The Worm and His Kings by Hailey Piper

Author:Hailey Piper [Piper, Hailey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Off Limits Press LLC
Published: 2020-11-14T22:00:00+00:00

10

NIGHT

HOURS PASSED. THE SONG EBBED and flowed while the palace remained unchanging, the choir showing incredible stamina. Now and then, the Gray Maiden called from a distance, her echo’s direction forever indiscernible, but eventually even she must’ve tired.

When the choir’s song faded for the last time, a quiet settled into the room. It helped grow the darkness from every corner and invited Monique’s imagination to run wild. The Gray Maiden’s sickle claw cut at her thoughts. Old Time had grown a dead world underground where creeping monsters sliced people apart. Corpses jittered in a room not far away, where the Worm’s throne gave shape and purpose to the empty place. What other nightmares awaited beneath Empire Music Hall?

Monique couldn’t guess. Everything she’d encountered since setting foot in Freedom Tunnel tonight—yesterday?—was beyond her. She barely understood human anatomy, let alone the dead history of a world that never was.

And wouldn’t Donna call that a good thing? The empty place’s purity offered an entryway for her Worm. Empty minds might do the same. She was one of them.

It was too much.

Tears brimmed in Monique’s eyes. She shoved her jacket sleeve against her mouth not to sob. She wasn’t allowed to cry in this place or something might hear and come for her. It was like Freedom Tunnel again, keeping the sounds of her misery from the empty place.

And the empty place was here, too. It would take sound just the same.

Her stomach lurched. Corene’s candy bar was long gone down the music hall’s plumbing. Now Monique’s guts wanted every blueberry Pop-Tart that the surface had to offer. She would’ve liked not to wonder where her next meal was coming from for a change.

A deep, rattling breath slipped in and forced out. Sleep would be best. Monique laid her head on one arm, where she bundled the tails of her tangled scarves. She tried to focus on the fungal glow of the doorway and not the thick darkness that owned most of the room.

No good. She felt the empty place as if she still remained beside it in Freedom Tunnel. She might lie next door to the throne room, close enough to grab Donna if she only knew the way. At least now she had a shape for the cold unease. How far did the throne reach? Its emptiness might climb beyond Freedom Tunnel and reach a patch of Manhattan sidewalk that pedestrians dodged without knowing why. Planes likely set their courses around where its cold fingers reached into the sky. And how deep did it burrow? Through the Earth’s core? Did it reach the far side of the world, where ships met disaster avoiding it, an unexplainable blip on the map?

A rumble ate through the walls and made Monique think of subway trains. She was too deep underground to feel the subway, but the sound reminded her that there was a world up there and she could return to it.

With or without Donna.

No, that was exhaustion talking. Monique couldn’t just quit. Donna had been at her side that last fateful day with Doctor Sam.

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.