39

Their ragged blue skin flashed in the petering light of the small lamp in my hands.

Tremblers ambled around me, leaning in with their putrid faces only to snap at air and then stumble away.

Dread rattled down my spine as I poured the silver nitrate onto the brackets holding the additive drum, and then drizzled the green liquid at its edges. It sizzled, going up in a blinding flash, and melting the metal. The light spurred some of them toward me, and I whimpered, ducking their flailing limbs.

The countdown clicked ever onward, less than three minutes.

Ashton had quieted, a steady scraping at the hinges as he tried to disengage the door was the only indication he had not left.

I closed my eyes. The additive drum dropped down, rolling on its side along the pitted floor of the cavern. I chased after it, dodging Tremblers.

They wandered to and fro in the darkness tripping over each other and banging into the cold pipes snaking along the walls.

The cavern floor tilted, angling away and the metal tumbler went skidding down a dark path.

I ran, stumbling onto my knees as I reached for it. The echoing click and whir of the bomb followed me into the dark. If I could get behind an outcropping, shield it just enough…

A light on the ground caught my eye, and I faltered as I ran past.

A form moved, and a moan, one of pain, made me freeze. In the light of the dimming lantern, Rothfair dragged himself along the edge of the wall, his face and arms torn viscously. He bled from his mouth, his neck, every pore it seemed. “Charlotte,” he gasped and reached for me with hands missing fingers. “Help me.”

“They got you, your own creation. Did they descend as you installed the bomb to kill them?” I stared down at him. The numbness in my chest went all the way to my soul. I did not feel for him. I did not hate him. He was simply in my way.

“We can still e-escape,” he gasped, pointing ahead. “The ridge leads to water.” Grasping for my foot, he tried to right himself, but I stepped back. Of course, that is how he erected all of this without notice. Not across the wasteland, but up the cliff, from the sea. The frigid water. My gaze went to the additive drum resting on the opposite wall.

“I’m s-sorry,” I tried to say past my chattering teeth. “I am so sorry…” I grabbed the drum, running with everything that I had, the ticking of the bomb pushing me past the pain in my legs, the air that wouldn’t come, the searing in my mind. My heart leapt at a circle of light ahead. I was nearly there…

The blast hurled fire down the cavern tunnel, lighting up the dark with an inferno that barreled behind me at breakneck speed.

Dancing with my father, the beach with my mother, Ashton’s face close to mine...the images flew before me as I raced for the opening.

“O-one for many,” I panted, the additive clutched to my chest. The edge in sight, I felt the whoosh of my dress as it flared alight with the blaze. At the threshold of the cliff face, I hurled the additive with blistering hands. Flames engulfed me, bursting from the cave, roiling around me as I fell away into the abyss.