“Are you okay?” He asks as both of us press on, not turning to look back at the fallen tree I undoubtedly tripped over.
“I’m fine,” I reply, though every step I take makes me wince. But I’d gladly live with an ache ten times worse for the next ten years to be spared being an evening meal for the beasts hunting us.
To my right, I am able to make out June’s lithe form. Her brows pleat. I can feel her worry for me. The sensation is surreal. We’re being tailed by what can only be described as mutant Urthmen, and she’s worried about my banged up ankle. I hope we all live to laugh about that. But at this point, hope seems futile.
Head pounding and blood hammering against my skin like the beat of a war drum, the hiss of water catches my attention. Faint and distant at first, it grows louder and louder as we run. The distinct scent of dampness mingles with pine and must and pervades my nostrils, filling me, but dark as it is, I still don’t see water. I must rely on my senses to know it’s near. Quickly, what began as a hiss blooms into the roar of a rushing river.
A piercing scream tears through the atmosphere, louder than the approaching stampede, louder than the current. “Help!” I immediately recognize Aaron’s voice, a man from our group.
I follow the screams, racing only to stop abruptly when the forest floor disappears beneath my feet. “Whoa! Stop!” My hand rockets out to the side to halt my sister.
June’s feet slide to a standstill, a gaping chasm that appears to fade to the center of the earth just past the lip of grass under our toes. We are at the edge of a great precipice beneath which only the foamy white peaks of roiling water waits.
Aaron, clinging to what can only be a tree root or thick vine, dangles precariously over the cliff. “Avery, help. Please.”
Not wasting a moment, Sully and I rush to his aid, but before I can offer my hand, Arnost gently pushes me aside. “I go this one, Avery,” he says. Aaron’s arms are trembling, his grip faltering. Before it fails altogether, Arnost has one forearm and Sully has the other. The rest of us assist in lifting him up.
“I-I never saw it coming.” Aaron’s voice is hoarse and tremulous. “The ground, it just, it disappeared.”
“It’s okay, man. You’re okay,” Arnost claps him on the shoulder and twists to peer around. “But we need to get moving.”
I look left then right. I can see that the cliff extends indefinitely in both directions.
Looking around as I have, Oliver says, “Where? Where are we moving to?” Desperation laces his words and even though I can’t see his face, I hear the tautness in his expression. He thinks our breaths are numbered.
Refusing to succumb to despair, I tunnel my fingers through my hair and say, “We have to find another way. There’s got to be another way.”
I turn and take tentative steps to my left, hugging the rim of the cliff until a scream halts me midstride. June. The voice. I recognize it. It belongs to June. Heart impaled by the sharpest of blades, her scream resonates with danger, mortal danger. Every cell in my body rails against it, crying out in fear, with the primal need to protect her.
Frantically scouring the landscape, I search for my sister. “June!” My voice wells from my core and rushes forth in a harsh, high-pitched yelp.
Running, but not sure where I’m going, I follow the aching tug in my heart that leads me to a form, fallen and moving slowly. “June! Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. I tripped.” An edge of pain creeps into her tone and she grips her shin.
“How bad is it? Can you walk?” I move toward her and start to offer my hand to her to help her up, but a pair of sinuous shapes slink forward. Oily and darker than the darkest shadows night has to offer, I immediately sense the approach of a predator. Loping toward us with voracious gaits, the two prowl and set the hairs on my nape on end.
“Avery.” The concern in June’s tone tells me she sees them, she sees that an attack is imminent. Deathly still, she freezes in place, the whites of her eyes widening as they round in fear. “Oh my gosh.”
The swish of Sully’s footsteps rushing toward us temporarily tears my attention from her. It is both comforting and distressing as now he, too, will be in danger.
“Don’t move!” Sully shouts as he approaches. His words are followed by the blast of his rifle. A quick flare of white light flashes before a howl rings out. Hit, one of the beasts is thrown backward and is still.
Not wasting a second, I take aim and open fire on the second shape. A squeal somewhere between a bark and a cry echoes briefly before the creature pitches to the ground and remains, unmoving. Not a victory by any means, instantly, more appear, more skulking shapes. Two at first then more. Emptying my remaining bullets in the ether, I hit as many vile beasts as I can before my weapon is spent. I toss it to the ground, leaving me with just my sword. When Sully’s ammunition is depleted, he does the same. All three of us have only our blades and June has her bow and arrow.
Bushes shake and tall grasses sway though not even the faintest of breezes stirs.
“Oh no.” Sully’s voice is hoarse and thick with worry.
More rustling sounds and one by one, more and more dark shapes appear, eclipsing all light around them. The roll of footfalls slows eerily, and before us, an inky canvas of doom unfurls, an army of monsters descending on us as if we are little more than wounded prey.
“Avery, what do we do?” June’s voice is frantic, fraught with panic so raw it’s palpable.
Pulse racing so fast lightheadedness threatens and spots tease the edges of my vision, I call out the only idea that comes to mind, the last hope we have. “To the cliff! We have to get to the cliff!” In the instant that the words leave my lips, the gravity of our predicament sinks in with leaden heaviness. We have only one chance. Only one.
