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.”
Eva kneels beside him. “What do those symbols say?’
“A warning,” Ryel replies, and I can tell by his tone that he doesn’t want to say anymore.
I wince as the burning flares up again.
Eva stares at Ryel, eyes wide. “Well?”
He swallows.
Cassius coughs. “Tell us.”
Ryel nods before taking a deep breath. “I am already here.” He pauses. “That’s what it says. I am already here.”
Cassius stands and shakes his head. “I’m getting us out of the swarm, as far away from that thing as possible.”
Ryel stays frozen as Cassius darts to the cockpit. Nobody says a word.
The words filter through my ears without sticking. I close my eyes and try to float away, but I can still hear the buzzing outside. There’s no escaping this. When I open my eyes, Ryel’s staring at me, so pointed and direct that I can barely look back.
“I don’t know how he’s tracing you,” Ryel says. “But it seems clear to me who this message is from.”
My lip trembles. I don’t want to say it.
“I am already here,” he repeats. Lines begin to show on his forehead. “It can’t be. There were rumors of Matigo’s exile, but no evidence that he’s made it to Earth.”
I grab my shirt from the floor and pull it over my head. The cloth scratches the symbols, triggering a short shock of pain. I try to ignore it. I pull my knees close to my chest and rest my head, shaking. I breathe deep and try to think rationally. The discomfort fades, replaced by a cold fear. “It could mean something else.”
Ryel frowns. “We must prepare for the worst.”
“If Matigo’s really on this planet… ”
“Then the invasion has begun,” he whispers.