Nick James - Crimson rising

The moment the helmet’s off, the buzzing of the swarm becomes all-consuming. No wonder the Drifter couldn’t hear me before.

The heat’s more dense and humid than I’ve ever experienced. It’s worse in the southern Fringes. No wonder bugs are the only ones who thrive in it. I hardly want to open my mouth for fear of letting the thick air in.

But if I get answers, it’ll be worth it.

“Do you understand?” I shout. “Are you understanding any of this?”

The Drifter’s eyes widen slightly. His body shows no reaction.

“Please,” I continue. Sweat drips down the back of my neck. “Just tell me who you are.”

My bracelet stops. The Drifter raises his right hand and points at me.

I’m thrown off my feet onto my back. My hands fly over my head. The helmet rolls into the distance until it’s swallowed by the swarm.

Intense warmth pushes on my chest. I cry out in pain as something burrows under my suit and cuts across my skin. It’s like boiling water or the edge of a knife heated by flames. I grab the zipper and try to pull the thing away from me, but I know it won’t help. Whatever this is, it’s inside. Coming out. There’s no stopping it.

The pain continues, blistering and ceaseless. I fear I might pass out. I expect to feel the slick stickiness of blood under my shirt. But liquid would boil. There’s nothing. I writhe in the dirt, kicking up clouds around my feet, unable to stand. I manage to turn on my side and stare at the Drifter from the knee down.

The burning stops.

I grab my chest, heart pounding out of time. It’s reassurance that I’m still alive. I yell, but the Fringe air burns my throat, too.

I watch the Drifter’s legs pull out of sight as he rockets into the sky. Red energy blankets my vision for a moment before it disappears altogether. He’s gone.

The buzzing intensifies around me. I roll on my back in time to see walls close in. The swarm descends.

They’re everywhere.

I can’t even move before they’re all over me. Legs. Wings. Prickly bodies collide with my suit. Thousands of them. More.

I pull my head inward and close my eyes. My mouth’s shut, but I can feel them crawling around my ears, getting stuck in my hair. Too long and I won’t be able to breathe properly. It’s only a matter of time before a fly tries to work its way into my nostril.

The beat of the wings is deafening, like the thrusters of a Skyship right over my head. It’s not a buzz anymore. It’s a solid force, an apocalyptic scream.

All the while, my chest stings like someone’s tried to cut my heart open. I’ve never felt pain like this. It nearly drowns out the horror of the swarm. I panic, convinced that the bugs will find a way past my suit, into the wound. Then they’ll be inside of me, crawling and biting and multiplying.

I raise my right hand and swat through the air, only to feel a flurry of tics and scratches against my fingers. I kick out, which dislodges a cloud of insects. But they come back. I’m outnumbered, billions to one.

At first I think the pull on my ankles is the swarm somehow organizing itself against me. I’m dragged backward across the ground, too rattled to scream. I fight the grip around my ankle, but nothing comes of it.

My feet slam into the ground and I see a shadow push through the swarm overhead. A figure bends low and grips me by the shoulders. I squirm away, convinced that the Drifter has come back to finish me off. As I push, Cassius’s face cuts through the wall of insects.

His eyes are closed. His left hand moves up my shoulder until his fingers hit my neck. With the energy I have left, I grab just below his elbow and help him to pull me to my feet.

He guides me through the pulsing swarm. I stumble behind him, waves of insects pelting me. I’ve got no idea which direction we’re headed. Maybe Cassius doesn’t, either. We struggle through a churning sea of black and brown. Pretty soon, it’ll be suffocation. Buried alive.

I grip his hand, terrified of slipping away. My nails dig into his skin. It’s the least of his worries.

We stop.

I hear a loud thump as his fist pounds against metal. He backs into my foot. I struggle to keep my mouth closed, but all I want to do is scream. My chest burns. I imagine skin melting away, eating into bone.

A rectangle of light cuts through the swarm in front of us. Cassius yanks me forward. I lose my footing and crash onto metal. Sideways waterfalls of insects spill into the cabin of the cruiser before Eva seals the door shut behind us. They stream to the ceiling and buzz around the light panels in whirling riptides.

Someone rushes to my side. I don’t know who. I lie on my stomach and feel the cold metal press against my chest.

“Is he okay?” I hear someone say.

“Jesse?”

“Jesse!”

Then, silence.

– I wake with a shocked yelp, convulsing from head to toe until my body gets itself under control. I’m on my back now, still in the Unified Party suit. I rip the collar open and yank on the zipper. I pull the rest of the outfit from my body and toss it away. The others stare at me in silence, too concerned and confused to say anything.

Avery kneels at my side. “Jesse, thank god! What happened?”

My chest feels like someone’s scraped a hot iron against it.

Without answering, I grab the back of my shirt and pull it over my head.

I hear them gasp.

I look down at my chest, trembling with fear of what I might find.

Even upside down, I can tell it’s bad.

Scrawled across my skin are symbols. It’s as if someone took a razor and wrote across my body, except there’s no blood. Five brown-red burn marks of varying shapes and sizes.

Eva backs away, cupping her hand over her mouth. “Oh, Jesse.”

“What did he do to you?” Avery grabs my arm.

Cassius reclines in a seat across from Theo, scuffed up and coughing, but alive.

A diluted stream of bugs circle around the lights overhead. The floor’s spotted with dead locust carcasses. I keep an eye on the living as I finally speak.

“It feels like someone lit me on fire.” My voice is barely above a whisper. “What’s on me? What is that stuff?”

Ryel emerges from somewhere behind my shoulder.

I stare up at him. “You’re okay.”

He nods before kneeling at my feet. His eyes narrow as he analyzes the symbols on my chest. After a moment of consideration, his eyes meet mine. His expression gives away nothing. “May I?”

I’m not sure what he means, but I nod anyway. Something about his voice calms me.

Ryel scoots forward and extends his arm. Leaning in, his fingers make contact with the largest of the symbols. His face tenses in pain. His eyes close. Suddenly, the burning in my chest starts to numb. It dulls from raw stinging into something more distant. Then, when it’s nearly gone, Ryel pulls back.

He lets out a noisy breath, like someone’s kicked him in the gut, and rests his clasped hands in his waist. “Can you sit up?”

I push on my elbows and pull my body from its halflaying, half-sitting position.

Ryel rubs his temple. “The last sliver of Pearl energy, from deep inside of me. You’ll be more comfortable now.” He watches my fingers, as if he expects me to pick at the symbols. “Don’t touch them, not until they begin to fade. You’ll be thankful that you didn’t.”

Eva moves in closer. “What are those things?”

“A message.”

I shake my head, panicking more as I think about it. “I don’t understand. What did he do to me?”

I hear Theo’s voice in the distance. “Looks like knife work.”

Nobody responds.

Ryel shakes his head. “That wasn’t a friend out there. The energy alone was too much for me to bear. I felt it… the pain. It’s like poison.”