Kiini Salaam - Ancient, Ancient

A grinding sound parts the damp heat around us. Everyone begins to chatter in different tones and pitches, and the transport jerks to a sudden halt. I look up just in time to see hundreds of thin metal shafts shoot down from the ceiling. The noise is deafening. I feel the whoosh of wind slap my cheek as one of the spinning metal shafts rips through the air next to me. A dizzy panic whirls through my gut. I grip the pole tighter and pray not to faint. When I regain my balance, I look at my guide for reassurance, but his eyes are closed and his mouth is moving steadily. Is he talking to himself?

A thin drizzle wets my cheek. I touch it—it’s not water. It’s thick and green, and it stings my fingertips. The green gel splatters through the room sounding like footsteps or bloodshed. Then a pounding roar drowns out the splattering. My stomach clenches. What is coming for us?

I glance at my guide again—he’s standing stock still, eyes closed. Some of the others have let go of their poles, but not my guide. As the roaring grows louder, I nervously gnaw on my shoulder. All around me people are leaping from perches and diving from ledges, green goo lashing against their bodies as they plunge.

Just when I think I’m going to bite through my skin, my guide opens his eyes. His mouth moves, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. His mouth moves again, and he pitches his body forward. It looks like he’s saying “Jump.” My muscles tense as I prepare to leap. My guide opens his mouth and extends that small wet hand. He puts one finger up, and I hear a deafening crack. It sounds like the whole room is going to split in two. My guide nods, we leap.

The freefall makes me feel like vomiting. Instead of crashing on the engine, we land on a wave of green gel. It is washing through the engine room in rivers now. Those who did not leap are engulfed by it. Those who leapt too soon lay broken somewhere on the engine below.

The gel hurries forward, carrying me at a frightening speed straight at a wall. I shut my eyes tight, but I don’t but slam into the wall. With a whir, a circular door opens before me, and I surf through it into darkness. My eyes—useless. The gel bobs gently, misleadingly—as it is rocking me, it is searing my skin. People call out names and numbers. Some voices are frantic, others pleading. A crackle that sounds like electricity silences them all. Light flashes, and I see that everyone is looking up. I look around wildly for an exit or a sign—something that can tell me where to go before we are plunged into darkness again.

When next the light flashes, everyone is still looking up. Probes, shiny and bulbous, start to lower from the ceiling. Darkness comes, forcing me to calculate how long the probes will take to get to me, and how far I need to move away so as not to be crushed. I feel a ripple as the probes slide into the gel. Another flash, and I see bodies scrambling up onto the probes. I feel around blindly until I touch something cool and hard. I grab onto the probe. It crackles and a gentle electric current rolls through my body. Before I can climb all the way onto the probe, it starts to lift.

The burning on my skin cools as soon as I am out of the gel. I allow myself a few seconds of relief as the probe lifts through the ceiling into a new room and a floor closes underneath us. The thump of people dropping down from the probes is the first thing I hear. Then feet scattering.

“Run!” people start to yell, “Ruuuuunnnnnn.”

They scatter—hopping, crawling, rushing. No one seems to know which way to go. I can finally use my feet, but I am faltering. I turn around in circles, looking for a door, a window, a hint of light, anything that can show me the way out. But all I see is rows and rows of probes hemming us in; I can’t even figure out the shape of the room we’re in.

I hear a faint sound.

“Ahhhh-lay-lay-lay. Ah-la, lay, lay, lay. Ahhhh-lay-lay-lay. Ah-la, lay, lay, lay.”

You are singing. For a few seconds I am paralyzed with grief, stricken by the certainty that I will never see you again. Then I see it, a purple mist spreading through the room. Your song seems to beckon to me, growing faint then pulsing in one particular corner. I follow your voice from one end of the room to the other. Every time I think you have led me to the way out, the light I am walking toward dissipates.

The mist quickly fills the room, growing so thick that I can no longer see. I hear breathing around me. It sounds heavy and panicked. A suffocating sweetness blossoms in the back of my throat. My limbs begin to tingle. A loud chattering breaks out behind me. The last clear thought I have is that if I can find the voices, I can find the exit. I twist around and run. After a few steps, I bang into a probe, then trip over something large. I’m sure it’s a body, but my mind is too jumbled to process the thought. I ignore my mounting hysteria and latch onto the image of me running. I force my limbs forward, but gravity overtakes me and starts dragging me down. My eyes roll back in my head, and my ears stop registering sound. Before I drop, someone shoves me from behind. I stumble and follow the crush of bodies. Suddenly the air is different—sharp, crisp, no mist. A weak thrill vibrates through me, then I fall face-first onto the ground.

Suddenly I’m lying on a bed of soft green leaves. There’s no noisy, painful time shift, but I’m in a different place. Not home, but my arms are nestled around you. You have flowers tucked behind your ear and gold beads in your braids. You’re holding me with an easy comfort, almost as if you’ve held me many times before, as if you know you’ll be holding me many times again.

I snuggle closer to you.

“Time to go,” you whisper before kissing me on my jaw.

I feel someone shaking me.

“Time to go,” a voice says.

Then I hear that wet flapping sound. It whips through me like an alarm. My eyes pop open. I climb to my feet. Dead leaves and dried insect wings flutter off me. I grab my guide in an awkward fumbling embrace. Why am I still here?

“Let’s move,” he says and hops away before I can ask how he found me. He leans on a branch for balance, moving with surprising quickness for a one-legged man.

I follow, taking quick glances around while I hustle behind him. On one side of us is the base of a cliff. We are traveling on a narrow path that cuts through a tangle of overgrowth that has managed to flourish in the massive shadow of a mountain. On the other side of us is a dark forest; cool air rolls out from between the tress and licks at our cheeks and ears. Every twenty feet or so, my guide stops and peers into the forest. He’s too far ahead for me to ask what he’s doing.

A shriek cuts through my thoughts, then I see people running. Without a word to me, my guide races forward, hopping as fast as he can toward a cluster of people staring into the forest. He pushes past them and, by the time I draw near, he has disappeared into the mass of altered limbs.

I push into the crowd too, struggling to keep pace with my guide.

“This it?” my guide asks, motioning to a large cave.

Someone grunts. My guide looks at me. I take a step forward. He stares at me for a few long seconds, then he blinks.

“Going in,” he says. When he turns away I know that was goodbye.

He hops into the cave opening. A curtain of pastel-hued light shimmers as he enters, and then he’s gone. My heart goes wild with fear. I don’t think I can take another world, another blow, another scar, but I am instantly overtaken with terror that I’m being left behind.

When I step inside the cave, I’m assaulted with light. The light is everywhere. The strongest glow comes from deep within the cave where the light’s intensity is amplified by discarded metal rods and glass tubing littering the floor. Shielding my eyes from the glare, I walk deeper into the cave. I feel the temperature drop right when I find my guide. He is standing at the back of the cave in front of an old wooden table. On the other side of the table is the Man—I’m pretty sure it’s the Man. He is massive, intimidating. His dark robes do nothing to disguise the broadness of his shoulders. His head is shaven clean, and I can’t see his eyes—they are covered by plastic welding goggles. He taps his hand impatiently on the tabletop.