4

 

NOTHING HAPPENS FOR five minutes. Long enough for the air inside the sealed elevator to grow stale. And for claustrophobia to set in.

“What happens next?” Cassie whimpers. “What should we do?”

Nobody answers.

Then we start moving, sideways, a slow trundle that quickly picks up speed. We must be on some kind of track, but it’s hard to tell in the darkness. We come to a stop again, then start moving, in a different direction this time. The elevator dips and turns, the constant changes in directions and speeds disorienting. After a couple of minutes, we suddenly stop.

We wait with bated breath.

Searing light floods our vision. We clamp our eyes shut, then almost immediately pry them back open, desperate to see. The elevator sits in the center of an enclosed space, large as an auditorium. Tracks coil around us in a tangle of crisscrossing and encircling loops.

David starts kicking at the door in panic.

“Don’t,” Sissy says softly, her hand on his shoulder. “It’s not helping.”

We wait for five minutes. Breathing shallowly, trying to conserve the diminishing air.

“Sissy,” David murmurs. “I can’t breathe.”

“Try to stay calm,” she says. “There’s air enough for all of us.” She brushes his hair back, slick with sweat.

“We’re going to die in here,” he says.

“No, we’re not. Sissy’s right,” I say. “We just need to stay calm. The light is meant to annihilate duskers, not humans. Any dusker somehow able to steal into this elevator would be dead by now.”

David turns quiet, his expression pensive.

“We can be hopeful,” I say. “There wouldn’t be all this light to kill duskers here unless there are humans at the end of this ride.”

David puts his hand on the elevator door. “How much longer until we start moving again?”

“Any time now—”

The lights blink out. Just like that, we’re submerged in darkness. The elevator starts moving again, picking up speed, descending.

And then we’re slowing down. A thin vertical line of light suddenly pierces through the darkness, widening into a column as we draw closer to it. And finally we’re right up against this light, then merging into it, blinded by its brilliance, the brightness flooding the interior of the elevator. A series of loud electronic beeps jolts us. The elevator doors suddenly open. And just as quickly, they begin to close.

“Hurry!” Sissy says, pushing us all through the brightly lit opening. We tumble out of the elevator, falling to the ground.

It’s the smell that hits us first. A stench of unwashed hair, ripe armpits, the effulgence of raw sewage. A fluorescent ceiling light glares down on us.

The elevator door clicks shut behind us.

Silhouettes emerge out of the brightness in front of us, bony and angular. Their voices are male and young.

“There are five of them!”

“No way. Not five. There’s no way—”

“Count them yourself!”

“We’ve never had more than three at a time!”

“—doesn’t make sense—”

I stumble toward the voices, the silhouettes.

“Look at this one,” a young, boyish voice sounds from the dark. “Kind of old, don’t you think? Must be almost twenty. Positively ancient.”

I blink, coaxing vision into my eyes. Faces merge into view, young and uncouth, sneering. “Where are we?” I demand.

“Where are we?” A rough, caustic voice, mimicking. The group of boys starts walking away.

“Wait,” Epap says.

They ignore him, keep shuffling down the corridor.

Epap grabs the nearest one by the shoulder. “Where are we?”

The boy regards Epap coldly, then whirls his arms around dramatically. A smile touches his lips, but his eyes remain icy. “This is the Civilization! Where all your precious dreams come true!” The smile twists into a sneer as he turns to a group of boys standing nearby. “That’s what they always ask. Is this the Civilization? Without fail. Please.”

The boys break out in cruel, mocking laughter.

“Brother?” says Cassie.

And just like that, the laughter stops. One of the taller boys steps forward. He’s all bones and sharp angles. His cheekbones jut out.

“Is that you?” she asks. “Matthew, is that really you?”

His lips tremble. “Cassie?” The name comes out hoarse, as if long unspoken.

The other boys move away. Quickly, as if they know what’s going to happen next and want no part of it.

Cassie takes a tentative step toward Matthew. Her eyes are shaking in their sockets, glistening over. “You’re so tall now.” She reaches up, is about to touch his face, then withdraws her hand. “And skinny. How long has it been? Since you were … sent here?”

“One year.” Softer and with sadness, he continues. “Three months, twenty-three days.”

“Where’s Timmy?”

His eyes cast downward.

Cassie’s lips wobble as tears pool in her eyes.

Matthew rubs his arm. “Come with me. I’ll get you some clothes to change into.” He looks at the rest of us. Maybe it’s the change in light, but a softness touches his face. “Bring your friends, too.”