JOSEPH
We ducked low and crept towards the dark machine. Our camouflage stood out against the shiny, reflective plastic of the chopper. My reflection looked enormous, and I tried to make myself smaller. An impossible task. Through the clear windows, I could see the pilot sitting with his legs up, staring blankly at the concrete wall in front of him. He seemed too relaxed for the current situation. Rash put his hands on the back of the craft, waiting for me to catch up.
I took a breath, ready to talk him out of it, but before I could say anything, he gave me a sideways grin and slammed his palms down on the lightweight panel, making a loud thwack and sending vibrations through the chopper.
The door rolled open. “What the hell was that?” a male voice asked.
“Could’ve been a bird, calm down,” a low female voice replied dismissively.
Rash whispered to me, “You take those two. I’m going for the pilot.”
I shook my head vehemently. “I can’t take two armed soldiers,” I said as I snatched a quick glance of them venturing away from the chopper and searching the tree line.
“Uh, yes you can,” he stated, and left me standing there.
Gus was creeping silently towards us but I couldn’t wait for him, Rash was already at the pilot door. He flicked his fingers behind him, one, two, three, and we moved together but in opposite directions.
I jumped out from behind the rear of the chopper and yelled, “Hey!” My gun out in front, raised and shaking like I had nerve damage. They spun around, and I shot the gun at their feet. The imprint of the trigger burned my finger.
“Drop your weapons!” I demanded, my voice booming, sounding strong like it didn’t come out of my mouth.
The man dropped his gun on the ground as if it were too hot to hold. The woman was less eager, and she stepped towards me threateningly. Gus ran up behind me, his weapon ready. She raised her eyebrow. With two guns trained on her, she lost her bravado and crouched down carefully, placing her weapon neatly on the ground and standing back up with her hands in the air.
“Good decision,” Gus said.
It was too easy.
The sound of Rash’s scuffling shoes preceded him dragging a pilot by his twisted arm towards the other two soldiers.
Much too easy.
“I don’t get it. That was too easy. And the soldiers from before…” I said.
The woman raised her head from where she was kneeling with her hands folded on the back of her head. “Our soldiers?”
Her dark blue eyes were wide with concern. “Your soldiers will live,” Gus grunted. She hung her head and sighed with relief.
I ran my hands through my hair, confused by what was happening. This was not like any fight I’d been in before. Where men threw themselves at me, where they attacked first without thought for their own safety.
Gus’s attention was on Pelo, who was stalking up to the wall when he said, “Find some rope and tie them up.”
Rash jumped into the chopper, the whole thing jerking and tipping as he rummaged around in the cabin. A coil of rope sailed through the opening. His muffled voice flowed out of the door. “This is so cool, man. You have to come see.”
I ignored him as I bound the soldiers’ hands behind their backs with my eyes on Pelo. He hugged the shadows—almost as thin as one. He quickly dug at the dirt, his hands scurrying between his legs like a dog. Pulling out the bomb, he pushed the button and buried it, running like hell away from the wall. He must have pushed the minute button.
Bracing myself for the explosion, I squatted down with the bound soldiers.
I knocked into the female soldier, and she grunted but made room for me next to her.
I looked sideways at her curiously. “Why did you surrender so easily?”
She frowned, her face creased with confusion at what her mouth was about to say. “We were taught to use force when necessary, to be unforgiving in the face of defiance. But this… not one of us wanted to be a part of this.” Her eyes were distant as she stared over the wall to some unknown point.
My heart picked up a new, frantic rhythm. “Part of what?”
The bomb detonated, making words impossible. I covered my ears as the wall split open and debris spewed across the ground.
But then the ground shook under our feet. It didn’t just rumble. It quaked. Metal creaked in agony and screams. Screams came from everywhere, like the Rings were acting as a megaphone, amplifying peoples’ pain for the whole forest to hear. This wasn’t just our blast. Something had happened inside.
ROSA
The ground hummed like the leftover sounds of a twanged rubber band, a sharp vibration that traveled up our legs and into our mouths. I swallowed. A puff of dust like two giant chalk dusters being smacked together appeared several hundred meters down the street. A rumble made us stop and attempt to brace ourselves against… nothing. The earth started to shift under out feet. I stopped breathing, willing myself to be weightless, to take my sister and the others and just float away.
The noise was alien, a loud pop! And then screams. Endless screams.
I turned to my mother as the ground tilted down. “We have to get to the gate,” I yelled, though she couldn’t hear me.
She was frozen, listening to the mouths screaming in wide-open horror, feeling the earth destabilize. I shook her shoulder violently. “Move. Now!” She nodded minutely and shuffled towards the gate.
A bin rolled past me on its side, tumbling and clanging down as we ran up a sudden incline. I couldn’t look, but I could hear the sliding, the metal creaking and fighting against gravity, and thousands of people holding on and losing. Somehow, the world was crumbling, the roads were tipping, and everything and everyone was fighting against slipping into the ground.
We were so close now, the black gate shone like a dull beacon. Freedom. Locking us out of freedom. Hundreds of people were cramped around the locked gate. Ring Two was the Ring for young families. There were children and young people, clinging to each other in fear. So many tears and cries for help, even the sound of buildings being crushed and smashed against each other couldn’t drown them out.
We thudded against the edge of the crowd. There was nowhere to go. People were wedged against the locked gate like scavengers, beggars. I looked through the bars and more people crowded on the other side, hands reaching through the gaps, fingers grazing against desperate fingers. I turned around and wished I hadn’t. Two houses on opposite sides of the street had collided and had momentarily jammed the mechanism that was pulling the floor out from under us. Once they fell, we would fall.
My mother reached forward and tapped a large man on the shoulder, her voice loud and strong. “We need to get the children over the gate first.”
The words spread like a secret and soon, everyone was saying the same thing. Parents locked their arms together as the ground crumbled not fifty meters away.
I looked to my mother as she stepped back. Grabbing at her, I missed her shirt by an inch.
“No. No. Don’t give up. Mother, please!” I croaked.
She shouted out to those closest. “Please help my daughters.”
Someone took my arm and pulled Gwen, Rosa-May, and me up over the heads of the people. They’d formed a human hill and children were being passed up to the gate and over it. Gwen grabbed the hand of a small boy and hoisted him over the gate in front of her. Denis had two children under each arm and he used his taller frame to hoist them higher. My eyes frantically searched for my mother as I reached the points of iron. On the other side, people had stacked tables, chairs, whatever they could find, to try and breach the gate. Now that most of the kids were over, adults were following. Mother’s face was determined. She tracked me with her eyes, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I saw her working her way closer. She was going to make it.