My lips part in alarm but Dante is quicker. He always was. He reaches out with a snarl and shoves me, hard. Then I'm falling back into the yawning abyss, so suffocating I know no one can hear me scream.
***
I shot bolt upright in my bed, chest heaving as the remnants of my dream melted away into my subconscious. I took deep, calming breaths and waited for my racing heart to slow.
Just a dream,I told myself.It was just a dream.
I rose from my bed and slipped the soft, linen covers off of my body before swinging my legs over the edge. Suppressing a shudder which lingered from the horror I'd been forced to relive in my dreams practically every night since I'd arrived here, I padded out of the single bedroom in my newly appointed apartment. The lights buzzed before flickering on over my head as I passed from the bedroom to the bathroom and prepared to ready myself for the day. I showered and dried myself off before eyeing thegraysupervisor’s uniform hanging on the back of the door. I sighed, reaching for it.
I’d been here just over a week now and Tiberius was doing his best to keep me busy. He took me to a new level each day and taught me what they did there and how important the work was to both Sanctuary and the Underground. He walked me through my responsibilities as a supervisor, explained the little checklists I had to complete before the end of my shifts, introduced me to level managers and team leaders in each quadrant and section. I listened, nodding and speaking when necessary but otherwise remaining quiet, losing myself in the realization I would be doing this forever. Trulyforever.
It had been a week since Tiberius had delivered the revelation that I was now immortal and I still wasn’t used to the idea. I doubted I ever would be. In truth, it was a concept nearly impossible to grasp. How could I have gone from certain death in that dark abyss to immortal life in an entirely different pit?
I slid my body into the coarsegraysupervisor's jumpsuit and zipped it up, flipping the collar at the top and pulling my hair from beneath it. I looked at myself once in the mirror before turning and leaving the bathroom. Making my way out to the living room, I approached the massive glass window that overlooked the busy first level. Messengers and priests ran to and fro, following their various orders. Supervisors emerged from the same block of apartments I currently occupied andmade their way either to the administration building across the square or to the lifts in every corner, off to do their duties for the day. I just turned away, heading toward my kitchen to brew some tea.
The moment I lifted the steaming, herbal liquid to my lips, there was a knock at my door. Already knowing who it was, I strode forward and threw it open. I sipped my tea as I walked back to the kitchen, not even glancing back as Tiberius shouldered through the opening.
“Good morning,” he said, as cheerful as Tiberius ever got which was not at all. “Have you had breakfast yet? Agriculture brought some fresh fruit to administration this morning. I thought you might like an apple.”
I turned to him, lowering my tea cup with a raised brow. Without warning, he tossed a bright red apple in my direction. I caught it with my enhanced speed but set it down on the counter beside me.
He sighed, already annoyed. A record in my opinion.
“Let’s go then,” he barked, all trace of attempted friendliness having vanished from his gruff tone. “We’ve got welding today.”
Setting down my tea without a word, I strode through the doorway, bumping his shoulder with my own. He didn't grumble or sigh but I noticed the walls of the hallway shake as he slammed the door to my apartment harder than necessary before following after me.
We made our way out of the administrators’ apartments to the nearest lifts where we waited with a group of others for the first doors to open. Tiberius pressed the button for level seven as we entered. I leaned against the back of the lift, arms crossed, and waited. We must have stopped at every level along the way, administrators and messengers filing out each time. Tiberius and I were not the only ones in the lift when it reached the seventh level but the crowd had thinned out tremendously.
“Welding,” Tiberius announced as we stepped out of the lift to the sound of buzzing and hammering and other such metal work echoing from far ahead.
I saw the sparks first, blinding in the otherwise dim light of the seventh level underground. Men and women worked at benches scattered throughout a large open space around a corner just past the lifts. Some in pairs and some alone, all wearing thick black masks with eye shields firmly in place. They bent over various projects, creating items I'd never even thought about before. Pots and pans, utensils, large trash bins, structures of certain furniture, even doors and shelves and building construction materials. The biggest items were in the back where two or more welders could work on them unencumbered. Others labored at smaller benches toward the front, churning out endless amounts of spoons, forks, and knives, crafting settings for the jewels mined below and set above. Pendents, necklaces, bracelets, rings.
“Adrian?” someone called over the noise.
I turned to find Roxy standing at a workbench on the end of the front row where she labored over something small, thick welding mask lifted so she could see me. She smiled and waved me over.
I turned to find Tiberius looking between us, frowning as always.
“Go,” he said after a minute. “There’s a project I need to check on anyway.”
I nodded and walked away.
“Stay away from the torches,” he cried out as an afterthought.
I rolled my eyes as I continued making my way to Roxy who was now giggling at Tiberius’ absurdity.
“He’s a serious one, isn’t he?” Roxy asked when I approached her bench, wiggling her eyebrows in jest.
“He’s a pigheaded ass,” I spat back, looking down to her work now that I was close enough to see it.
She was making tools. Little wrenches and screwdrivers that could be used for maintenance above. I plucked one from her tray of finished goods and examined it in the dim light.
“Tools. That’s what you make every day?” I asked.
“Not every day,” she told me with a shrug, pulling off her mask and setting her gloves aside. “Sometimes I do spoons, sometimes pots, sometimes I work on one of the bigger projects. Whatever they need.”
I nodded, setting the wrench back down among the others.Whatever they need.
