Sherry Ficklin - Extracted

Peeling off my vest, I tie it around my face. We walk through the smoke-filled room with our hands stretched out like a pair of zombies.

We haven’t walked very far before I trip over something. I fall forward, landing on a couch. Reaching down, I bring the object closer to my face.

“AAAAH!” It’s half of a Gear Head. I toss it aside like a dead rat.

“Ember, Ethan, Stein!” I yell into the smoky room. Have I lost them? This can’t be happening. I call out again.

“Over here,” Stein calls back. “Ember’s sick.”

We shuffle in the general direction of her voice. The metal foot of my fake leg clanks against another Gear Head as we walk. The gears still aren’t working, so with every step I have to hobble my leg into position.

“Call out again,” Nobel hollers.

“We’re over here.” It is Ethan this time. I exhale. At least they’re all alive.

After what seems like ten minutes of navigating through the dense smoke, we finally make it to the group. Stein is bent over Ember, stroking her hair, and Ethan is looking down at both of them, his face pale and waxy. Ember is breathing, but when she looks up at me, I notice her eyes are bloodshot. She is sweating and clutching her stomach in the fetal position.

“Ember,” Ethan says gently, “Lex is here now.”

“Lex, I don’t think those rifting pills sit well with me,” she says, squeezing her eyes closed.

“It can take some getting used to,” Nobel tells her. “Ethan, are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Ethan says, but I can tell he’s lying. He’s barely keeping his stomach. I remembered the feeling all too well. Sick as a dog but too proud to let the girl see him sweat.

“Are you going to be able to make it out?”

“I think so,” she answers weakly.

I crouch down. The smoke is a lot less dense near the floor. Everyone else follows suit and crouches down to the floor. Ethan helps Ember to her knees, holding her around the waist until he’s sure she isn’t going to fall. We crawl along the floor of the smoke engulfed room until we find a wall, then we follow that to a hallway.

“Do you recognize this hallway?” Stein asks, crawling up beside me.

“No, I don’t even know where we are.”

She reaches up into the smoke cloud that’s above us and rips something off the wall.

“Recognize this?”

Stein holds out a piece of the velvet wallpaper that lines the hallway toward Gloves’s office. I recognize it. And Nobel recognizes it. We’ve walked down this hallway many times. I’ve always traced my finger along the paisley-velvet wallpaper when we’re here, trying to connect the lines without removing my finger.

“Are we near Gloves’s office?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“I think we are,” Stein answers. “We need to see if there’s anyone still alive in there.”

“What do you mean?”

Stein and Nobel exchange a glance.

“When we rifted back, there were bodies on the lawn. It looked like an attack,” Nobel says softly.

I stop, unable to believe my ears.

“Who?” I ask, my voice shaking.

“Two of ours and one that Ember identified as theirs.”

I want to ask more, to demand names, but now isn’t the time. If anyone is still alive in here we need to get them out. Now. We pass by what was Gloves’s door. The office has been burned to a crisp. The door is lying off its hinges, and its wood is blackened and blistered, charcoaled beyond belief. But there are no remains.

I turn to Ethan. “We need to get everyone out of here.”

When he nods, I crawl through the wreckage without hesitation, grab a burnt piece of door wood, and use it to break the window. The old glass shatters on the first blow. I then hack away at the jagged edges so we can crawl out without getting cut.

We are able to scale our way down the side of the old stone building. Most of the rock that was quarried on site to build this tower is now covered in a green carpet of moss. After carefully navigating each handhold and foothold, we finally jump into the out-of-control Pfitzer juniper that have been unkempt for many years. Fortunately, they provide a soft landing. The hardest part is trying to claw our way out of the juniper.

Once we orient ourselves, the sight before us is unbelievable. The Tower is no longer erect. The top three-fourths is severed and tumbled back. Flames surround the stump of what remains. It reminds me of a candle left to burn out overnight. To the right of the Tower, there is a massive, armored locomotive that is covered in plants, chunks of earth, and rust. The enormous steel-plated train clearly moved up an angled track to take down the Tower. I can imagine the train emerging from the ground to bomb the Tower to oblivion.

We run to the front of the Tower, where Ethan appeared just a day ago. Stein stands stoic, looking pale and half in shock, and Ember is throwing up in the Pfitzers. Bruce lies dead at the corner of the building. He has a hole blown in his gut. Even being half-man, half-kettlepot, he couldn’t withstand the blast. I walk over, kneel down, and close his one good eye.

Fire has consumed many of the dead weeds in the courtyard, along with some of the dead bodies. Even though I spent many nights purging my senses of the smell of fiery death, it all comes rushing back so fast that my eyes well up with tears. For a heartbeat, I’m paralyzed by it.

“No, no, no!” I yell, pressing my fists into my ears. “Not again!”

My second chance at a family of any kind has been burned up like the first. I can’t go on. My good leg goes very weak and I bend over. Am I dying? I’m hyperventilating for sure and the anxiety has taken hold of my body like a giant Gear Head. My mind is blacking out and my eyes won’t seem to open.

I don’t want to go. I don’t want to pass out. Don’t want to die. I will not lose it. Not here. Not today. Today, these people need me. I am the leader. I am a Hollow. A burst of adrenaline surges through my body. My eyes shoot open and my breathing becomes deep and controlled. I lift my chin to the sky.

I am a HOLLOW.

My brows furrow and fury surges through my veins. I stand up and take stock of the situation before me. Big mammoth train over there, dead bodies in the courtyard, and the Tower on fire. My hand slips into my pocket, searching for the bottle caps, but they are gone. My jaw muscles clench and I close my eyes, forcing myself to step back, to observe without emotion. My heart quickens when I see Sisson standing in the distance. She is darting from body to body to see if anyone is alive. A group of Hollows are bent over another body on the side steps of the Tower. I can tell it’s Gloves. His train chair lays broken on its side, still chugging and chugging. His body is slumped on the stairs to the Tower. I rush to his side.

“There was a blast and we all came out,” Gloves says, trying to tell me what happened despite the small bubbles of blood forming in the corners of his mouth. “Claymore went into hiding so he would be protected. Every Hollow who wasn’t on a mission came out to fight. The Tower fell behind us, and then people started to appear on the outskirts of the courtyard.”

Gloves’s eyes fall closed as he coughs up blood. His white beard is already stained crimson from the bloody spittle.

“It was Tesla,” he says finally.

“They found us,” I say.

Gloves continues, “We weren’t ready. That train emerged from under the ground fully loaded. The artillery was too much. We couldn’t hold them off. We didn’t stand a chance.”

“Where is Claymore?” I ask.

“He…” Gloves starts, but is interrupted with a fit of bloody coughing. “He went to a safe house. Stills got him out as soon as the fighting started.”