SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

She stuffed the thought down, refusing to consider the possibility. Her bare feet made no sound on the cool floor as she crossed from the bottom of the stairs to the door.

Outside, darkness greeted her. The illumination inside the Domed City had been dimmed, simulating the night that hung over the world so far above. Funny that her people detested the Erdlanders so much yet maintained a simulation of their surface lifestyle.

She sneaked through the empty streets, passing darkened homes and parked rickshaws waiting to be used the next day.

At the ring of homes where the Tan family dwelled, Nilafay realized she had no plan. How exactly did she expect to reach Adal? It wasn’t as if his parents would just allow her to walk in. If his family had called off the wedding, she’d never be allowed to speak with him alone.

Darkness filled the windows as she approached the house. Her heart reached out, calling for him, unable to touch. She blended into the shadows and stared up at the rooms where she knew his slept. She’d never had to reach out to him before. it was always him chasing her down, finding her no matter how far she wandered. She didn’t want to be here playing the part of the desperate woman, but she had to know.

Did he still love her?

Could he love the life within her?

Would he make her choose?

She tried to make sense of it all, of everything she’d been forced to endure, but she couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten here. How had she ended up standing outside the window of the man she loved, pining and wishing for his attention? This wasn’t her. This wasn’t the person she wanted to be.

She strode forward, ignoring her fear, and knocked on the Tan family’s front door.

A disheveled househomme answered the door, his chest bare and his skirt in disarray.

“I need to see Adaltan,” she announced, pushing her way past him.

“You can’t just come in here.” He ran ahead of her, putting his body between her and the rest of the house but not touching her.

Desperate enough to forgo social niceties, Nilafay shoved past physically. The househomme didn’t dare place his hands on her. Instead he just ran after her as she searched farther into the house, calling for Adal.

“What is this nonsense?” a booming voice came from behind her.

Nilafay turned to find Adal’s father dressed in nightclothes, an unamused look on his face.

“I need to speak with Adaltan.”

“You need to go home. Your father will speak with you and tell you everything you need to know.”

“No. I’m not leaving until I speak with Adaltan. Adal! Where are you?”

His father’s frown deepened so far she couldn’t even see his lips behind the layers of wrinkles etched in his face. Soon, the entire household seemed to be awake. Adal’s mother and brothers all stood and watched as she screamed for her fiancé.

Not one of them took pity on her and told her where he was.

Exhausted and humiliated, Nilafay turned on them and ran. She had to get away from the eyes that followed her as she raced down the street. The Tans would contact her family, if they hadn’t already, which meant she had to get out of the city. She had to get out before they could find her and drag her back to Sualwet doctors who would cut her open and experiment on her just like Rhine had.

In her haste, she didn’t bother staying in the darkness or worrying that her webbed feet slapped loudly against the hard ground. When she reached the airlock, the late-night guards hardly noticed her presence until she’d already passed through. The moment she hit seawater, she shucked the dress, letting it drift in the water, and swam like her very life depended on it.

Serishee had told her to go north, but she knew if she ever hoped to see Adaltan again, she must return to the field of star lilies.

She swam hard, feeling the water slide across her strange, curvaceous body. Its warmth held her in an embrace so accepting she didn’t want to ever leave. And perhaps she wouldn’t have to. Perhaps this would be the life ahead of her. Adal, her, and this child could be together in the sea.

When she broke the surface, the night sky greeted her and the scent of flowers filled the air. She climbed atop the star lilies, letting them hold her weight.

Above her, the two moons made their trek across the sky. She watched them until she fell asleep, dreaming that the ruby moon had filled her body and would come to the world to save them all.

In the morning, she woke to find Adaltan treading water at the edge of the field.

“I always find you here,” he said.

“You came.” She rolled toward him, forgetting everything that had happened since they were last together. For a moment in her early morning fog, she was just a girl in love with the boy she would be spending the rest of her life with.

His eyes moved down her naked body but instead of the hunger she expected to find, all she saw was revulsion.

“How can you stand it?” he asked.

“What?”

“Having something inside of you. Can you feel it, moving in there like some kind of tapeworm?” His lips turned up in an ugly snarl.

She placed a protective hand over her stomach and sat up. She felt strong like this. The world, the moon, the universe, all existed within her body. Her ancestors had known this power.

“It’s just a child,” she said.

“It’s a monster, Nila.”

“It hasn’t done anything. It hasn’t even taken a breath. How can it be a monster?”

“You have to undo this. Whatever happened to you there, I can forgive it. I can let all of it slip by us and move forward. But that thing is…I don’t even have the words.” Hate shone in his eyes, distorting his features until she didn’t even recognize him.

“What they did to you is unforgiveable,” he went on. “To take you from us, to keep you from me, to hurt you, and then force you to endure…” He glared at her distended stomach again. “I’ve been so desperate to come see you, to hold you again. I missed you so much, Nila. Come home with me.”

“How? My father told the doctor to operate, to take the baby from me.”

“Of course! You can’t…you can’t keep it.”

“Why?”

“It’s not Sualwet. It’s not anything . You can’t pretend it’s a hatchling and raise it in the city with the other children.”

“I knew that as soon as my father realized what happened to me. Adal, listen. We could run, just like we talked about.” She reached out for his hand, but he snatched it away.

“Why?”

“Because they’re going to cut me open!”

“To get that thing out!”

“Don’t yell at me. You don’t have any idea what it’s been like. What this feels like!”

“I know, Nila. I know you’ve been through worse than most men who’ve been at the war front. I can’t even imagine what they did to you because when I do, I start seeing red and I can’t even think straight.” Finally, he took her hand.

“Then you have to understand. I can’t do it. I can’t kill something that isn’t even alive yet.”

“Why protect them?”

“I’m not.”

“You are. That thing is Erdlander.”

“It’s not. It’s not Erdlander, and it’s not a thing. It’s just a baby.”

Adal pulled his hand back, recoiling at the word. “Sualwets don’t have babies.”

“We used to, many, many years ago.” She reached for him, dropping her body into the water to swim closer to him. “It’s not so impossible to believe.”

“Why would you want some Erdlander’s bastard? Did you love him?”

“It wasn’t like that. They told you what they did to me!”

“If it was just some shot they gave you, some test they ran, you’d get rid of it. But if these barbarians had cut off your leg and put a fin there, you’d be begging the doctors to put you back right. I know you would. Why is this different?”