A Star Named Vega by Benjamin J Roberts

Author:Benjamin J Roberts [Roberts, Benjamin J]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2021-06-20T05:00:00+00:00

11 - The Crimson Helix

Rel dreamed he was drowning, and not for the first time in this awful place. Every night it was the same: a long fall into a dark and bottomless abyss with icy fluids swelling in his mouth and lungs. He woke again at daybreak with the chemical taste of it in the back of his throat, retching into his bedsheets.

The morning was hot and humid, with only the hint of a breeze to cut the stagnant vegetal air. He did not feel rested. As he sipped from a bowl of honeysweet porridge, the hazy heat and the hissing of the waterfall made his eyelids droop. But the memory of the nightmare kept him awake. He didn’t fancy returning to it.

The crystalline river below didn’t seem to stir any fear in him, however. It was not an abyss. He wondered how the water might feel against his new skin. Already he was filthy with oils and dirt and the sweat of the night. He ate another mouthful of porridge and ventured down to the riverbank.

The first step into the freezing water set his raw nerves on fire. Up to his ankles, lapping against his calves. His toes sank into the white sands of the riverbed. All these new sensations. Or rather, old sensations long forgotten. He remembered his skin.

Diving forward, the water in his ears muted the sounds of the garden. The coldness seeped through his skin to clutch at his lungs. He crawled up against the flow of the river to the roiling basin pool where the water clapped down in sheets from above.

And his face broke the surface, and his fingers found slippery stone. The cliff formed a hidden cave behind the waterfall. Rel clambered up into the resonant space. The darkness here tempered the stark white of the rocks.

This horrible pale world.

Shivering, he brought his knees up to his chin and he ran his hands over his arms. His flesh came up in bumps, fine hairs standing on end. The human experience. Vulnerable and childlike. Would the cold kill him now? Would a stumble break his bones? He held his legs and his feet, found the stubby shapes of his toes. Would this skin bleed at the slightest sharpness?

He rocked sideways against the hard cave floor and screwed his eyes shut. Gravity pulled the stone up against him, kneading his soft muscles into the iron cage of his bones, pinching at his elbows and hips. His senses flooded with pain and the endless rumbling of water.

Back to the drowning nightmare….

“Are you okay?”

Rel awoke with a start. Siersha’s silhouette cut the bright cave mouth in half. She turned her head, and her pale eyes caught the light. “Show me your side.”

“Hmm?”

“Your right side. Below the ribs. You’re hurt.”

Rel lifted his arm and glanced down. The beam wound. “Oh.”

Siersha came over as he sat up straight. “Didn’t they already treat it for you?” she said. “It’s opened back up again.”

The air in the cave was stiflingly warm.

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