Eventually, though, Stacy nods and steps back towards me.
The three Aurelians see where I’m looking and walk to the stairs. “Wait!” I yell, but it’s too late. Forn puts his weight on the first step…
…and with a deafening crack, falls straight through it.
He grunts in pain and I see the fresh blood from a big splinter sticking out of his calf. The Aurelian has already taken a bullet wound today, and I know that this fresh injury had to hurt – yet he barely seems to acknowledge the pain.
Instead, Forn pulls his leg out from the splintered staircase and – before I can even tend to the wound – roughly tears the shard of wood from his leg.
Green blood spurts out, splatting the broken wood beneath him and sizzling menacingly.
Green, acidic blood? What does it mean? Who are these beastly Aurelians - who don’t speak the common tongue, bleed a different color, and are covered in ornate, tribal tattoos?
The second Aurelian, Hadone, looks like he’s about to repeat the same mistake as his warrior companion. If he tries to walk up the stairs, he’s going to go right through as well. The reason the children chose the hospital as a place to hide is because anything larger than a child would find it difficult – or impossible – to get upstairs.
I can only guess at the weight of the Aurelians – but at over seven-feet-tall, and built with slab-like, powerful muscles, they could easily weigh four or five hundred pounds.
I rush forward, stopping Hadone.
“I’m going first,” I say, although I know he won’t understand my words. He pauses then, and I brush past him to take my first step on the stairs. I know they can support my weight, at least.
Then I feel a vice-like grip on my arm. It isn’t Hadone – this time it’s Darok looking at me with dark, serious eyes.
He shakes his head, uttering one word in his guttural language. I can guess what he means.
No.
No? What right does he have to tell me no?
Forn points towards Tod and Stacy. The three warriors look at each other with intense eyes, their gaze flicking between the orphans and then back towards me.
I know what they mean. I normally wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving the two kids with anyone – but somehow, I know I can trust these three warriors.
Comprehension hits me as they nod to each other. Maybe it’s their body language softening, but I understand the subtext of their silent conversation.
They know I wouldn’t leave these two orphans with them if I wasn’t coming back.
I stare up at the staircase that ends in darkness. The light of day has faded, and yet mercifully there are no more screams from outside. Part of me wonders if people are hiding, silently cowering.
The other part wonders if everyone who could scream has already been silenced.
I take a deep breath. I’ve made this climb numerous times, but there are new scratches in the wall that scare me. I wonder if they were carved there by a swipe of a Scorp’s claws. Surely not - the heavy beasts could never get up these stairs...
Could they?
This is the only easy way up, but those huge creatures could have scaled the walls – crawling right up the sides of the building like the scorpions of planet Earth they so resembled.
Scorps have no fear of death – the height wouldn’t have bothered them. All they care about is bringing back still-living hosts for their cruel Queen to implant with her eggs.
Ugh. I have empathy for most creatures – even predators. The tiger must kill to eat, it’s the nature of a cat to chase birds...
But the Scorp? I have no empathy for those freakish creatures. Their purpose and motivation is not a thing of nature. They’re a species that should never have existed – a disgusting combination of man and reptile that the Gods themselves should have wiped from reality.
I pull myself up the stairs carefully, stepping exactly in the spots I’ve already tried and tested to support my weight. I specifically avoid the one creaky board that the kids use as a warning sign – alerting them to strangers climbing the staircase. I just hope that no Scorp was able to clamber up these stairs.
What if Tyler and Runner aren’t up there?
I can’t think of that right now. I make my way up the rest of the staircase, my heart pounding. Even scarier that the thought of not finding the kids up there is what I might find instead…
What if the Scorp are up there?
They could have landed on the roof of the building, I suddenly realize. An egg sac could be up there, not visible from the street below. Or the Scorp could have scaled the walls, pulling themselves up with their powerful claws to find any prey hiding away.
Why hasn’t the Capital sent any reinforcements yet?
I should have already heard the drone of heli-ships rushing in to provide relief to Barl. Instead, there’s only dead silence – literally dead silence; as the city now belongs only to the lost or slaughtered.
As I silently climb the stairs, I listen intently for the pounding of Scorp feet or the screams of citizens running outside – but I hear nothing. The first round of harvesting is over. I take a small solace in the silence, but every second it continues makes me feel we’re closer to the violence and terror spilling over once again.
It’s like a glass of water filled to the very brim as a tap drips into it. The elasticity of the water keeps it all together even as the water swells above the edge of the glass – but only to a point. Then it comes gushing over the brim.
I feel like Barl is trapped in that situation now – and the eerie still and silence is being strained further for every moment that passes.
I reach the top
