Page 5 of Stars in Umbra
He couldn’t tell which.
‘You must.’
He dared to stretch one foot forward.
Spray from the furious waters below bit into his skin.
The fly-copter banked, and he jerked back, his vertebrae pressing to a steel column, heart racing like a trapped animal.
Without warning, he was shoved from behind.
He clamped his mouth in shock as he was thrust into the firmament beyond.
The wind roared past his ears as he fell, flailing, legs kicking at nothing, arms clawing at the empty sky.
He experienced no panic, not even a hint of fear. Just the raw awareness of falling to his possible death.
If this was his time, so be it.
The water rose like a barricade of churning gray and black surf.
He hit hard, the liquid washing over him, siphoning him into itself.
Then, silence, followed by weightlessness and darkness.
He flailed, a brief, violent tumble into what seemed like a whirlpool, sucking him down, spinning him in slow, unstoppable spirals.
He fought and kicked upward, lungs on fire, limbs aching, until he broke into fresh air.
He floated on his back, heaving, starlight scattered across the lake like shattered glass.
Above him, the fly-copter shimmered, its body melting into stealth mode, engines shifting to a whipped purr before it vanished into the sky like a ghost.
Bobbing on the surface, he stared at the spot where it’d disappeared for a long time, then, with a curse, twisted around and cast out.
He had no idea of direction, yet somehow he sensed an inner compass guiding him.
Time lost all meaning.
All that mattered was the rhythmic movement of arms, the slicing of water, the ache in his chest and limbs.
Until a shoreline came into view, lit by the rising moon.
Sucking in air and tamping back tears, he dragged himself up the sand, coughing brine, trembling all over.
For a long time, he lay still in the darkness, cold earth under his thin sinews.
He didn’t even have the energy to scratch at the sting of salt on his torn skin as waves broke over his feet.
His body, battered and chilled to the bones, reclined motionless. His shirt hung in tatters, and blood oozed from a gash on one shoulder.
He wondered where it came from and raised a hand to touch his face, then his brow, and his head, with fumbling fingers.
He discovered that his skull was wrapped in a coarse and tight material.
Bandages.
Rough. Damp. Fresh, caused by a recent neural operation,a voice whispered from a place he didn’t remember.
