Welp, not where I thought it would go, but there it is. And, better for a lazy writer like me, it didn’t really “end” as we don’t know what happens one second later. However, all in all, it was an interesting exercise in allegory, even if heavy handed in a few places.

I’m already starting on my next and final project for my third collection. It will be much shorter than this but at least four times as depressing. I need to make book #20 into some kind of fun novel. There are millions of stories out there in hundreds of my characters; I just need to listen. Thanks, everyone, for reading along.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Her hands were covered in gore.  She’d at least four bites and two stings.  Perhaps this was an unanticipated way out…?

Using her sound-pictures she’d found the traps that kept fresh food for the spiders.  Once they’d realized this food fought back, the rest had retreated to the corners of their webs.  But the examples it took…

“Crap!  I feel so funky!”

Shaking her arms did nothing and bringing her hands to her face would have been a disaster.  Fortunately the way up was totally obvious.  She stood just below it.

“Expected everyone who made it this far to freaked out by your pets, did you!” she shouted up at the two yard diameter hole.

Nothing.

“Did it ever occur to you that anyone willing to come this far was already willing to die!”

Nothing.

“Did it ever occur to you that if I made it this far, I’m already dead?”

Akaiame opened her mouth again.

“Yes…” came from somewhere above.  She could see stars though the hole.

To deal with the spiders she’d found a three foot length of plywood with a sharpened tip.  It would do.

“You want out?” It was a masculine voice, whispered.

“More than anything.”

“Why?”

In thinking of her reply, the pain came back.  This time she only hunched forward a bit… but the loss… the emptiness…

“I want… I want to see my brother!”

“Why?”  Same question same tone.

“I…”

Akaiame retched and spat.

“… to say I’m sorry… I love him…”

She fell over.

“Come up.” The man’s voice said.

“Huh?” It was dark and she was confused.

“Come up.  We go.”

Go?…

GO!

Akaiame stood and looked at the hole above her.  A real smile went from her mouth to her eyes as she glanced over her shoulder at once made her so self-conscious.

“Thank you for these!”

With a huge downbeat, her unnatural wings had her up through the hole in one smooth motion.  She flared and landed just next to…

Next to… some kind of catapult rail; pointed due east, into the winds.  The rail was elevated, in the direction of the Wall.  She turned slowly to her left.

The shape on the rail she saw first.  But the figure next to it…

An old Broken.  Male.  His skin was as gray as his droopy, mangy wings.  His hands shook slightly, but he’d the eyes of either a prophet or the insane. 

“Welcome, Red Rain,” he managed in his raspy voice.  “Do you want to find your brother?”

“Ahh!” she cried, hurting as he said that.  He waved with his left at the glider.  Sitting at the base of the rail, ready to launch.

It looked unstable.  “Will it work?” Akaiame asked, catching her breath.

“Oh, yes.”

“How are you so sure?”

“If it wouldn’t, why did He send that?” Engineer pointed over her shoulder.

Akaiame turned to the east…

A supercell storm.  A half dozen lightning bolts already rained down each second.  It probably contained several tornadoes.

She turned back.

“He?”

Engineer ignored her.  He was walking around to the other side of the glider.

“When I began to build this, I knew I had to build it for two.” He kicked some wooden chocks out.

“Thought that was stupid.  But ideas come into our heads here.  From the future.  From the past.” He looked into her eyes as he kicked the chocks out on this side.  The glider shuddered, desiring freedom.

He climbed up the side and put himself into the pilot’s seat.  He leaned out at her.

“I shall speak the truth to you, Miss, as I’ve done since I was put here… to no avail.”

There was so much regret in his voice, Akaiame thought.

“I thought my second would be Nike.  He can’t get out.  Looks as if you’re the one.”

He gestured with his left hand for her to board.

“But!  But if it’s Nike…!  I can go get him – ”

“Fifteen seconds ‘till flight.  Get aboard!”

The grinding of her teeth audible to the both of them, she ducked under the starboard wing and stepped up onto it, dropping into the rear seat.

“I hate – !”

“DON’T” Engineer called.  “If you do, we shan’t make it over the Wall!”

Why was he holding a brick?

He answered her unspoken question as he tossed it at a large metal plate near the base of the rail.

“What was – ?” Akaiame began.

They jerked forward, accelerating quickly.

With a rush, they were off Building Three, gaining lift from the gusts from the east.

Akaiame bit her lip as she looked ahead.

Headed directly into the supercell.

“Wall!” Engineer shouted.

She looked down.  They’d just cleared the Wall.

She smiled just as their little airframe shook.

Akaiame neither heard nor felt the lightning when it struck.