My friends put me in a coffin.
Hands hold me in place. I’m thrown to the left, smashed up against the padded wall—that wasn’t the boys, it was the shuttle itself, moving. An instant of realization cuts through my blinding terror, lets me think straight for a brief moment—Gaston and Spingate…the shuttle is leaving the Xolotl…they are getting us out of here.
Bishop and O’Malley pin me down, using only enough strength to stop me from sitting up or lashing out at them. I’m in a coffin, I am going into the darkness, my friends have betrayed me, I have to fight, I have to kill.
A face close to mine, peering in at me. A small face. A girl. She’s wearing a clean shirt. She has dark skin, jet-black hair, dark eyes. There is a jagged circle on her forehead.
It’s Zubiri.
“Em, it’s going to be okay,” she says. “Don’t be afraid.”
She smiles.
The girl is so calm. None of this frightens her? I am older than she is…shouldn’t I be the one comforting her?
“I can’t be in here,” I say to Zubiri, as if the tiny girl can overpower Bishop or give orders to O’Malley. “I can’t be in a coffin again. Tell them.”
I want my voice to sound angry, dangerous and threatening, but what comes out is a pathetic whine. I’m not commanding anybody: I’m begging.
Zubiri shakes her head. “It’s not a coffin, Em. It’s a bed. You have to be in it right now. Do you know what g-forces are?”
I don’t. I’ve never heard those words. I shake my head.
“It means that if you’re not safely protected, you’ll be thrown all over this cabin.” Zubiri’s voice is soothing. She isn’t worried at all, not even a little bit. “When this shuttle flies, Em, if you’re not inside you’ll probably die.”
She wants to help me. But to let her help me, I have to stay in this nightmare box.
I look at Bishop.
“Be still, Em,” he says. “It will be all right.”
I look at O’Malley.
“You’re safe,” he says. “You got us out. Now lie back so we can leave. I don’t want to die up here when we’re so close to Omeyocan.”
Omeyocan.
We’re going down to the planet. That’s what we were made for.
The world lurches again, so violently that O’Malley, Bishop and Zubiri tumble away, fall over and slide into other coffins. For a moment, no one is holding me down. I could run…but I do not.
If I don’t stay here, in this coffin, they will try to catch me. If Zubiri is right, the boys could die trying to keep me safe.
Better I go mad in the darkness than see any harm come to Bishop and O’Malley.
I close my eyes and force myself to stay still.
The coffin’s padded sides press in on me. My neck tingles, waiting for the needle sting that I know is moments away. This time it won’t be clogged, the poison will give me a fever cleaver and I will die, burning and screaming—but I remain still.
Gaston’s voice rips the air.
“Last warning, people. We’re leaving!”
I hear O’Malley scramble into the coffin on my right. Bishop lunges into the one on my left.
On either side of me, a boy’s hand reaches over the coffin’s edge.
My fingers seek out theirs. They intertwine.
O’Malley holds my right hand. His skin is warm and soft.
Bishop holds my left. His hands are rough and blistered. He squeezes so tight it hurts, but I don’t mind—it makes me feel protected.
I hear something, lift my head to see. A lid is sliding up from the foot of the coffin, slowly sealing me in. It moves past my knees, my thighs, my hips….
I let go of both boys.
I rest my hands on my chest, left over right.
The lid slides past my face.
All is dark.
There is a click, then a hiss. The coffin presses into my sides, my back, my chest and my face. A scream builds up inside me, unstoppable, the product of my body’s instant and futile need to move, to fight my way free.
Then I smell something odd. Almost instantly, my body starts to relax.
The world shifts again. No, not the world, the shuttle. I feel a hard pull to the right, then left, then up…if the coffin wasn’t pressed tight against me, I would sail through the room, smash so hard against a wall or a door or the ceiling that my bones would shatter.
Zubiri was right.
The coffins once promised death: now they are life itself.
The pulling sensation eases…then it’s gone.
We are floating.
My eyes droop. That smell…it’s nice. I’m not stressed anymore. I’m tired…so very tired.
I blink, or try to, but once I close my eyes they won’t open again.
There is a moment before sleep takes me, a moment where the events of my impossibly short life play back in my head. We saw so many horrors. I killed Yong. We lost Latu. We lost Bello. We lost El-Saffani.