Post date: Jun 10, 2017 12:28:58 PM
Caradorynee: Kin
#5
The only light was what still emitted from Star, but it was enough. She could see where she was going and the chorus of noise and beast-calls was fading the further she fled.
Still she wasn’t convinced she was out of the woods. Who knew what other types of creatures would emerge to block her way? Crawling out of the sheer, slick rock or suddenly materializing out of thin air.
Speaking of which, Lark appeared out of nowhere several yards in front of her. She slowed and then stopped. His eyes glistened a vivid green.
“There’s an opening fifty feet ahead,” he said. “You’ll have to swim. That is after you jump.”
Star’s stomach twisted. She understood Lark’s meaning all too well and if she wasn’t mistaken the opening he was referring to would no doubt be the mouth of the tunnel which would then drop off into some form of swirling pool of water. She only hoped that there wasn’t a series of sharp, jagged rocks beneath the deadly surface.
The noise behind Star intensified alerting them both there wasn’t much time.
Star hesitated. Maybe she should stand her ground.
There was every reason to believe that her blood-trick would work on whatever creatures she would encounter, but then again maybe not. She’d competed in the Shegata battles, surely her blood had come into contact with at least some of the creatures on Caradorynee. If her blood had, none of the creatures had reacted quite like the beast she’d just caused to crumble like a dried out sandcastle.
Star glanced down at her hand. Her eyes widened. No blood smeared her skin and no thin cut marred the palm of her hand.
She looked up and met Lark’s eyes.
“Time to go.”
Star swallowed and nodded. Then she took off at a run following Lark’s semi-translucent body.
They hadn’t gone far when Lark suddenly vanished and his voice rang out. “Jump!”
Star did exactly that and found herself engulfed in a cloud of gas instead of falling into a body of water.
“Swim!”
Lark’s voice was harsh in Star’s ears. She couldn’t see him or see anything in fact because the gas was thick and black and what light she was emitting did not penetrate the swirling vastness.
She could breath which she found surprising since she was sure she was swimming in a sea of the same type of gas that was a byproduct of what the Dormoan volcanoes spewed each night. The deadly Dormoan gases, corrosive to the lungs. Yet Star’s lungs did not burn.
Something bumped her right side. Star jolted. She whipped her head to the right but saw nothing. The bump came again and again. Not hard but it was jarring. With relief Star realized that she must be bouncing up against some portion of the cave’s wall. She reached out and felt hard unyielding rock. Her path was suddenly blocked.
“Swim downward.”
Star looked down trying to locate Lark’s voice.
“Use the wall and my voice to guide you.”
Star nodded to herself. She gripped the wall with both hands and tried to descend. She didn’t go anywhere. She tried turning her body so that she could use her hands to crawl downward. Again her body remained stationary.
“I can’t go anywhere,” she cried. Panic rippled along her nerves.
“I can’t help you at the moment,” Lark’s voice replied. “I don’t have a solid form. Try swimming.”
Star released her grip on the wall and moved her arms to perform the butterfly stroke. She felt her hands sliding through the mass of gas but her efforts didn’t produce any forward motion.
“Nothing’s happening,” she cried again.
“Do you still have your knife?”
“Yes.”
Star reached down and unsnapped the sheath and quickly pulled ‘Mr. Bladey’ out. She slashed at the gas in front of her. At first she didn’t think anything was happening then she felt the gas part along the slash lines. She continued to hack and after a few more strikes she was able to wedge an arm and then a leg through the tiny opening.
Not knowing that when she emerged from the blackened gas she would face a sheer drop or be flung upward into an endless void Star held her breath as she cautiously stepped through the widening gap.
When she emerged her heart stopped. Whatever she was expecting it wasn’t this.
©Human in Inhuman Worlds by Janet Merritt