Page 113 of The Last One
“Kai,” Jadon says, that one word full of dread. He’s looking down at his feet.
I don’t want to, but I also look down, and my heart immediately shrivels in my chest.
Saloroaches—shortened wings, which means they can’t fly, brown bodies as long as mouse tails, and translucent, which means that I can see thousands of roaches beneath the thousands of roaches already swarming over my feet.
And then comes the noise of shrieking, flapping, and chittering. Immediately, battabies swarm from every direction. Their bodies glow blue, and the group swells.
Jadon shouts, “Go!”
“Which direction?” I shout back.
“Follow me!”
I trip on something slimy and catch myself with my hands before my face meets the filth coating the floor. I recover quickly, wiping the grime on my pants. Jadon’s fire is far ahead of me now, and I follow until that fire flickers and blinks out. My torch still blazes with flame, but Jadon’s… I don’t see him, nor can I see his glow—not amber, not blue, not plum.
“Jadon!” I call out, my heart pounding against my ribs, the panic in my voice echoing through the darkness, answered only by battaby shrieks. I walk faster, my footsteps frantic and heavy, stopping only to swing my torch or my sword at battabies, imagined or real, I can’t tell.Where is he?My panic rises like a tide. My breaths come in shallow pants, each inhale a struggle. I can’t find him in the darkness, and I’m now surrounded by pulsating battaby wings.
My mind races with horrifying possibilities, each more terrifying than the last. Did these creatures take him to the depths of the cave? Should I turn back around and…what?Get help? Iamthe help. The mere thought of losing him…No.Stop. Don’t. I refuse to even think like that. Because losing him would mean losing my heart. Who can survive without a heart?
“Jadon!” I swing my sword and my fire like I’m swinging at despair, feeling contact only a fraction of the times I swing. I try to peer past the cloud of darkness and the glowing leathery bodies, but I can’t see any other torch. Salty water tumbles down my face. Are those tears? Is that sweat? Yes, to both.
Two battabies strike my head.
“Stop!” I swing my torch in their direction.
Two battabies shriek, one low, one high, and then…
Complete silence.
Still air.
I want to call out Jadon’s name again, but I don’t want to disturb this unnatural quiet. Maybe I can search for him now, if I move slowly, deliberately, so slow and deliberate that they won’t even be able to sense my presence. Maybe they’re haunting another part of the cave now.
I hold my torch out before me.
No blue glow.
No creatures flutter before me.
I spin around.
No blue glow.
No creatures flutter behind me.
I lift the torch above my head and look up.
The blue glow of battabies hums across the ceiling, no piece of granite left uncovered. They’re all healthy, these roosting, dog-sized monsters. Not in attack mode, they’re just hanging upside down on the crags of the cavern. Their leathery wings shine with the light from my fire.
This is the nastiest, stinkiest, most fucked-up place I’ve ever been—and I don’t need memory to know this is true. A visit to Azzam Cavern would be like walking. Unforgettable.
I need to find Jadon, and we need to figure out the best place to start the burn. We have to kill this colony. But I don’t want to start the burn without knowing where he is—I could trap him. I slink away from the densest grouping of battabies to a space with a higher ceiling and hopefully better echo.
“Jadon!” I call, hesitant to shout louder and disturb the flock. I step carefully, slowly, feeling the ground with the toe of my boot before stepping sure, dreading that with my next step, my foot could find his body.
“Jadon?” I call out again. “Please answer me. Whistle. Clap. Do something.”
Some of the creatures hanging above begin to writhe. Two and then three awaken fully. Frozen, I hold my breath. Then, as if one organism, the group swoops down to attack. I swing my torch and sword madly, but they pull back and dip down. Neither my sword nor torch strike one of these creatures. Still swinging, I trip over a large stone—fuck, that’s not a stone, that’s a skeleton—and drop my torch. The firelight shines on those now kicked-apart bones and glints off the black talons of countless battabies. Those feet are made for clawing—my eyes, my brains, any piece of me that stands between these creatures and my blood.
