Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
She swayed and fell.
What the fuck do I do now?
The sound of hoarse breathing echoed through the cavern.
She saved me. If she hadn’t stabbed the grey attacker, I would be dead.
Another hoarse breath. Another.
Fuck it.
I shifted on all fours and crawled the few feet to the woman.
Her arm was sheared off as if by a razor blade, the cut so precise, it was like an anatomy slide. I could see the bones among the bloody muscle. Blood shot out with every breath.
“We’ll need a tourniquet. Hold on.”
I dug in the pocket of my coveralls, extracted the paracord I always carried, and pulled it loose. Paracord was a shitty way to make a tourniquet, but she was bleeding out and I had nothing else. I folded the paracord lengthwise until I had about a three-foot stretch of cord, wrapped it around what was left of her arm, and pulled it into a knot. The blood was still spurting.
I patted myself. I needed… Here. I pulled a slim flashlight out of my pocket. I always brought one as a backup to the light in my hard hat. I pressed the flashlight into the knot and tied another knot over it.
“This will hurt, and you’ll lose what’s left of the arm. I’m sorry. We have to stop the bleeding.”
I twisted the flashlight, tightening the knot. Once, twice, three times.
The woman reached out with her right arm and touched my hand. Her fingers were cool, their touch feather-light.
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
The blood stopped spurting. Now I just had to secure this…
The woman touched her own forehead. Her fingers dipped into the skin, sinking into a seemingly solid skull.
It had to be a hallucination. I was losing it from blood loss and pain.
The woman pulled something out of her head. It was round and glowing, like a brilliant jewel lit from within. It was so beautiful. The colors swirled and danced, a stunning, mesmerizing gemfire.
I had to look away, move, run, do something, but I had no will to move. The gemstone was too beautiful to resist. It was coming toward me, held in the woman’s long fingers. Closer. Closer.
The gem touched my forehead.
The Universe unfurled with light and color. A soft voice whispered inside my head.
“Treasure your inheritance, my kind daughter.”
Everything went dark.
3
I opened my eyes. A jagged stone ceiling spread above me, glowing softly with swirls of alien growth.
I hadn’t imagined the nightmare. It happened.
I stared at the ceiling for a long breath and checked my watch. The digital skin was dark, with a spiderweb of cracks across it. Must’ve happened when I smashed into that rimstone after the blast.
Lying here would accomplish nothing. I had to get out of this hellhole.
I sat up slowly. The generator was still going, and three of the five floodlights had survived, illuminating the cavern with bright puddles of electric light. The inside of my head burned, my back throbbed, and my right leg felt like someone had rolled an asphalt compactor over it. But I was still breathing.
“Is anyone alive?”
Silence. Just me and the corpses.
“Anyone?”
Something nudged my side. I whipped around. Bear sat next to me, her smart brown eyes focused on my face with unwavering canine intensity.
I wasn’t by myself. The dog was with me.
“Hi Bear.”
Bear tilted her head. Her left side was dark and wet. Blood. It started near her shoulder and bled down over her leg onto the paw. Shit.
“Hold on, girl.”
I pushed to my feet. My right leg trembled but held my weight. Oh good. I took two steps before I remembered the bone sticking through my skin.
I pulled my right pant leg up. An angry red welt marked my calf, smudged with dried blood. That was it. The wound was gone.
I’m losing my mind.
My leg was broken. I had looked at it and then hid it with my coveralls. The pant leg was stained with dark red, the result of a massive bleed. I’d left a blood trail across half of this cavern. I looked up. There it was, a ragged chain of dark smears.
I felt the edge of rising panic and shoved those thoughts right down before they dragged me under. It didn’t matter right now. I had to see what was going on with Bear’s shoulder.
I made my way to the nearest pond. An indigo hard hat lay on the rocks. I had a sick feeling that Stella might have been wearing it.
Nope, not going to think about that either.
“Come here, Bear.”
The shepherd padded over.
“Stay.”
Bear looked at me. All the commands Stella gave her were in German, and I could only remember a couple. The word for stay wasn’t one of them.
“Stay.”
Bear sat.
Good enough.
I needed to clean the blood off her, but who knew what the hell was in this water.
I flexed.
The water looked perfectly clear to my enhanced vision.