Josin L McQuein - Arclight

I tip forward until the weight of my body burns my fingertips, tilting my head to catch the sounds beyond our room and breathing deep to center my nerves. Gunfire’s a good thing, I tell myself—only humans use weapons, so there are still humans left.

“Tobin!” Mr. Pace tries again, but he doesn’t abandon his post. “We’re running out of—”

Everything goes pitch-black.

Time. We’re running out of time.

There’s a scream, just one, but it comes from everyone and everywhere at the same time. This is the worst part, even in practice. Humans can’t see in the dark, but the Fade can.

At least I can still hear. Our elders tell us the Dark is dead silent, and that my time there made my senses sharper. When I first came here, my eyes weren’t much better than a Fade’s for taking light, but they’ve adjusted. So far my hearing hasn’t, and I don’t want it to.

“Shades!”

Mr. Pace shouts over our panic, and the training sequences take over. We reach into our pockets for the tinted glasses kept there, so we’ll be prepared when the lights turn back on.

If the lights . . .

“Gloves!”

Mr. Pace turns this into a drill. Compliance is automatic.

“Hands!”

Everyone stands and we sort ourselves out in the dark. Jonah emerges from the jumble first, pulling himself hand to hand along the crowd until he’s at the door and calling out his name to say he’s in place. We’ve done this so often, I know how he fidgets, and the way he hunches to look smaller.

Another hand grabs mine as the next of us moves into place.

“Anne-Marie,” she yells back. If she’s keeping up, she’ll be sliding her right hand onto Jonah’s shoulder so she can follow him blind, and the routine continues. The only pause comes when Tobin doesn’t take his place.

“Marina,” I shout in turn, claiming my spot at the end of the line.

Silver’s tall enough that I have to stretch my arm up to grasp the loop on her uniform. There’s an expected twitch of her shoulders rolling under my hand as she ties her hair up so it won’t hit me in the face when we run.

“Tobin!”

The feel of his hand on my shoulder makes me jump, but I force a scream down. No one’s supposed to go behind me. And yet his hands are on my shoulders and his fingers are tugging at my jacket.

“Step,” Mr. Pace orders.

Everyone takes one measured step forward, closing the gaps between us.

“Can you march?”

Tobin’s voice comes as a breath beside my ear, his face pulled low and close. We’re not supposed to talk in step, so I don’t answer.

Those who speak become prey.

“Can you?” Another warm puff tickles the inside of my ear. “With your leg?”

I nod; we’re close enough that he should feel it.

There’s comfort in having warmth behind me, an illusion of protection I’ve never had with my back exposed. My skin pimples up as an odd electric shock races down my arms, and I can almost convince myself he’s concerned about me rather than the likelihood I’ll trip and bring the whole line down.

“I’ll be f—”

Something huge and solid slams the window from outside, shaking the room. Another scream goes up as a horrible truth sets in—they didn’t come in from the front. The Fade always come in from the front during our drills, but this one came straight to me.

Mr. Pace spins, the toe of his boot sliding against the tile so he’s facing the window before the echo has a chance to die. Claws scrabble against a surface with no traction, trying to dig through, but the shutters hold behind a half-foot of bulletproof glass set into concrete.

This is really happening.

“I’ve got you,” Tobin says against my hair. His hand drops around my waist. He pulls me tight until I feel his chest at my back, shuffling forward so I won’t lose my grip on Silver. The surprise of unexpected contact sends my heart beating through my back so hard I’m sure he can count my pulse.

Pressure’s building at the back of my skull, creating sparks behind my eyes. This is too much like my snatches of before, all screams and terror and confusion. I grab for the disc on the chain around my neck and suck in, counting down the pattern for a dose, and welcoming the familiar queasiness that settles in my stomach from the medication.

“Hold!” Mr. Pace must have heard us move, and I think surely the thing outside did, too.

Any hope that the Fade believes our room is empty dies when the creature slams against the window again, and again, until I realize it isn’t just one of them out there. There are at least a dozen, each with its own tone and pitch when it strikes.

The room goes still, folded into another held breath until a new nightmare emerges with the sound of cracking glass that says they’re breaking through.

The Arclight’s falling.

“Stay with me, guys,” Mr. Pace pleads over a surge of muffled whimpers. “Just a little longer.”

As we wait for the signal that will release our door, I feel suddenly lighter, and this time it isn’t the inhaler putting a fog in my brain. Half my weight rises off my feet, so I barely feel the muscles burning in my leg.

“Just step with me,” Tobin says. “I’ve got you.”

And I have no idea what to say to that. Normally, when Tobin speaks, it’s a grunted one-syllable “yes” or “no.” But he hardly ever speaks, and never to me. For me, it’s a glare like ice dropped down my back. His father led the rescue party into the Grey. His father made the choice to save me over the others. His father didn’t return. Why should Tobin be kind?

There’s a knock from the hall, a set of very human knuckles rapping out a prearranged rhythm before Mr. Pace unlatches the door with his bracelet.

“Go,” he orders, touching each shoulder to count us as we pass.

“If we have to run, go limp,” Tobin says. “I can carry you faster than you can move on your own.”

Before I can protest that I don’t need to be carried, Tobin gasps, lurching forward as though someone’s shoved him. The force cascades through our chain of hands. Elbows and knees hit hard on the ground, and the yelps that come after are followed by frantic shushing.

“They’re through!” Mr. Pace shouts behind us.

At first I think he’s saying everyone’s out of the room, but when he empties a cartridge into thin air, I realize he isn’t speaking to us at all. The Fade have broken in.

We’re dead.

“Move! Move! Move!” Lt. Sykes’s high and nasal voice shouts somewhere in the blackout.

Everything goes to pieces. We’ve only ever marched in silence with no real sense of urgency or danger. Now we’re a hive mind with a massive case of brain freeze. All our drills mean nothing, especially for the youngest children who spill out of the rooms on either side of ours, calling for their parents and crying “Fade!” when they run into us because they can’t see to know we aren’t the enemy.

Their voices are swallowed up by louder sounds as the corridor erupts with gunfire and something that is in no way human. I ball up on the floor with my hands over my ears.

“That’s not what I meant by limp, Marina!”

Tobin pulls me up by one arm, and then he’s racing toward the shelter beyond the maze of hallways, dragging me along the glowing line that’s been painted on the floor to guide us there. I try to keep up, but my leg can’t take it.

Good to his promise, Tobin lifts me off my feet, and over his shoulder I watch Mr. Pace and Lt. Sykes appear and disappear with every ammunition flash. Three others I can’t name shoot at shadows in the dark, their bodies twisting from the impact of the rifles against their shoulders.