Page 23 of A Million Stars and Shadows

“Take off your gloves, Evie,” Sally said. “You need to put your bare hands on the wall so it will open to let us out.”

I took off one of my gloves and placed my hand on the wall. Nothing happened.

“Try both hands,” Sally said.

I took off the glove from my other hand and placed it on the wall. Nothing happened.

“Is it this wall?” I asked Sally.

I went to the other wall and placed a hand there.

Then another wall.

“Am I in the right room?” I asked.

“Warning! Warning!” Sally yelled. “They’re now on this floor. The Monsters. They figured out she’s just a hologram. They’re gathering at the front. Coming closer.”

“Where’s the way out?” I said, trying not to panic, but frantically trying to look for a wall.

“Try opening the wall,” Sally said.

I tried using a hand. Then both hands.

“Why isn’t it working?” I asked.

From behind me, I could hear the sound of roaring wind. Loud and hard like the sound of a train rumbling and shaking the ground as it got closer.

“Ahhh,” I cried out. The sound was deafening. I wanted to reach up to my ears to drown the sound out but instead, my hand went straight to the wall in front of me and in a position where my hands had formed a triangle.

I could see their faces. Molten faces with hollowed out eyes in a misty cloud of faces.

It was horrible. The faces…the Monsters.

“Be brave,” I heard both Sally and my mother’s voices said.

“Do not fear,” a gentle voice said from within.

I felt an inner calmness and warmth grow around me.

The faces within the dark cloud froze for a while before backing up.

The wall opened, and before I knew it, I felt a push as I fell to the surface of New Earth right before the wall closed.

“Hurry,” Sally said, “Leap! Move! Before you get swallowed up.”

“Huh,” I said, still unable to shake off what I have seen.

Sally inflated and I felt her take over my suit. “Go!” I felt my legs jumping forward. Another leap.

Then I saw it right in front of my eyes.

The entire ship, as enormous as it was, began sinking down into the sandy dusty surface of New Earth like it was being swallowed up into its belly until nothing was left where it once stood. But it didn’t stop there. The weight of the collapsing ground created a vortex that was sinking everything around it.

It was now pulling me into down into that hole.

“Run!” Sally said. “Now!”

I had to use all my force to move, to climb out before I could even crawl and then jump out.

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