CHAPTER 7

I'm back in the infirmary, and the girl is standing in front of me again. Her finger leaves my forehead and she dashes off, leaping over the bed. Grace jerks her head once, her eyes unmoving as she follows the girl as she runs off into the darkness of the hall.

"Oh, Grace, are you all right? Who the hell was that girl?" Tom asks.

That girl did something. I don't know what, but she brought out that memory. I hadn't thought about that in a long while. Find a way out. It's almost like a challenge. I don't think about what happens next, I'm just moving. Movement without thought is almost what you could consider the lives of feral creatures, although they too have their own special way of thought, right? Just because we don't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It makes sense to them.

I push by Grace and Tom and leap over the bed into the hallway, all around me becomes dark, and I hear a huge thud, but I keep moving forward, not looking back. A scream lashes out from down the hallway, I need to get closer. I bump into a wall, the hallway juts out to a corner that I didn't notice, and continues on for what seems like ages. My head begins to pound again, I'm short of breath, but keep stable. I dash forward until my legs do not cooperate any longer. The hallway seems to continue on forever, and I don't even know if I've made any headway.

I pull my backpack around and unzip the main pouch. I pull out a water bottle and undo the top, I tip the bottle down my throat as water flows nearly into my lungs. I cough and hack as I feel the cold rushing down, I don't even mind the discomfort I can't imagine how fucked I would be if I didn't have my backpack with me, I am so happy I packed it well.

I down the bottle, regretting drinking so much but at the same time so relieved that I'm hydrated. I feel around inside my bag to find that I've got two more full bottles left. I'll have to ration them out for longer, and like hell if I'm sharing. In a perfect world maybe, but I hardly know those two, and I don't know if they'd even do the same for me.

I zip up my bag and thrust it back on my back and continue down the darkness. Finally do I see a beam of light as I turn one final corner and find a metal staircase that looks like it has had all of its guts removed, leaving it as a skeleton of a staircase. The steps don't look anywhere near stable, but I venture that if I'm going to die, it's going to be here anyway, so why the hell not?

I look up to see a lantern hanging on a rope illuminating the little corridor I'm standing in with a sickly green light. I place a foot on the bottom step and shift my weight onto it, testing its durability. Of course, it would make much more sense to test some of the higher steps, but sometimes just doing the first step is enough.

My mom wasn't around much. Both she and my dad were so busy with their new jobs. It was with NASA, you know? A kid's supposed to be proud of his parents when they finally land good work, break through the depression they were in and land some big money, but all I could feel was sadness. My parents were leaving each other so they could make things work. What kind of family is that? One that only makes things work at the first step, that everyone is alive, that is enough. Everything that comes after is secondary. Happiness is secondary.

I climb up the rest of the stairs without problem, they don't buckle underneath my feet or anything. I can be thankful for that at the very least, that and the fact that I don't believe Grace or Tom have found me yet. Company's nice, but not their company, to be honest. At the top of the stairs is a stretched out catwalk that hangs over a ledge no longer encompassed by the hallway It stretches out a good ten feet before dropping off to another staircase that rises up. Just what kind of ship is this, anyway? I navigate my way across the catwalk, I notice I pass two of the supports that stretches up to the darkness above me. I notice that the catwalk is being supported not by beams, but instead of chains. The thing's hanging off of the ceiling, which is too far up for me to even see the end of it. It seems ever since the floor opened up for the chasm below it also opened up the ceiling a bunch.

I climb down on the other side and find that the hallway ducks around a corner symmetric to the side I was just on.

Just great, how am I supposed to find my way out if everything is going to be just a mirror image?

I turn the corner and begin walking down the hallway, leaving the light behind once more. I hear another sound come from a ways down, so I kneel down and begin to slow my pace. Whoever this woman is, she isn't going to slip by me again. I'm going to get some answers, whether she cooperates or not. I reach the corner and the sound grows louder. I swallow hard as I hear it come closer. I inch closer as I find a large metal door, there is a pounding from the other side, it is the source of the sound. I notice a metal bar holding the door shut. Sweet, a weapon. Now I have some persuasion up my sleeve. I slide the bar quietly out from between the handles and grip it tight like a baseball bat. I steady myself and kick once on the door, the pounding on the other side ceases. Now I just grip the pipe even tighter and wait for the door to open. Then I can crack it right upside-

"Gavin?" Tom's voice calls out.

It's Tom and Gracie that were making all of that noise. I stand there with the pipe in my hands.

It would only take one hit. Well, two, one for each of them. Maybe a third to get Grace down, she's got some natural armor on. Just one action to make my life so much easier.

"Yeah, it's me," I sigh out, letting the pipe fall to the floor. It smacks softly against the carpet and bounces thrice before stopping fully. I grab a hold of the right handle and pull to open the large metal door. I catch sight of Tom's stubby little face right in front of me and my eyes roll over to the pipe laying right beside my foot. I lost my chance.

