Born of Metal by A.L. Knorr & Aaron D. Schneider

Author:A.L. Knorr & Aaron D. Schneider [Knorr, A.L. & Schneider, Aaron D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Intellectually Promiscuous Press

14

The darkness around me was not absolute, but how I wished it were.

Dim, guttering images flared with sullen light, great grinding expanses of gears looming over me, inching closer with each flare. The light came with belches of heat, scalding air pricking at the nose with sulphurous breath. I could barely breathe. Crawling on my hands and knees over the fire-blackened floor, my palms were gouged, and my fingers scraped by spurs of metal and hunks of ore.

I had to get out, had to escape, but every creeping movement away from the gears told me I was only delaying the inevitable. The gears were getting closer, and all my scrambling hadn’t bought me any time. I watched in horror as the cogs were backlit in a red, hellish light. The first tine of the machine grabbed me and dragged me under.

Incredible pressure worked its way over me. It paired with a heat that set my hair and clothes to smoking. There was pain, but I surrendered to it, thinking that if I just let it take me, then things would end. I would be crushed, scorched, ground into smoking dust, but at least it would be over.

But the great grinding ceased with heavy clanks and the screech of tortured metal. I still could not see as the glow had died, but I could feel the bite of the gears in my flesh and between my bones. Broken and trapped. A terrible claustrophobic panic filled me.

How long would I lie here, gumming up the works of this terrible engine? I began to wrench and squirm. The unforgiving gears held me fast. It was agonising, exhausting.

My panting breath was the only sound as I managed to get an arm free. Something rumbled in the darkness.

Using my free hand — which was thankfully and unexpectedly whole — I leveraged more force, dragging more of my body free from the machine.

In front of my face came a whistling blast of noxious steam, spattering my skin with little caustic dots.

SQUIRM.

It was the roaring voice, but the thunderous bellow was gone, replaced by an insidious, bubbling hiss.

SQUIRM AND WRITHE.

I cursed and panted as I fought to free myself. More gouts erupted around me, streaking my skin with tracks of burning liquid. I screamed but kept fighting, fixed on freeing myself, inch by painful inch.

WRITHE FAITHLESS, WRITHE WORM, WRITHE AND HOPE.

I’d worked my other arm free with a wet pop, but again — impossibly — it worked well enough that I was driving both my hands against the notches and grooves trapping my body from the chest down. I gasped for a fuller breath as, little by little, my ribs came free and expanded. Beautiful, blessed air filled me. In spite of the taunting voice, I began to think I might get free. It would hurt, but I could do it.

I was doing it!

More jets of steam burned my skin.

HOPE.

The word hung in the air, sliding between the searing shower.

HOPE, THAT I MAY TAKE MORE FROM YOU.

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