you find this scoundrel?” The man laughed and snorted.

  “He was hiding out in Kata with the humans. Gorelock found him fighting alongside some soldiers in an old church.”

  “Well, he will do nicely.”

  The man pushed another button, opening up the front of the glass chamber that held Nikolai. One of the vultures stepped forward with a mid-sized curved sword, with a black blade and wooden hilt.

  “Your blade has killed so many of your brothers, why not one more?” Claire laughed. She turned around and calmly sank the tip of the sword into Nikolai’s heart. Tears began dripping down Nikolai’s face, but the old man was too weak to speak or resist.

  “NO!” Alaric screamed, pounding his fist on the bottom of the vent. The welded seams of the vent broke under the force of Alaric’s rage, sending the steel underside of the vent tumbling to the ground, along with all of us.

  I tried my best to tuck and roll, to avoid shattering my knees or snapping my shins in half, but the landing still hurt badly. My legs throbbed with pain as I got to my feet. To my left Scarlet looked in roughly the same condition as me.

  Alaric had landed on his feet, managing to catch both Lucy and Kallen. Claire looked over at us with shock. “Capture them, we can use them!” she screamed at the vultures.

  They dropped the Prophet and began bounding toward us. More vultures poured in from our right, where they had been waiting.

  “We can’t take them all and Claire,” Scarlet panicked.

  “We don’t have to,” I calmly said. “Get back to the other Saints, tell them what you saw, and please ask about Jake,” I told Scarlet with a sad smile. Quickly I slid the box out, unlocked it and pulled the key out. “Here,” I said, slipping the key into her hand.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Scarlet demanded.

  “Please go,” I told her.

  I shut the box, locking it. I held it up as high as I could so Claire could see it. “Hey witch!” I screamed at her. “Still want this key?”

  “Grab that box!” she yelled, her voice echoing through the room.

  I ran straight across the large room, with all of the vultures now bent on catching me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Scarlet slip through a door in the wall, followed by Alaric, who was still carrying a dazed Lucy and Kallen. Tucked into the corner of the back wall near one of the glass tubes, I could see a small metal door with a yellow caution triangle on it. I sprinted as fast as I could, trying to get there before getting ripped apart by these creatures. The least I could do was give my friends as much time as possible to get out of here. I was almost to the door when my foot caught on one of the hoses, sending me tumbling to the ground.

  The vultures were too close now, their terrifying red eyes locked onto me. All I could do was close my eyes and hope that it was a quick death. I began to think of Jake and Dallas, all of the moments we had.

  “Not today,” a familiar voice said. I became weightless. I opened my eyes to see the Prophet’s face — he had picked me up and was running towards the door. “Hold on, kid,” he told me, sounding not at all like the monk I remembered from Kata. He kicked the metal door off its hinges, sending it sailing down a hallway.

  “Where are we going?” I asked him.

  “Out of here.” He kept running through the hallways. They were lined with wires and hoses; dim lights lined the ceilings.

  “Where are we now?” I asked.

  “The service tunnels. Now hold on, this is going to hurt me a lot more than you,” he laughed. He turned around so he was running backwards. As he began picking up speed, I could see the vultures pouring through the tight hallways.

  The Prophet’s back hit another metal door, smashing clean through it. “Don’t move,” he said, holding me tight against his chest. We began to fall, and I closed my eyes until we hit the ground.

  An intense pain surged through my whole body. I opened my eyes and quickly looked over myself. I was cut to hell and covered in blood, but there were no broken bones or fatal wounds. All around me was sand, an endless desert in all directions — except for the mountain in front of me. Halfway up the side of mountain was a hole roughly the size of a door. Inside were black figures which were too far away to make out but were likely the vultures looking down at me, unable to go into the sun.

  “How the hell am I alive?” I said aloud to myself. “The prophet,” I remembered. I pulled his arms off of me and slowly got to my feet. Every inch I moved hurt more and more.

  The prophet lay there in the sand, his robe soaked in blood, his limbs twisted and snapped in ways that no human’s should ever be. His neck was blue and bent. He had broken t
he fall, taking most of the damage. “Thank you,” I said, through tears. I lay back down, too sore to stay standing or walk. As I began to doze off next to him, I noticed some of the open wounds on his bent arm were beginning to heal.