Josin L McQuein - Arclight

Or at least that it hadn’t been.

Mr. Pace picks up his stylus and fills the board with a series of problems, as though this is any other night and he isn’t dressed for armed combat. His voice settles into its familiar drone, tempting me to close my eyes for a nap and claim a rare few minutes without pain. Five or four or even three without having to adjust my leg to stop its throbbing, or patting my inhaler on the end of its chain to make sure it’s there. I’d be grateful for anything.

But then the green light on the wall starts blinking blue.

I hate the color blue.

Everyone sits straighter in their seats. The stylus’s tip crushes against the board when Mr. Pace stops writing to check the alarm over the window. He takes a breath, erases his work, and starts over with something new as the glow from his bracelet lights up his skin.

This time everyone listens because his voice gives us something to think about other than the alarm reflecting off our desks a half-beat out of time with the pulse in my ears. It doesn’t matter that his words are artificially slow, or that our lesson no longer involves numbers or equations but reminders of the escape routes we’re supposed to know by heart.

“M-Mr. Pace?” Dante’s one of the bigger guys in class, someone others turn to when they’re scared, but there’s nothing sure about his voice now. “Shouldn’t you close the shutters?”

“If they need to close, they’ll close,” Mr. Pace says. He sketches a rough map of the halls, marks our room, and calls for a volunteer to join him at the board. “Dante?”

Dante shakes his head and presses himself deeper into his chair.

“Becca?”

But Becca, too, refuses to move.

Jove bites out a pointed “no way,” and anchors his feet. The caution light’s blinking; of course they’re cautious.

“Marina?”

I push back from my desk, using the short walk to shake the stiffness from my leg. I grasp at my inhaler to make sure it’s there, even though I never take it off. I could die without it.

I could die anyway.

“Primary route,” Mr. Pace says, and I draw a line representing our fastest way to safety.

He sets his stylus to another color and strikes through one of the halls, creating a blockade in the path I made.

“Alter the route,” he instructs.

I draw a new line, and count it a personal victory that I can remember where I’m supposed to go. Anything I can remember is a personal victory.

“Again,” he says, making another change.

Then the blue light turns violet and shatters the room’s strained calm.

I also hate the color purple.

Chairs scrape across the floor as people scoot toward their neighbors so they don’t have to face the moment alone. Someone tries to cover a whimper with a cough.

I turn to see my best, and only, friend, Anne-Marie, sitting at attention with her knuckles clenched around the edges of her desk. Sweat and tears roll down her nose, to where her bobbed curls stop on either side, while the personal alarm on her wrist blips in rhythm to her knee bouncing off the underside of her desk with a tiny thwack.

The sirens come a minute later, followed by the rattle of security shutters dropping into place. A hiss of air expels from the room as the door seals shut, and the ventilation system kicks over to a self-contained unit.

I jam my hands over my ears, ducking to the floor beside Mr. Pace and counting the seconds until the seal’s set. It’s an awful sound, too much like being shoved into a cage and having the door slam shut. Sure, the Fade can’t get in, but we can’t get out, either. The line between protected and entombed is much too thin.

In the far corner of the room, Tobin sits alone, choosing fury over fear. Hard, brown eyes narrow toward the door, as his hands bend his stylus nearly in half. His rage is no less terrifying when it isn’t directed at me.

The alarm changes one last time, reaching its peak color. The blinking bulbs above our door and window stop, and instead each side of the room begins to glow. Backlit panels pulse red, painting us all the color of fear. And when the others run for the safety point on the back wall, Tobin still doesn’t move.

We’re at Red-Wall; hiding under a table isn’t going to help anything.

In the weeks since I’ve been here, I’ve never seen an alarm go Red-Wall. It always stops on blue caution when the Fade are at the outer perimeter, or purple warning when they come close enough to test our defenses. Before now, the light’s always driven them back. Tonight something’s changed.

They’re inside.

Light is safety; light is life.

Blink.

Flash.

Blink.

Flash.

The room doesn’t look the same glowing red as it does in the pause between lights, and the surging bursts of color set me off balance.

“Everyone under, now!” Mr. Pace shouts.

Anne-Marie crawls over from her desk, tugging my hands away from my ears where I’ve covered them.

“Marina, come on,” she begs, as we scramble into the huddle at the back of the room.

We become a massive khaki tangle, with a single heartbeat and breath we all try to hold, like everyone but me holds hands. The Fade want me bad enough to risk death under the high beams, so tonight, my peers shrink from me more than usual.

And still Tobin sits, waiting. The stylus in his hand finally snaps, staining his hands and uniform. He catches me staring and looks away.

Mr. Pace uses the bracelet on his wrist to unlock a cabinet we aren’t allowed to touch and reaches for the high-powered rifle kept there. He checks the scope, palming a couple of clips to stash in the long pocket of his camo pants. He snaps one into the gun with a loud click before shouldering it with the sight trained on the door—our human fail-safe, in case the locks don’t hold. Not that a flesh-and-blood man will be much of a barricade if concrete and steel crumble, but if he’s willing to stand between us and death, we’re willing to pretend it’ll make a difference.

“Where are they?” someone on the other end of the tangle whispers.

“What’s going on?”

There are plenty of questions, but no answers. This can’t be all I get.

My time’s been spent adjusting to my wounded leg and figuring out how much medicine it takes to kill the pain without killing me. Weeks and weeks of fielding questions about my life before the Arclight, shrugging my shoulders when I get tired of saying “I don’t know what happened.”

I just got my life back; it’s too soon to lose it.

I know I’m supposed to be dead, and I know the others would be better off without me, but allowing the Fade to kill me won’t bring back the ones who died for me.

“Tobin, get under,” Mr. Pace orders, checking to see if we’re in position.

Tobin doesn’t say a word, but his posture screams defiance while the rest of us cower beneath our useless shelter.

No one survives the Fade.

I hear those words every night, but my survival tells me there’s a chance. Why should we accept defeat? Why not fight back? Why not live?

I rise to a crouch, with my weight on my good toe, ready to spring when the time comes, and try to fill in the blanks of my memory. All I need is a jolt to start me in the right direction.

Gunfire ignites in the hall outside our door, though I’m not sure anyone else recognizes the clustered pops for what they are. Practice hasn’t prepared my classmates for the terror of live ammo flying overhead; they don’t know the hot sting of a bullet ripping flesh and muscle, nearly breaking bone. To them, it’s a lesson—one I hope they’ve learned.