Rising, I scan for anything else Darolus might have left out. Nothing more looks out of the ordinary. Except for a small stain of blood by the water behind his bed, the space appears the same as it had last night.
I finish throwing the rest of the mid-sized rocks into the pool, using the curved edge of a broken metal pipe to sweep the smaller pebbles and dirt next. After that’s done, I comb the room for any leftover rocks that I might have missed. There aren’t any, but I do come upon the white orb where it’s sat out of sight on the first step of the blocked staircase for the past few days, and pick it up.
I try to turn it on again with no luck. Putting it down with a sigh, I get back to work.
Darolus is gone all day.
By the time the shadows lengthen and the light dims to a golden-green hue, I’ve given up seeing him today. Hungryonce more, I pace, eyeing the boulder-choked tunnel and the fading shafts of light, wondering which will come first: Darolus or the darkness.
Chewing on my nails, hating the prolonged silence, I debate shouting out and seeing if I get a response from him.
But… Do I want him to return?
Where is he?
Questions flutter through my head as I continue to pace, bored. I’ve already cleaned the entire room—except for his bed—as thoroughly as possible, as well as sharpened my knife on the whetstone by his old weapon stash, rinsed my dirty clothes in the pool, and scrubbed the worst of the grime off my own skin. Kicking myself for eating all the meat at once, I shuffle over to the basin my fresh water is in and cup my hands, drinking down the last of it to disrupt the yawning in my stomach.
Finally settling back on the hide, I pull off my boots, only to sprawl onto the rough fur with a groan. I’m not looking forward to another hungry night of tossing and turning.
Cursing, restless, I rise again and head to Darolus’s bed to glare down at it. Nearly as large as him, the circular mass stretches several of my body lengths across. Heaped with hides and different types of materials, it has been deeply appealing every time I’ve let my eyes roam over it. My aching, exhausted body longs to climb in for some much-needed warmth and comfort.
The only problem? It smells. And it isn’t the type of smell a human man gives off, it’s different, and not exactly pleasant. Bitter and stifling, the scent of the bed is thicker than the scent of his body, almost overwhelming my senses when I get too close to it.
But as the days have gone by I’ve constantly gottenwhiffs of it, and the scent has bothered me less and less. I’m now more bothered by the smells my own body is giving off.
Darolus might not sweat, but I do. And it’s not like there’s a shower around here. I don’t trust the water in the pool enough to bathe in it, not when I have no idea where it’s coming from. Even if I did… I can’t swim. A shiver courses through me once more and I eye Darolus’s empty hide pile with renewed lust.
Deciding both the smell and the risk are worth it, I grab the thickest, biggest hide I can get my hands on and drag it off the heap. Gathering the musky material in my arms, I carry it to the water and shake it out until my arms shudder from exhaustion.
Of course, as I’m spreading it out over my original thinner and smaller hide—all while celebrating my daring theft—I hear the boulders being moved.
I reach for my boots but pause, choosing to stand barefoot instead. The last thing I need is him thinking I was trying to escape again.
Our eyes catch as Darolus moves the last rock aside.
Beautiful and blue in the deepening shadows, I find it unfair how appealing they are. I could look into them all day, wondering if it’s the amazing Earthly sky I’m seeing or the legendary color of oceans.
My fingers twitch as I watch him turn and heave the final boulder back into place. His muscles flex and shift with the effort of replacing the huge chunk of solid rock; I’d be weightless to him in comparison.
Suddenly I imagine how high he could lift me if he were lifting both of us on his tail at the same time. Glancing at the vaulted ceiling above, I bet I’d be able to touch it. Though reminded of the cracks, my lips flatten.
I don’t want to be here the day it all falls. And it’s going to fall someday.
Turning around, Darolus recatches my attention as he reaches for something behind him. Producing a dead animal and a makeshift blue plastic satchel of some kind, he carries both into the room, directly toward me. His eyes streak around, cataloging the changes I’ve made—going from my fire pile to my castoff boots to the clear floor and the few pipes I gathered against the pillar. To my left and down to the second hide on the ground, haphazardly placed above the other, his eyes miss nothing.
He grunts and drops his load on the floor before me. I take a step forward, eyeing the carcass before the blue satchel. “What is it?”
Whatever it is, it’s larger than a station hound, brown, with coarse-looking fur. Like some of the ancient earth animals I’ve seen in books and movies, it has a snout. My memory dregs up an old children’s rhyme about farm animals… The pig comes to mind.
“Pig,” he says. “A small one. They can be found roaming in large packs on the outskirts of the city, toward the…”
“Toward the?” I echo, studying the weird creature.
He shakes his head and turns the pig carcass over with his tail. “A place I call the forest.”
“Right, the fertile land that’s grown back. We were all heading for it. It’s the only safe place many of us could reach without enough fuel reserves to launch again. But that’s nothing you would care about.”
“You know about it?”
