The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan [130]
For what feels like hours, days, months, I’m in the darkness. I become the darkness; it seeps into me and tries to eat its way out. It lulls me with promises of sleep and rest. It whispers to just give in. That it will protect me forever.
I ache to believe in it. I’m trembling from exhaustion, unable to feel my fingers or toes or knees or ears or lips from the oppressive cold and ice. There’s nothing inside me anymore. I’m just a body that jerks and shivers as time folds and crumples. For a moment I feel as though I’m on the path as a child with Elias. My sister is behind me, crying and begging me to come home to her.
Elias is reaching out a hand to pull me forward, but his fingers constantly slip through my own. I call out for Catcher. For anyone. For help. But the only response is the moaning. The stench of stale air.
I stumble to a stop and turn around. I wonder if this is it. If this is how the world ends. I wonder about all the other people who have faced this moment. I think of Catcher telling me about the night he climbed the roller coaster, when he lost all fear of heights because death was already eating away at him. He had nothing more to lose.
And I realize that’s the difference. I realize that I still have everything to lose. The possibility of my sister and Elias and Catcher and my future. I’d lose sunrises and stars and the feel of Catcher’s heat against my lips. I’d miss the taste of snow and the smell of the first flower of spring.
I’d miss laughing and crying and all the moments in between.
I stumble back into the darkness and keep walking. Knowing that the pain I’m feeling now is because my body is alive.
I can tell by the echo of sound and the feel of the air when the tunnels open up into stations, when the path branches in front of me. I just keep my hand on the wall and push forward. I fall into such a repetition of steps that I’m stunned when I stumble against a massive pile of rubble.
I don’t even know how to process this information, I’m so surprised, and it takes a moment for me to realize that this is it. I can’t go any farther. I stand in the darkness, the vibration of the air behind me bristling with the ever-constant presence of moans.
I’m sure the Unconsecrated aren’t that far behind me; I’ve barely been able to walk. All I know is that I have to get past this and continue on. I shove the machete into my belt and start to feel my way along the debris, pulling at smaller rocks, when I notice something.
I can hear a slight whistle of air. I lean into it—it feels warmer and smells fresh and clean and like the outside.
A ball of excitement coils in my stomach, energizing me. I run my hands over the cave-in, feeling for loose pieces and prying at them. Sharp corners bite my fingers but I don’t care anymore. I have to keep moving.
It’s agonizing, trying to find a weak spot and dig away at it, and when I’m finally able to clear an opening wide enough to reach my arm through, rubble collapses in on itself. Behind me I hear the Unconsecrated shuffle along the tracks, knowing that soon they’ll stumble around me in the darkness.
I take a shuddering breath and shove my shoulder against a large slab of concrete, trying to shift it away, but my feet slip over the ice-slicked ground and I fall.
It’s impossible in the darkness. I can’t see how the pieces all fit together. Frustration rages through me. I don’t want to take the time to build a fire but I’m afraid that’s my only option. I skitter back down the tunnel, hands sweeping for anything dry, but everything’s still crusted with ice. I press my fists against my temples, trying to figure out what I can burn.
My fingers brush the edge of the hat Catcher gave me and the matching scarf wrapped around my neck. I tear them off and crumple them