Lilith Hemmingford skidded to a halt at the gold line, looking out at the island on the horizon. The line did not light up. An odd mixture of anxiety and uncertainty twisted her calm face into a furrowed-brow grimace. She bit her lower lip, squinting at the island, trying to pick out any signs of movement. Were they there already? Had he reached the goal before her?
She saw no movement, but that only increased her anxiety. The trip into the deep had taken far longer than she expected.
"Hold up, dammit," Moss shouted, running up behind Lilith. He slid to a halt behind her, leaning forward with his hands propped on his knees, and drawing in great, ragged breaths. "We have to go back," he said, gasping the words out, and stood up, eyes exploding wide with sudden shock.
An enormous world stretched out before him, replacing his worry with unexpected awe. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, trying to remove a mirage he knew shouldn't be there.
"I need to get out there," Lilith said to herself, gesturing towards the island. "He'll be there soon, if he's not there already." Moss did not know who she was talking about. But he sensed her fear, and that terrified him more than anything he had encountered thus far. How bad did someone have to be to scare her?
She looked down, touched the tip of her boot to the golden barrier, and smiled when nothing happened. She stepped across the gold line.
"They're in danger, dammit. We can't leave them back there. It's not safe." Moss said, words trailing away as he remembered Lilith had bolted off without a word.
"They're fine," she said.
She knew there were no creatures down this low. At least, not on his side of the gold line. Out there, there were plenty of unseen creatures in the jungle. Most weren't dangerous, but this place was not without defenders.
"They're not."
"If you believe that, why did you leave them?" she asked, not bothering to look at him. It was obvious from her incredulous tone that her immediate concern had shifted from the safety of the group to reaching the island.
When Moss made to join her, she threw up a warning hand. "It would be unwise for you to come closer." He looked around and saw nothing.
"Why?"
"I will see it destroyed before I let him get his hands on it." Lilith said to herself. "I swear on the Creator's life, I will do whatever it takes to secure the device."
Before the quartet began their long trek into the deep, the Necros injured Eve's leg. A stray gravity rifle round tore the back of her right calf away. The amount of blood and tissue lost during the incident prevented any kind of speedy regeneration. Eve's injury slowed their progress to a near crawl. And then, just as Eve's leg began regenerating, Dahl fell over a steep embankment and broke her ankle. Her injury forced them to hold up for 3 days. At which point, Lilith blamed them both for holding her back. Moss had taken Lilith aside and warned against blaming anyone for the mess she had placed them in.
Lilith argued about wanting to leave them in his capable hands and go on ahead to seize the island before the Necromongers got there first. After a lengthy debate and a healthy dose of reassuring, they would not make it without her, she conceded. Later, Lilith informed them she had set an alternate plan in motion in the event they failed to reach their destination in time. But Moss heard the tension growing in her every word after that day. And knew it was only a matter of time before she set out on her own.
Over the last few days, they had made better progress. Both women were feeling better, but after 12 hours of limping, Dahl's foot had swollen and turned yellow/purple. Moss had gone to a nearby stream, torn off the lower half of his t-shirt and come back with a cool rag to wrap it. After a few hours of re-wetting the shirt, the swelling went down, but the color had turned a sickly purple. It soon became clear to everyone that they couldn't push too fast. So the group had stopped once more. A few days after that, while traversing an area covered in thick brush, Eve reopened her calf and caused them to stop again. It was during that rest stop that Lilith ran off, and Moss went after her.
Dahl and Eve hobbled into the outer cave, faces blazing scarlet, and bitching about being left behind. To Moss's relief, they had made it to the cavern without incident.
They moved to Moss's side, wearing identical expressions of disbelief as the view of the expansive horizon came into view beyond Lilith.
"Glad to see you made it. Apparently, you exaggerated your limitations." Lilith said, looking over her shoulder and giving them a curt nod. She ignored their glaring eyes. None of them could tell whether she was being sincere.
"Sure," Dahl snapped. "And thanks for waiting."
"There is nothing out there that can hurt you." Lilith said, making a point of gesturing towards the opening behind them. "From here on out… I'd suggest you watch your step and your surroundings. This world can be hostile to those it deems outsiders."
