This was a bad idea.
This was a terrible, awful, fucking miserable idea.
Half-regulated air rasps in Tav's chest as he presses himself tighter between buildings, eyes clenched shut. He can hear the hissing slither of the alien just over his shoulder and presses himself even more firmly against the stone. Unnatural heat bakes through his jacket.
The walls of Casivera are so close. Tav can see them. And there aren’t supposed to be crawlers this close to the city, not according to the students, and the warnings, and the reminders of everyone is safe within Casivera walls that blare all day long in the lower rings.
Tav forces a heavy exhale, shifting forward and glancing toward the stretch of open terrain. Heavy rubble lines the ground here, small tendrils of strange violet plant-matter only just starting to curl over the concrete. The crawler is looking the other way.
Can he make it from here?
Tav isn’t sure. Doesn’t think so. But what else is he supposed to do? Already, the altered atmosphere is starting to give him a migraine. He was just supposed to duck out, grab proof he’d gone into the Fringe, and dart back into the safe bounds of the city. It was supposed to take four minutes, max.
Sitting here isn’t going to help…
Tav exhales heavily and then darts out from his hiding spots. His boots pound against the cement, then hard-packed earth. The crawler shrieks, spinning around and charging. Massive claw-hooked legs scrabble over the rubble, propelling it forward faster, faster—he’s not going to make it.
“Shit!” Tav drops to the ground and rolls just as the crawler leaps toward him. The arachnid shrieks again, so close it’s ear-piercing. He whips out the stupid knife that he got during Connection and tries to push all of his very being into it, just like his sister and his teachers have always said.
Tav swears again and throws it. His aim lands true but the blade just passes through the arachnid, lodging into the stone behind it. The crawler rises onto its back four legs, raising two more neon yellow appendages into the air, rearing up to show off the rows and rows of magenta teeth that line its underside as it bellows.
“Stupid!” All that embarrassment and misery from before rises back up, curdling through the fear until it burns. Tav turns and scrambles over the closest pile of junk, sending twists of stone and metal flying as he leaps to the next pile—and the rubble gives out, sending him down into a hollowed out dome.
_ _ _
i had a rough week so i started working on a new story
