“Where are we going?” I shout, my lungs already burning although Josh and I just burst into a sprint.
“Anywhere but here!” he yells over another disgusting groan from the slithering worm, grabbing my wrist so that I won’t fall too far behind him.
The creature bends its fleshy folds of skin, positioning itself so it can strike us, but Josh’s composure isn’t shaken as he expertly guides us around gaping craters in the ground and ducks sprays of rocks that are hurtling through the dank, rancid air. I ignore the pain in my leg, leaping up and to the side, keeping in sync with Josh’s every sudden yet seemingly calculated move.
I make the mistake of glancing over my shoulder to see if we’ve gained any distance from this humongous, sickening thing. The creature has stopped and is winding its grotesque figure into a tight coil. I blink and suddenly it’s plunging through the atmosphere like a sludge-covered comet.
I stumble back in surprise and my foot catches on something—probably a wide groove in the withering land—and my hand slides out of Josh’s grasp, so quick the friction seems to light my palm on fire. And then I’m tumbling down, away from Josh, my body plummeting to the craggy layers of dirt and pebbles beneath me, my chin striking the ground after my knees and arms make impact. I’m lying on my stomach on the ravine floor at least forty feet away from Josh, who is still on top of the hill.
Another deafening roar breaks through the night sky, practically shattering my eardrums. I can see Josh scrambling down the hill, but he’s too late. The monster is already here, its mouth open wide; its jagged teeth oozing with thick, yellow drool.
There’s nothing Josh can do to help me.
“Run!” I shout to him.
Just when I feel and smell the hot, stinking breath of the creature bearing down on me, Josh yells, “Behind you!”
I twist around and see a small rock formation, with a sliver of a space underneath that could protect me.
If I can get there before I’m devoured, I might have a chance.
Josh darts toward me, flailing his arms and doing whatever he can to attract the monster’s attention. It works. The monster hesitates, looking away, and I crawl as fast as I can in the direction of the tiny alcove, my fingernails caked with grit and grime, my nose inhaling the clouds of dust. I cough and cough but I don’t stop scrambling. Just as I slip inside, the beast turns and lunges at me, as if giving one last try before I slip out of its grasp. I close my eyes and tuck my knees to my chest. I can feel its hot breath and hear the tongue of the beast thrash outward from between its bloody, vein-filled gums.
Just when I’m certain it’s going to devour me, it seems to stop and pause. The air begins to clear and I can sense it moving away.
I open my eyes to see the remainder of a tail disappearing into a hole in the earth that has suddenly appeared no more than a few feet away from me. I let out a ragged breath and then another and another, marveling that I made it out alive. I stretch and push myself out of the alcove a little, and I see Josh coming toward me, mud particles still plastered to his cheeks, a slight smile of relief flashing across his face.
We both stop as we hear another loud, seismic rumbling. My muscles seize up as I prepare to run, expecting another monstrous worm. But it’s coming from above, not from below. I look at the shaking rocky alcove right above my head and I know that I’ll never make it out in time.
It all happens in an instant. One moment Josh is in my sights, and the next there’s a shower of soot, ash, gravel, and rocks, my mind spinning into oblivion, Josh’s voice echoing through a sheet of blackness.
Try as I might, I can’t fully open my eyes. The best I can do are these thin slits that allow only a thin stream of light. I feel limp, my arms and legs dangling at their joints, and yet somehow I’m moving. There’s a sharp pressure behind my knees and around my shoulders, and my body is bouncing in this rhythmic pattern. My head bobs, to the left and to the right.
I think I’m being carried.
I focus all my energy on craning my neck upward, with the hopes I’ll be able to make out where I am, but there’s no use. I feel like a bag of bones. But I take immense comfort in knowing that Josh found a way to save me.
We aren’t running anymore. We’re walking.
That has to be a good sign, doesn’t it?
There are whispers carrying in the air, and my brain is still so foggy I can’t make any of the words out. I’m alert enough to notice that it’s two low voices—two men, actually, talking to each other.
I attempt to lift my head again, and I’m able to raise it a few inches. My eyelids peel back a little bit more too, so I can look in the direction of the person holding me in his arms. My vision is blurred, but there’s no mistaking the face that’s staring back at me.
My chest constricts and I struggle to breathe, even when my father’s lips gently graze my forehead, like he used to kiss me before bed when I was a child.
Then a dark tunnel closes in all around me, narrowing and narrowing by the second. I can’t do anything else but let myself fade away.
“Wake up, Regan.”
It’s my father’s voice, deep and comforting.
I can feel him stroking the palm of my hand with his fingertips, each invisible line that he traces helping me to come back from wherever I just was to wherever I am. My body feels like it’s encased in some kind of aluminum alloy, and I can’t really move except for one thing:
I can sort of wiggle my toes.
“Good, good,” he says. “Nice and easy now.”
“Is this like Aftershock? Is it going to wear off?”
I feel a twitch in my lips when I hear Josh speak, and I can breathe a little, my ribs giving way so my chest rises and falls without feeling like someone just put me in a straitjacket.
“Yes and no,” Dad answers. “She passed out because her delta brain waves were so strong she went into a deep dreamless state. Elusion usually only manipulates theta brain waves, which are mainly for intense meditation and light sleep.”
His words crash into one another in my mind, leaving particles and pieces scattered all over the place. As my eyes begin to open, so slowly I’m not sure it’s really happening, my brain tries to reassemble the fragments of my father’s explanation.
Delta.
Weak.
Dreamless.
“Maybe if we prop her up that might help,” Josh suggests.
I feel my body weight and posture being shifted, while my eyes still seem swollen and heavy. Something soft is placed behind my head, and I can tell I’m sitting up because my lower back and legs are at a ninety-degree angle.
“Da—” That’s all that will come out of my mouth.
“I’m here, sweetheart. Everything is going to be okay.”
Even with my depreciated mental capacity, I can hear the worry in his voice.
But I don’t care. My dad is with me. Finally, after all this time.