Liferaft by Aditi Khorana

Author:Aditi Khorana
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2019-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

It didn’t surprise her, that was the funny thing. None of it. It didn’t surprise her that she knew how to read the notes. It didn’t surprise her that they were there. It was as though she somehow knew. Her destiny lay in this moment. The bite that had changed her had always been pointing her toward this. Molly was still struggling to breathe, struggling to think, but the moment the runes appeared before her eyes, she understood her purpose. She was a part of something larger. She felt alive again.

“I can hum the notes,” Molly said.

“Then I can write them down.” Kimberly left Hank’s side for the first time since they had lost Cal. Molly glanced at Hank, taking in his pain. He hadn’t spoken at all since those agonizing moments after Cal’s death. He was still in shock. She met his eyes for a moment before he looked away.

Once Kimberly had joined her, Molly scanned the wall of glyphs. Softly, she began to hum. As she did, Kimberly scrawled the notes in the snow using her fingers. Akiko picked up her flute, bringing it to her mouth, and began to play a tune. Kimberly kept scrawling as Akiko played; the music was fast and then slow, a series of trills followed by staccato notes, a repetition of sonorous patterns so different from anything Molly had heard on Earth. These notes wouldn’t summon Claude the Colossus, they wouldn’t fight beasts, but they all hoped that they were the answer to finding a way into the ship.

Molly must have hummed for ten minutes, maybe longer. She lost all sense of time. Electricity was coursing through her body, she could feel it. An excitement, a newness, an aliveness. She was a part of the music and the music was a part of her. She was a part of the life raft. She was a part of this place. It was all connected, she realized.

It was even possible that she was meant to find this place. That coming here, despite all the dangers, all the sorrow and the tests and travails, was part of her destiny. That this was a small part of her own story. As she hummed, Molly got the sense that there was more, even though she couldn’t see it yet.

They were on the brink, so close to what they’d been seeking. The others watched, but as Akiko played the notes, Molly felt something changing within her. Her whole body glowed green now. She was no longer just Molly, the girl who had left home to be a part of an engineering competition. No, she was someone else, something else.

Akiko kept playing furiously, with an intensity Molly had never seen in her. This could be a major turning point for them, so some excitement was expected, but Molly sensed that there was something else driving the girl, too. Even though Akiko wasn’t a part of this world the way Molly was, she had explored the edges on her own, in a way that the others hadn’t.

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