“Recognize where we are?”
“No idea.”
Nothing looks the same out there.
I don’t even know if we are in the same state anymore.
“Me neither,” she says. “I wish…”
She doesn’t continue.
It makes no use to say it.
I know what she wishes.
To see some form of life down there.
Hope.
Her dark hair is dirty and she runs a hand through it.
We all are dirty, despite the strange way the machine cleans this compartment.
It sucks up the waste we leave behind. Bodily secretions disappear into the metal wall as if it wasn’t there at all in the first place. But it can’t wash away the filth that has settled on our skin over time.
“Do you think anyone’s left out there?” Sam is still looking down below.
I shake my head.
“I don’t know.”
“What about the animals…”
Her voice has hope in it and even though Mina doesn’t speak much, I hear her scoff.
Since being within the machine, we’ve seen no life below.
Not even a flicker of it.
I spent my whole life taking care of animals… To think so many have died too…
It’s something I leave untouched in the back of my mind. Like a safe sort of place I can go.
I imagine the animals are all hiding down there.
Somewhere.
That all life isn’t being snuffed out little by little.
And even though we don’t talk about it, about the other women who’d been in the beast’s belly, what happened to them, we all know our end is coming soon too.
There’s no use talking about it.
Especially when…
As if my thought summons it, there’s movement.
The walls pulse. The hole in the top opens and the arm descends.
Instinctively, we all jerk and scramble away.
Sam lets out a scream as the arm brushes her foot and my mind goes into panic mode.
It’s ready to breed another of us already?
Sam collides with me, her elbow digging into my gut as I scramble backward too.
But Mina…Mina isn’t fast enough.
The metal arm closes around her belly and she screams, her gaze locking with mine.
Panic floods through me.
We have no weapons. Nothing to fight with except our sheer will.
But that is never enough.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m struggling from underneath Sam, trying to release myself.
Attacking the thing never works.
But maybe this time…
Mina screams as the arm pulls her toward itself, her hands grasping at the smooth surface beneath us, trying to grip on to something to no avail.
The pure terror in her eyes hits me deep.
It’s like looking into a mirror.
That could have been me.
It will be me.
And that’s the thought that pushes me forward.
My hands close around hers, and I pull, screaming.
It feels like my joints are going to be dislocated as the claw retreats into the machine, pulling Mina, and, in extension, me, with it.
She screams again, hanging on to me for dear life, and in the back of my mind, I feel skinny arms wrap around my legs.
Sam.
She’s helping too, trying to pull us back.
But it’s useless.
Mina doesn’t budge. The arm keeps retreating, and it is too strong for the strength of all three of us combined.
“Let her go!” I scream, the words leaving my mouth with all the force I can muster. “Let her go!”
If it hears me, I know it doesn’t care.
“Please,” I beg, and a part of me wishes my plea will be heard.
But nothing stops the thing.
Mina’s gaze locks with mine.
I see the moment she gives up like a fire dying in her eyes.
And then, she slips from my grasp.
The force of the pull is lost and I collapse, but my eyes remain locked on Mina’s as she disappears into the dark hole.
I want to go after her.
But before I can move, the hole closes, as it always does.
It closes, but not before Mina’s screams reach our ears.
ADIRA
When Mina returns, Sam and I are waiting.
There is movement. The wall pulses and the hole opens.
Mina’s body is a blur as she falls through and we rush to break her fall.
She is choking, her body heaving and shivering at the same time, and she is wet.
She clutches her belly, and I swallow hard.
We don’t need to speak.
We all know what’s happened.
It’s the same thing that happened to all the others.
“Kill me,” she chokes out. “Kill me now.”
I glance at Sam and my heart slams against my chest. I can feel Mina’s pain.
“Do it!” she screams.
Her eyes are on us now, red, bloodshot and she chokes again, spitting blood.
The fluid promptly disappears into the wall of the orb.
She claws at her stomach and a lump forms in my throat.
I can’t see clearly and it takes me a moment to realize tears have clouded my eyes.
I try to hold them back as I watch her claw at herself, trying to remove it.
Because what’s inside her is like a death sentence.
It is a death sentence.
Mina’s belly is going to swell.
And then the machine will take her again.
Mina continues to clutch at her belly and a wail leaves her lips that shatters me at my core.
Hopeless.
Desperate.
Forlorn.
It will kill her like it’s killed the others.
And then…then it will be my turn…
Or Sam’s.
My chest heaves with huge breaths as I pull my gaze away from Mina to stare through the wall before me.
In the back of my mind are Mina’s cries.
We can’t help her. Even if we wanted to.
There is nothing we can do.
Sam and I made a pact.
If one of us gets taken…the other will have to do a horrible deed.
Asphyxiation is our only weapon.
But what would happen to the other once the deed is done?
We don’t know.
We don’t talk about it.
The last woman who came close to killing herself was crushed by the metal claw.
“There’s water ahead,” I whisper. The thought comes almost like an afterthought whispered in the back of my mind.
I can see it.
A great lake.
The machine will stop. Suck it up. And then it will move on.
Mina’s wailing slowly turns to low sobs as she settles back. Her chin is on her chest and through her ripped clothing, I see deep welts across her abdomen from where she’d clawed at herself.
I take her hand and settle back too.
Sam follows, sitting on Mina’s other side, and we rest in silence, lulling ourselves with the sway as the machine moves.
For the next few minutes, my gaze is focused on the lake as the machine heads toward it, and when it gets there, it steps into the water and pauses.
Mina’s sobs feel like my own.
No one is coming to save us.
No one is out there.
The thought registers like a hurricane and I gulp back a sob.
I’m not allowed to cry.
I feel guilty for wanting to do so when Mina is facing death much sooner than I am.
I can’t look over at the Feeders either—the men on the other side.
Thankfully, the vines cover most of what we can see.