Racing toward the sound of rushing water, I don’t bother to look back. I’m certain June and Sully follow, and that the rest of our group waits for us near the edge.
“What now?” Oliver asks.
“We jump!” I reply.
“What? No!” Oliver looks from me to Sully.
“They’re here! The monsters are here. They’ve got us surrounded. It’s jump or be torn to shreds!” I don’t waste time mincing my words. We have no other choice.
“We’ll die though,” Arnost says and a series of mumbled concerns follow.
The high, sheer face of the cliff is an obvious danger, and so is not knowing the depth of the water below. But I’ll risk dying that way rather than facing the legion of fiends advancing. “I’d rather die down there than up here, getting eaten alive by those things!” I stab my finger past the lip of the cliff.
“We won’t live,” Arnost attempts a second appeal.
“At least we have a chance if we jump. If we stay here, we don’t have a chance at all,” I reply, knowing fully that Urthmen, as I’ve known and understood them, avoid water at any and all costs. For reasons I don’t fully understand despite my father’s lengthy explanation about their mutated genetic material, they have an aversion to water. I can only hope these creatures are the same.
I don’t argue further. I don’t seek to persuade. I resolve to lead by example.
Without any alternative, I make a decision that would only be made when faced with being ripped to shreds by bloodthirsty beasts. After a short series of breaths to steel my vacillating nerves, I take off. Dashing as fast as I can, I push all thoughts to the back of my mind, the innate voice inside me that screams for me to stop, and feel damp air blow my hair back. I take a running start and jump.
Screaming as I drop, gravity pulls me to the earth immediately. Falling like a meteor, my stomach plunges to my feet and my heart lodges in my throat. Flashes of the past, both recent and childhood, streak through my mind, intangible; aching. The world falls silent for a split-second, save for the thunderous beat of my heart and the quivering inhalation I attempt. I see my father, my mother, before sound returns to me in a cacophonous roar. I drop, freefalling to nothingness, to my death perhap
s. Feeling as if I’m falling for eternity, I inhale in a sharp breath and hold it there, filling my lungs as I hear the hiss and rush of water grow nearer.
The moments between life and death are long. My stomach lurches and my chest aches. My mind spins out of control and my heart fills with intentions that may never come to fruition.
I hit the water feet first. A blast of pain travels up my body and radiates through my skull as I slice through the surface of the water. Icy, colder than I’d feared, the chill does little to soothe the explosion of aches that occur when I land.
Terror and adrenaline unite as I plunge deeper and deeper into the murky river.
Roiling angrily, the waves fight over me, jerking me back and forth between them as if determined to tear me in half. Battering me, the current is powerful, flinging me left and right. I fight to keep my breath in, to keep my lips pursed and clinging to my last supply of oxygen. Opening my eyes, I see nothing. An abyss stretches infinitely and panic sends my heart fluttering. Flailing my arms and scissor kicking my legs, I struggle against black waters to break the surface. I force my arms to kick harder, to combat the numbing cold besieging them, but with every second that passes, I’m facing a new direction, spinning aimlessly in a dark void. Cramps seize my calves and contract the length of my legs and my lungs burn for air. For a split second, I’m so disoriented, ears flooded with freezing water and aching from head to toe, I contemplate resisting the current. I consider succumbing to it, giving up the constant struggle for existence that I’ve known for my entire life. But then I see Sully’s face. I see it as plainly as if it were right before me, the exact shade of his skin, eyes and hair, the shape of his lips, and the line of his jaw. My will to survive is renewed.
Hips stinging, I force legs that feel like lead to move, to combat the raging water. I envision June and work harder, I picture her pale skin and golden ringlets of hair, the shimmering silver-blue of her irises, and carve the water with my legs. Digging at the ice-cold water as if digging soil that seeks to smother me, my head crests the surface of the water. I gulp greedily, air entering and leaving my lungs in wheezes and pants. I hack and cough, choking.
“J-June! Sully!” I call the names of the two people I love in this world more than life itself. My voice is raspy and raw. In my periphery I see a head pop up. I see thrashing. “June!” I call out.
“Avery!” she replies between gasps. Gravelly and interrupted by coughing fits, her voice is weak but it evokes relief. Now all I need is to hear Sully’s voice.
“Sully!” I shout despite the fact that my lungs feel as though they’re collapsing between breaths and that I’m being tossed about by the current.
“A-Avery!” a distant reply echoes and the smarting in my chest—in my entire body—abates. Hot tears sting my eyes. He’s alive. He survived the fall.
Flailing clumsily with stiff, cramped limbs, I mimic an act that resembles swimming, barely able to overcome the choppy waves, until I reach June. Tugging her by the collar of her shirt and jerking her toward me without regard for how rough I’m being, I draw her close. “June.” My voice cracks and I feel us being pulled by an invisible force, by the continuous, swirling at our feet.
“We made it,” she says incredulously.
“We did,” I say though we aren’t safe yet by any means. I kick my legs as hard as I can. “Just keep moving your legs. Don’t stop.”
“I-I won’t,” she promises.
With the two of us still for the moment, I scan the water and see numerous shapes bobbing. I’m led to believe that everyone in my group survived. I can’t see clearly enough to gain visual confirmation or count, but I’m relatively sure everyone made it.
