I sprint into the trees, hoping the branches of the pines will hide me. But Ed isn’t far behind. I glance back, and here he comes, hurdling logs and plowing through brush like a killer robot. I pump my legs as fast as they’ll go. But another glance is enough to tell me Ed is faster than I am. I had a decent head start, but he’s gaining on me.
Hide. I should hide. But it’s no use. Ed is too close.
“Get your ass back here!” he roars.
I scramble under a fallen tree, hoping he’s too big to follow. He is. But it doesn’t matter. He leaps over it like an Olympian.
My heart pounds.
My lungs burst.
I can’t keep this up much longer. He’ll be on me any second.
And then I hear it. The roar of the Starling.
I race toward the water and stop just on the edge of the rocky shore. The water is white, boiling. Furious. The Nebula.
“End of the line, boy.” I spin around to see Ed not five feet away, chest heaving as he gulps for breath. “There’s nowhere left to run.”
He’s right. All he has to do is lunge and he can grab me.
I feel the mist of the rapids at my back.
There’s nowhere left to run.
So I jump.
I’m swallowed up by frothing, bubbling white. It envelops me, pulls me down, and a panic—old and familiar—takes hold. The same panic I felt the first time I fell into white water. I remember the crushing weight. I remember the push and the pull. And I remember the fight.
In water this angry, you have to fight.
I kick for the surface, a ceiling of foam above me. I kick so hard, my legs are about to rip off.
And then I’m free, breaking the surface, air filling my lungs.
Ed stands on the shore, shouting. But he’s not coming after me. Not into this torrent.
The water slams me down again and carries me away. It’s fast. So fast. Like I’m nothing but a leaf.
I claw for the surface and break free again. I’m downstream. No Ed. Not sure where I am. I gasp for air, but another rush of water pounds me. It fills my lungs. And I’m under again.
I tug and pull and the panic swells inside of me.
How did I survive this before? The Starling is so powerful. So raging. How could anyone survive this?
The key is not to panic. Mike’s voice is in my head. He taught us every year at Camp Clearwater what to do in an emergency. But I’m so frightened, so desperate for air, that I can’t think.
My shoulder bashes into a rock, pain exploding, and I’m spinning, tumbling. My knee bashes riverbed. More searing pain.
I kick up from the bottom and burst free of the water, gulping in a breath.
Go with the flow, Nate, Mike says. On your back. Use your legs to kick off obstacles in your way.
I do like Mike has instructed me a thousand times before. I roll onto my back, keeping my feet out in front, and try to steer around rocks. But the world is whipping by so fast. And the water keeps pounding. Inhale in the troughs. Hold your breath when the wave crests.
And then I see the strainer—a massive log lying across the river. If I get pinned up against it, I’ll be stuck. I’ll drown.
Frantically I roll onto my stomach and try to avoid it, but there’s no way. The water is too fast, and it’s launching me right toward it.
So I swim directly at it. With everything in me, I paddle for the tree, letting the water rocket me forward. As I reach it, I use the momentum and vault myself over. My head falls back into the water, face first, and I’m flipped. Water fills my nose.
I break the surface again, gulping and trying to get onto my back again like Mike taught me.
The shore is closer now. The east bank. It’s closer.
And the world is going by more slowly. The rapids are breaking up. I can get to the bank.
I roll onto my front and angle myself against the current, swimming for dry land.
I heave myself onto the bank, sputtering and gasping for breath. I lay there, trying to calm my racing heart.
I made it.
I survived the Nebula.
What would have happened if it had been the Black Hole?