The Black Hole looks like the collision of universes.
Owen, Mercy and I stand on the edge of a cliff, looking down into it. After the Nebula, we decided to scout ahead. We walked along the Starling until we found it. Now, seeing the rapids for the first time since I battled it as a kid, I feel my knees trembling.
There’s no blue water. No dark, calm spots peppered amid the foam. It’s just white, churning, angry waves, massive holes and who knows what obstacles hidden under all that chaos.
“Jeez, Nate,” Mercy says, getting down on her knees to look closer. “I don’t know. I don’t—I’m not even sure where to begin.”
I know what she means. It’s just a mess. I can’t tell where the flows are, can’t understand the lines through—if there even are any lines through. I watch the water, trying to read it. The river makes a hard right turn through the canyon, forcing the water against the rock face. I can just make out all the boulders and undercut rocks from up here. The water has been carving away at all that for centuries.
“There,” Mercy says finally. “See through the middle there? That’s the best line, right?”
I shake my head. The Black Hole isn’t like the Nebula. We can’t approach it the same way. “We can’t just blitz through it,” I tell her. “We tried that with the Nebula, and it was too fast. I barely had time to react to obstacles in the way. Down there, especially with that turn, we need all the reaction time we can get.”
“What are you thinking?” asks Owen.
“We don’t go straight through. We zigzag, eddy to eddy.”
Mercy nods. “To slow us down.”
“Exactly. And we can stick together more easily.”
“You really think he’s down there?” Owen asks. “In that?”
I don’t have an answer. He had to come out somewhere. And we won’t be able to find him unless we follow.
I bob in the water, working up the courage to head into the Black Hole. It’s been five years since I was here last. And the memories are flooding back in a rush that makes my palms sweat. The fear. The crushing, impossible weight of the river. The ache of the water filling my lungs.
Mercy and Owen sit just behind me. They’ve both gone pale. The Nebula was one thing, but this is something else. This is something almost supernatural.
I turn and nod at them. “For Mike.”
They nod back. “For Mike.”
And with that I paddle forward.
Once I’m in the current, the speed is too much. I’m out of control, and I’ve only just started. Water swamps the front of my boat, and I shoot through the canyon like a bullet, my arms burning as I paddle like a maniac, fighting the river.
Don’t fight it, Mike says inside my head. Go with it.
But the river doesn’t want me to go with it. It wants to toss me. Wants to drown me. I hit a major drop, unlike any I’ve ever gone over before, and I can’t keep my balance. I spiral over, my whole body upside down as the water crashes around me. I spin like a top, and suddenly the whole boat is underwater, the downstream flow pushing me to the riverbed. And then the boat’s free, shooting to the surface. I’m spat out of a foam pile, sailing into another drop. I swallow water. Panic overwhelms me.
And then I’m upright.
I growl against the weight of the waves crashing down, the boat bucking beneath me as more waves try to drive me upward.
And I can see the bend in the river.
See the canyon wall coming up fast.
And the rocks.
So many rocks.
I try to angle the kayak away, the back of it scraping the first rock, knocking me sideways. I slam into the second one, ricocheting off it like a pinball. I can’t control this. I can’t tame it. I’m a leaf on the current. I’m driftwood.
I slam into the rock face, water pinning me, and I angle myself as best I can to break free and join the current. I manage to move again, flying down the river, more waves swamping me.
And then a boulder, big as a house, comes into my path. I can see the way the water flows around it.
No, not around. The water is flowing through. The water has cut its way through the boulder. It’s a sieve.
And I’m headed straight for it.
The kayak shoots beneath the boulder, but my body collides with the rock. Water crashes against my back like a freight train, the boat threatening to pull me under the rock. I can’t move. I can’t get out.
This is how people drown.
This is how people die.
This is how I’m going to die.
And then a rope—a bright-yellow rope—lands between my face and the rock. I can barely see it over the pounding of the water. I’ve imagined it. I’m dreaming of a way out of this.
The rope hits my nose as the water jostles it around. I’m not dreaming. Mercy or Owen must have tossed it to me.
I grab hold of the rope, and the water swallows me up, taking me under in a thunder of bubbles. But the rope is taut in my hands. I can feel the water fighting me as the rope hauls me toward shore, against the pull of the current.
My head hits rock, and an arm wraps around my chest, holding me under my armpits, and I’m hauled out of the water. I lie on my back, sopping wet and sputtering for air.
And a face looks over me.
A face I recognize.
“Nate? What the hell are you doing?”
Mike.