Page 30 of Shadow & Stars
“Yes. Keep your eyes covered. I’ll lead you out of here. Darcy is with me.”
“Here!” my bestie confirmed.
Thank God for Xavier’s fine arse. “Okay.”
The rain fell more heavily, the wind picking up made every step a chore. I tried opening my eyes, my retinas protesting with even the slightest crack.
What the fuck was up with the sky?
I got my answer a few minutes later from Butterfly as a mighty tremor sent me tumbling onto the sand.
“The sky is falling!”
10
XAVIER
There was no time to consider Roman being the master of dead puppets with this new development.
A huge chunk of sky collapsed into the sand, shaking the desert. Roman slipped from my grasp, landing on his hands and knees. I managed to stay vertical, moving to help him up with Darcy clinging to my back.
“The sky is what?” Roman said, taking a firm grip of my hand.
“Falling,” Butterfly responded.
The bright light cleared, revealing a hole full of Earth’s stars—another part of the walls between our realms gone.
A second piece broke away, resembling the shape of a puzzle piece. It reminded me of a glacier calving—one moment the ice was there, the next it was gone. It happened in the cold places of Earth and Level 871. Ismael and I used to sneak there to watch it happen.
The chunk of sky hit the ground, sand exploding around it. I held onto Roman and Darcy as the ground shook, trying to find an alternative route other than this straight line. But Isaw nothing. The gate out of here lay on the other side of the sand. In my day, there were desert carriages to transport visitors back and forth. I had no idea what happened to them and had expected to see at least one when we arrived here.
With trepidation, I said, “We have to keep going.”
What choice did we have?
A third and fourth chunk of sky came down together, much bigger than the previous ones. They hit the sand too hard, sending ripples across the desert that grew in size.
“Tsunami?” Butterfly wondered.
“What?” Darcy said.
The wave grew, gaining speed. We were at the top of a dune, our only option was to go back down to the rising water to use the mound as a buffer.
I dragged Roman down the slope. A tremor shook me off course. I lost my grip on him, falling off to the side. Darcy flew off me. I landed on my back, sliding down the wet sand at great speed.
“Roman!” Darcy screamed, rolling down the slope.
I hit the water, the impact throwing me into a forward roll. I landed face-first, only down for a moment.
As I got back on my feet, the sand tsunami hit, smothering everything. Terrific force lifted me off my feet, the storm of abrasive grains obliterating my vision as I flipped and spun, sand filling my mouth.
I hit another sand dune on my left side, the impact breaking my arm. Pain shrieked through me, the sand tsunami crushing me into the dune, my other bones protesting under the pressure. I tried breaking free, but the sand rendered me helpless.
Roman!I screamed on the inside.
What if I lost him? What if I found him contorted and broken by the force of the wave? What would I do? What would we all do?
Those terrible images attacked me again, showing me the death of my human, a hopeless future riddled with despair.
