I follow Vruksha deeper into the place. “How can you be so sure?”
“The robots have told me.”
I still. My eyes snap to him. “Robots? What robots?”
“The ones still living and maintaining Earth.”
“They’re still here? They work?” How can that be? It’s been… ages. “That’s impossible.”
Vruksha turns his head. “They are still here. They never left like humans did.”
“Humans didn’t leave. They were killed off. The only ones who survived are the ones who weren’t on Earth when the Lurkers committed genocide.”
“I survived,” he grunts. “Yesss… the Lurkers.”
“Were you alive when the Lurkers destroyed us?” I snap, knowing it was impossible. There are long-living beings in the universe, but none that can survive fifteen hundred years. At least none that humans have encountered thus far.
“No. I came after, when the plants and the trees returned to the world, according to my father. No naga remembers a time before that, before this world grew again,” his voice lowers.
“Half this planet is still growing,” I say. “Entire continents of this world remain without life. Only this mountain range has truly become acceptable. It’s why I’m here, why any of us can be here.”
“Ah yes, the dust wastes.”
My eyes shoot to him. “You’ve seen them?” From my readings, the nearest wastes were a little more than a hundred miles from the facility, in every direction. It’s as if the facility was the epicenter of this dead world’s regrowth.
“I have seen them.” He gives me an unreadable expression. “You may know more about this world than me, but you do not know this forest. This was once a place called an airport, and it is where I have made my den. A home I am eager to show you.”
“But there are robots?” I’m still hung up on this. There’d been no working technology in the facility where we made our base camp. In fact, the base had been practically stripped clean.
Which now I find odd...
“Come. I’ll show you.”
Vruksha glides to a half-bent tree that has a single large boulder beside it covered in moss. When I get closer, I realize it isn’t a rock at all. It’s a pile of… something. He swipes some of the moss off, and straight, angular edges reveal themselves. Man-made edges.
I move closer. “What is it?”
“What’s left of a plane.”
“Planes aren’t robots,” I mumble. But I reach out and touch it, brushing off more of the moss. So much of it is bent and broken, and there’s even some rust. I step back to get a better look. “This can’t be a plane,” I say. “It’s not big enough.”
“It’s all that’s left.”
I stare at it, my belly churning, not liking his explanation. All that’s left? I look around, trying to see what this place was like at one point, but I can’t imagine it. I can only see a strange orchard with a strange growth pattern.
“There is more,” he tells me when I finish circling the structure.
“There is?”
“Oh yes.”
“Show me.”
His eyes glint and something wicked darkens them for a second. He pivots away, and I chase after him to catch up.
Eight
A Deep, Dark Hole
Gemma
We don’t go far.
Vruksha stabs his spear into the ground and reaches down when he comes to a random clearing. Turning, I can see the plane in the distance. He grabs something with both his hands and yanks. A thick metal hatch pops up from the ground, displacing a pile of leaves. Leaning forward, there are stairs on the other side of the hatch that leads down into a hole.
I jerk back. “I’m not going in there.”
He reclaims his spear. “Yes, you are.”
“Hell no, I’m not.”
“My den is within.”
“I don’t care. There’s no way in hell—”
Vruksha grabs me, rounding his free arm around my back and tugging me to his chest. I squirm and fight, but he’s too strong. He hauls me against him and carries me into the dark.
The walls close in.
“Let me go!” I shriek, kicking and batting at his chest. “Let me go!” He ignores me and shuts the hatch with his tail, closing off the remaining light. I’m blinded by darkness, and my fear returns tenfold. I got too cozy with curiosity. “Vruksha,” I gasp, hoping that saying his name will help me. “Please!”
Then my world lights up, and the cold pathway reveals the walls on either side of us. There are small hanging glass orbs attached to them, and some glow, though most flicker weakly. He’s taking me downstairs, down, down deep. The light grows brighter and brighter the deeper we get.
I’m still battling to get out of his hold when he comes to a stop at the bottom of the stairs where a long room reveals itself with dim lights and weak colors.
I spin away from Vruksha when he sets me down. I brandish my hand to keep him at bay. “Take me back out,” I gasp, barely paying any mind to the colorful things around me. “I want out.”
People go into holes to be forgotten about, or worse, to die.
“Soon, human. When you calm again. When it is safe.”
“I am calm!”
“When you submit to me then,” he says, his voice lowering. He sets his spear against the wall next to the stairs. “It will be easier for you if you did.”
I swallow and back up another step. “So that’s your plan? Keep me captive until I do what you say?”
“I will keep you captive regardless of whether you listen to me or not.”
My stomach sinks. “I refuse.”
He slips toward me, and I back up even more. He continues until I fall upon a barrier and something crashes to the ground. It’s not big, but regardless, I grab it and hold it in front of me as a shield. “Stay away!”
“Human,” he hisses, rearing up and forcing me to strain my neck, to cower. “I will never stay away from you.”
“I can’t