From the water I turn my attention upward. The weight of murderous gazes drills into me, and a discordant sound fills the atmosphere. Tortured yelps like that of an ensnared animal rip through the night as more creatures than can be tallied line the ridge of the cliff. A shiver that has little to do with the freezing water in which I’m submerged racks me when one beast, several heads larger than the others, pushes forward. Though I cannot see its face clearly or read its expression, I sense the hate in its glare, the hunger, and in the seconds that I feel our gazes clash, I know neither it nor the rest of the sizable pack will relent until we are dead.
Chapter 7
Glacial numbness that has nothing to do with the water enveloping me diffuses from my chest, bleeding down my arms and torso until the anxious dread that spawns it reaches my feet. The deadly gaze of the beasts transcends the distance and claws at us, warning of what awaits us when they find us. And they will find us, of that I’m sure.
“Avery, I can’t hold on—” June says before she’s torn from my arms by a violent flux of water. She’s right, of course.
“June!” I shout as the undercurrent overpowers my legs and carries me off. Shoving me abruptly into something hard, a rock, invisible in the chaos, strikes me solidly in the chest. It slams me with the force of an iron bar, knocking the breath from me and sending me beneath the surface of the water once again. Dragged and pulled by the tide below, I’m tossed into another rock that strikes the center of my back sharply. Gasping, briny water burns my nose and lungs. Trying desperately to return to the surface, I thrash with every ounce of energy I possess. Waves heave me in every direction, and as soon as I break the surface for a moment, I’m pulled back down.
Inky water is all I see when I reach the surface and when I’m submerged. Completely disoriented, I’ve lost sight of June, of Sully, of everyone. The shoreline has been consumed by shadows. I’m being flung to and fro in a yawning pit of unending space.
As I’m whipped along on a seemingly unending, jarring trip, I feel a rough surface scrape against the back of my arm. Extending a hand, I reach across my body. My fingertips graze something thick and cylindrical with a coarse surface that feels like bark. A tree branch. It must be a tree branch. Given the circumstances, I’m not sure why a tree branch bumping into me has the power to buoy my spirits, but it does, and I twist and grip it with both hands, clinging for dear life.
The branch manages to keep me afloat. Stones scrape the exposed skin of my arms and slash at my legs, but my head remains above the waterline for the most part. I only hope June and Sully have been as fortunate. Imagining that they are experiencing the swirling vortex of murkiness pulling at their legs relentlessly, intent on drowning them, causes an ache inside me that surpasses any pain the raging river can induce.
“June!” I begin calling out her name over and over. “June! Can you hear me?” Panic saturates every cell in my body. I led her to this awful place, I allowed her to travel with me to Galway. Against my better judgment, I agreed. I caved to her stubborn streak, the same one I possess. And I was wrong. The consequences of my poor judgment is that she was surrounded by innumerable beasts determined to tear the flesh from her body with their teeth and forced to plunge from a cliff into a furious river. And while she survived the fall and I celebrated that point, I realize my celebration was premature. I realize I failed my sister. I put her in grave danger, the one thing I’ve fought my entire life to prevent. Now she’s gone, out of sight and possibly knocked unconscious. Or worse.
“June!” I scream at the top of my lungs, my effort promptly rewarded with a mouthful of water. Hacking, I continue shouting. “June!”
“Avery!” I hear my name. It’s faint and distant, but I hear it.
Writhing frantically, I search the waning light of day for my sister. Seeing nothing at first, I curse the water stinging my eyes. “June!” I scream so loudly my throat hurts. “June! Where are you?”
“I-I don’t know!” I vaguely hear her gulp then cough. Though hearing her suffer pains me, I’m still grateful she’s alive.
“June!” I shriek as a loud whoosh approaches. My name is tangled within the sound. Hoping against hope, I release one hand from the branch I cling to and sweep it out into the current. I latch onto what feels like a wrist and pull with all my might, hopi
ng that what I’m holding fast to is my sister.
“Avery!” My name on her lips is a benediction.
“Are you okay?” I thank whatever powers govern the universe that my sister is beside me, that she’s alive.
“I think so,” she replies, shouting over the racing water.
“Hold onto the branch.” I maneuver my body, sliding over so that she has room. “Don’t let go!”
“I won’t,” she promises, and I feel the powerful current pick up in intensity. More rocks clip my legs and back, I only hope I’m taking the brunt of the hits, and that I am the one close to the shoreline where rocks would be.
As we are battered and tossed about, we pass a slumped form. Face-down and unmoving, when we draw close. I recognize the clothes, the build. It’s Jake, and his skull looks dented, his hair matted and caked with a dark substance I can only assume is blood. I gasp and look away. I see the horrified look on June’s face.
“That was Jake.” I hear the tremor in her voice despite the rush or water. But my focus on her is distracted when we are wrenched hard to one side. Splashing ensues and a head breaks the surface. For a split-second, I’m fearful and contemplate balling a fist and pummeling it, certain one of the mutant Urthmen made it into the river.
Planet Urth: The Fate of Urth (Book 5) Page 5
