Arise: A Dystopian Novel (The Ravenmaster Chronicles Book 1) by K. A. Riley

Author:K. A. Riley [Riley, K. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Travel Duck Press
Published: 2021-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

23

Level 1 - Acheron

Leaving Kyrk behind and jogging down the hall, we arrive at the red, downward-facing arrow painted on the wall and a stairway descending into darkness.

I’ve got Render on my shoulder, Simeon by my side, and the rest of the Fallen following close behind.

Sounding like a muffled freight train, Tallynne won’t stop sniffling.

She pauses on each landing and takes a full two seconds to glance back up the stairs the way we came.

“Don’t slow us down!” I call back to her.

“I don’t like it down here,” she announces, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “At least up there it was warm and safe.”

I have to remind myself, for all she’s been through, endured, and survived, she’s still a kid. And experience doesn’t automatically translate into bravery.

I remind her that it’s not that bad in the stairwell. “Not as bad as some of the places we’ve been, anyway.”

Plodding down the next set of stairs in a deep, slow sulk, she nods her reluctant agreement.

While it’s true that we’ve definitely been through worse, I do see her point. Kyrk’s potion may have been a manipulator and a mind-melter, but at least we weren’t being chased by giants or eaten by dogs.

I also see her point about this descent. The lower we go, the less I like it. The stairwell is made up of rough walls of cold concrete. The stairs and the landings are cluttered with the reminders of all the other people who have come this way and who clearly never made it back up.

As we descend, we’re forced to step over, around, or through it all:

There are old boots, burned jackets, a pair of broken crutches, empty knife sheaths, half-melted guns, lens-less eyeglasses, empty plastic water jugs, moldy bits of food, scattered human teeth, and countless shards of yellowed, dust-crusted bones. Along the way, the walls and stairs are smeared with bloody handprints. The overpowering smell of urine and feces clogs the confined, stifling space.

Behind me, the Fallen are walking with the tops of their shirts tugged up to cover their noses and mouths.

With no windows, the only light source comes from old glow-pads stuck to the ceiling at each landing. Their charges are fading, and the weak haze of grayish-orange light they offer gives the narrow stairwell a distorted, hellish glow. Our shadows don’t look like our own, and I keep turning back or glancing up at the ceiling or down deeper into the darkness, sure someone—or something—is following us.

There was an old baseball pitcher I once read about. He said, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”

Thinking about that now sends a seismic quake up and down my spine, and I concentrate hard to keep my focus on what’s in front of us, while the air gets thicker and warmer as we descend.

By the time we’re at least two or three flights down and at least a floor or two below what I think must be ground level, we can barely breathe.

I’ve been up high plenty of times in my life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.