"Were you two just sitting in this room the entire time?" I ask, peering through the doorway.

"We had nowhere to go," Grace says.

"Why couldn't you just-" I say, but not before stopping as I see a large grate covering the hallway I'd run down. That must have been what made the large thud I'd heard, but where had it come from?

"The only way was back, seeing as this door was locked, our only hope really was getting through here," Tom says.

"Well, then I guess it's your lucky day," I say. "And unlucky, because the hallway bends around all the way to this door. There weren't any other exits."

"Really?" Grace asks.

I turn to her, "No, there's actually a department store inside with a lot of brand deals," I say.

"No there isn't..." Grace says, honing her eyes on me.

"Yeah, you're right. You want to see? Feel free," I say, stepping back from the door, gesturing a wide arm sweep to invite them in. They walk in slowly and I lead them throughout the dark hallway, silent. We reach the chasm and catwalk, eerie green light and all. I step onto the first step and turn around.

"This is where it mirrors, the catwalk is at the center and it just loops back around," I say.

Tom looks down below, through the steps into the chasm, "Where do you think that leads?" he asks.

"No, we're not going down there," Grace says almost immediately. "We're on a boat, remember? Down is generally a bad idea."

"I actually think it might be a good idea," I say.

"What?"

"Well, we're not breached, otherwise that chasm would be full of water."

"It could be at the bottom."

"Well then, it looks like we have something to break our fall, don't we?" I cock my head slightly.

"No, I'm not doing it, obviously there's another way. We don't even have a safe way down there! The face that we don't even see what it is that is down there means it is too high," she says, stepping onto the first step of the catwalk. "Obviously you missed something in the dark, like a door or something. We can check the other side." She continues up the steps.

"Maybe we can fashion a sort of rope or like with something from one of the other rooms?" I ask, following her up the steps.

Tom follows up behind, "Or maybe something small to toss down to see how far it goes, or see if we can hear an impact."

I hear a slight noise.

"Wait, stop," I say, holding still.

"What?" Grace says.

It sounds again, a creaking almost. I see it then illuminated by the lantern's light. The chains holding the catwalk up are weakening, the thin metal scrapes as it tries to hold on.

The lantern rope, we could have yanked that down and used the lantern for a light source, damn it.

The chain just behind us snaps and I can feel the catwalk begin to dip. Grace is the first to react as she runs forward, jumping out way too soon and landing face first onto the catwalk, the force of her jump causes the whole structure to buckle, the corner diagonal to the broken one shatters off and a piece flies and almost nails me in the face, only missing me by a few inches.

"Run!" I yell out. I take a step forward and simultaneously the last two corners snap and the whole top of the catwalk begins to fall, all three of us with it. As soon as I breach the darkness I feel a rushing sensation behind my brain.

Run run run around.

Never stop, don't make a sound.

Run run run today.

Never cry, don't delay.

Run run run around.

Keep on running til they all fall down.

I see a large, open room. It ducks down in the middle where a bunch of children are. There are five of them total, and I think...that I am one of them. I mean, he has my trademark stellar locks of love, so I mean, it makes enough sense. What doesn't make sense is I have no clue where this is or who the other kids are. One's a girl that looks my age with bright blonde hair knotted up in a ponytail. She's crying because there seems to be something that looks like gum that had been wadded into said ponytail.

Beside her is a young boy who looks to be only three or four years old, who has his attention solely stolen by the amazement of such an oddity as a thing like gummed up hair. I'll pen him as the culprit for Miss Blondie's freak-out. I see the other one that looks just like me helping her out, pulling some gum out of the young blonde girl's hair.

The oldest of the group looks to be a teenager, somewhere around sixteen or seventeen years old with dark brown hair that casts onto her shoulders. She tries to end the screaming and fighting.

"Dad, please, I can't watch them all day. You know how I am with kids, and Megan here is already giving me a migraine," the teen says, speaking to somebody out of view.

"Kate, I know I'm asking a lot out of you, but this was the deal for us to be living here, that you help babysit so that we can keep working and I can keep food on our plates," An older man's voice says, thick in a heavy western accent.

"I understand that, but how can you expect me to do this for eight hours every day?"

"It might extend past eight depending on what this stuff is, and I know that sounds bad, but I'm telling you straight up so you don't get disappointed."

"This sucks."

"Yeah, well, life sucks. But to make it suck less we all have to suck up a little bit and do what we have to."

"I guess."

"Hey, it'll be all right. I'll ask Jay and see if his wife, Karen I think her name was, would be interested in coming up to help you out. She's out of work considering her condition."

"Okay, that'd help a bit."

"No problem, sweetie. I've got to go now, I'll see you at dinner."

The girl, Kate, looks down at the floor and breathes heavy, "No you won't, but I appreciate the sentiment."

She looks to the ground, obvious disappointment hung heavy in her face. It seems to not be recognized as the darkness surrounds the scene. It feels...almost familiar.