Dahl held herself up on a makeshift crutch fashioned from a sturdy branch Eve tore off a glowing tree. Over the course of the journey, the light emanating from the severed branch had faded away. At first; it looked like any other glowing branch, but now, all the bark had dried to a paper-thin skin and peeled away. The wood beneath had become pitted and cracked, and the branch looked as if it had fallen off years earlier.
As Moss moved forward, Lilith threw up a warning hand again. She gestured at something running across the ground just in front of his feet, and warned, "Do not step on that line."
He looked at his feet, saw the line of gold ore stretching across the opening, and asked, "Is that gold?"
"It is," Lilith said. "Gold is an efficient conductor."
"Do you know what it's worth?" Moss asked, bending down with wide eyes to inspect the gold. "It's a circuit?" he added, brows furrowing.
Lilith laughed to herself and said, "In a living computer."
As Moss reached out to touch it, she turned to him with a warning frown and added, "I can assure you, if you touch that, you will not live long enough to regret it."
"Why is it here?" Dahl asked, nudging Moss to get away. "Just stay away from it."
"Think of it as the first line of defense in an ancient alarm system. A tripwire just waiting for someone to come along and step on it. Sometimes you step on them and bad things happen. Other times, you miss them and never know you got lucky. I suggest you heed my warning and step over it and count yourself as lucky."
"Then you didn't step on it?"
"You know a lot about this place."
"I do."
"And you don't seem impressed by the view," she added, stepping over the line. "Care to explain?"
"Perhaps it's not the first time I've seen it." Lilith said, walking to the line and stepping on it. "It is safe to pass. I broke the circuit."
When they walked past her, Lilith returned to the view and stared out in silence as Dahl and Moss moved up on her sides. Eve hung back a few feet. She hated heights. But Moss and Dahl walked right up to the edge, causing Eve to almost cry out in fear. Eve felt dizzy and sick as she watched them inching closer as if it were a game. She wanted to dart out and yank them back and say, stop it. You're scaring the shit out of me. But she held her ground, heart pounding in her chest.
Dahl and Moss eyed each other with silly, daring grins, edging forward. Lilith watched with an expression that said I'm chaperoning a group of toddlers playing with hand grenades. She rolled her eyes and said, "We may yet have beaten them here. But only time will tell."
"Nope, we didn't." Moss replied, dropping to his belly and wiggling a third of his body out over the edge. Dahl's eyes grew wide, and she dropped across the back of his legs, preventing him from sliding over. Eve gasped and turned around, thinking they were both going over. She couldn't watch.
Dahl pulled him back, and when he rolled over, he held up a laced boot. Lilith took it.
"What's that?" Dahl asked.
Lilith held up the boot, sniffed the inside and said, "This happens when you do not get lucky," she said, grimacing and holding it out for inspection. "And judging from the smell, this has been here for at least two days."
"Whoever that belonged to had a terrible day." Moss added, and Lilith nodded in agreement.
"Most certainly."
"Why do you say that?" Dahl asked, staring at the boot.
"Because whoever lost this needs more than a new boot," she replied, holding it out so Dahl could peer inside. A twisted mass of glowing maggots wriggled around an oozing stump. "See," she said, lobbing the boot over the edge. "The owner's foot is still in it."
"Gross," Dahl said, and gagged.
Lilith stepped forward as if readying herself to jump off, and Eve shrieked in horror. Not expecting the sound from behind him, Moss followed suit. For a split second, he thought he might get away with it, and then Dahl and Lilith looked at one another with growing grins and reddening faces and laughed.
"What?" he snapped in an embarrassed tone. "Guys scream, too."
"Sure they do." Dahl said, looking at Eve, who stood behind Moss, wide-eyed, with a hand clamped over her mouth. She desperately tried to stifle the oncoming laughter, but failed miserably. Dahl gestured from herself to Eve and then Lilith and added, "It's just we've never heard a guy who sounded like a nine-year-old schoolgirl before." All three women burst into fits of laughter so loud that a flock of frightened birds in the valley below took to the air and flapped away.
On the horizon, a golden beam of energy exploded into the sky, and a blast of hot air rocked them back on their feet. The chuckles subsided, and Dahl blurted, "What was that?"
"That was the signal to go," Lilith said, stepping forward, placing the tips of her boots over the edge.
"You can't leave us," Moss shouted. "We won't make it."
"And I can't wait for them to heal, either. Our enemies may have reached the island."
"You can heal them before you go," Moss said. "I know you can."
"The last time I gave of myself, it cost me my life. I won't make that mistake again." Lilith replied, leaning out. She looked to Eve and added, "But if someone is to give of themselves. Let it be you, my dear."
"Eve doesn't have enough blood to heal herself. Let alone heal Dahl, too." Moss protested. "That could kill her."
Lilith laughed at him and said, "You know nothing. Death is but a doorway to the next dimension."
To everyone's horror, Lilith stepped back with her right foot, preparing to dive off the mile-high cliff. Before she could jump, Moss darted out, grabbed her arms and yanked them behind her as if apprehending an escaped convict. Not expecting the attack, she winced in pain and almost toppled over the edge.
"Stop fighting," he warned, dragging her back from the edge.
"Get away from her." Eve screamed, trying to get him off her before Lilith lost control of the things inside her. Moss slackened his grip, looking at Dahl in confusion.
"She'll fall to her death," he blared, pushing Eve off, losing control of Lilith.
Lilith's body went rigid, her eyes rolled in their sockets, and Eve screamed, "Get away! She's not in control."
Lilith planted her feet shoulder-width apart, and her captor came to an immediate halt. She overpowered Moss with ease, squeezing his wrists tight enough to shut off the blood flow to his hands. They paled and prickled as if they'd gone to sleep; and then went numb and stopped working. She jerked his arms into the air, rocketing him off his feet as if he were a rag doll. He flopped through the air, tumbling over her, and crashed down at her feet. The air exploded out of his lungs. The shrinking cavern spun around him, and when he looked up, Lilith had become the monster from the wreckage.
He scrambled backwards, trying to get away as the dark entity advanced on him, hissing and screaming. He came to rest, lying across the golden barrier, and an angry red warning crossed beneath him. In her eyes, Moss saw the look of his own terror reflected in a mindless rage. On the horizon, a blinding beam of light exploded upward and faded. Moss shielded his eyes, and something powerful grabbed his ankle. The world flipped upside down beneath him, and when he opened his eyes; he wriggled like a fish on a hook. The creature thrust him over the edge. "How do you like the view from out here?" it asked in an echoing, unfamiliar voice. "Is this far enough for you? Or would you like me to hold you out a little further?"
Moss kicked and clawed at nothing. Light faded as he tried to tell her he was sorry, that he didn't mean to frighten or hurt her. But nothing came out as all the blood in his body pooled in his head. His eyes rolled in their sockets, and he went limp.
"Let him go," Dahl screamed, and hurled her crutch at Lilith's back. It flew high, shattering against his back.
Lilith reeled around and screeched. Dahl fell to her knees, covering her ears in pain. Bloody tears trickled out of the corners of her eyes as daggers sank into her ears. The dark creature let go of its prey, and Moss crumpled on the ground like a sack of unwanted potatoes. He did not move, and Dahl could not tell if he was breathing.
The sound of building wind built up behind Lilith, and the pale blue sky turned deadly black. An angry storm approached, but the creature did not notice. It raged and stomped the ground like a rutting bull.
Eve leapt forward, knocking Dahl to the ground and pressing her to the ground as a storm of gnashing teeth and flapping wings enveloped them. Lilith screeched and raged, and swatted, until the storm fell silent.
Dahl opened her eyes, and both the green grass and Lilith were gone. Moss moaned in the near distance. He's alive, she thought as Eve released her.
"Are you okay?" Eve asked.
"Why did she do that?" Dahl asked, pulling herself into a sitting position and rocking. "It makes no sense. She loved him. She would never hurt him."
Eve wiped the tears out of her eyes and said, "Dahl, that wasn't Lilith. That was the host."