It was too much. Too intense.
It jarred with… with this. The smoke, the fire, the fact that someone had just died and she had no idea who, why, or how.
The others were similarly lost, similarly distraught.
Reeling.
She felt no particular connection to them. They were, what, one step removed from her?
Feeling a chill, Rose put her hands in her pockets for warmth, and found a note there.
She read it over five times before it sank in.
“Throw the rest of the jugs in,” she said. “Hurry. It was part of the plan, and we should follow through.”
“You want us to get close to that?” Ty asked.
“Not too close,” she said. She looked at the note again, as if it might have changed in the meantime.
I wrote this to myself, and I was supposed to explain things, so I wouldn’t be too lost if it goes wrong.
Except it’s better if we don’t know.
Burn what you can. We promised we would.
We have a connection to those people. I’m not positive about what’s going to happen if it goes bad. Either way, they should be yours. You can manipulate them using that, using the chaos that’s going to unfold now. That doesn’t mean you should.
If nothing happens, well, there’s no need for this note, and I’ll look stupid. Ha ha.
There’s nothing here for us. You know what the next step is.
I’m such a bitch.
“I’m going back to Jacob’s Bell,” she said.
The others turned. Ty was hurling the jugs of gas at windows with a two-handed grip, a barely-repressed anger he didn’t understand.
“What?” Alexis asked.
“I’m going back to Jacob’s Bell. You can come, that’s fine, or you can stay.”
She saw the expressions on their faces.
Feathers were falling.
The feathers almost reminded her of something.
Was that a clue? A cue?
“Hey!” she screamed. “Bird!”
The bird descended.
She held out both hands, cupped.
The landing was clumsy, her catching of the bird doubly so.
“Hey,” she said.
Just like the others, it felt like it was hers, but not hers. One step removed.
“Hey,” the bird said. “I’m not sure what’s going on.”
“None of us are,” she said. “Why don’t you stick with me?”
“I think I’m dying,” the bird said.
“We can fix that,” she said.
■
Ur – 3:17 PM
The humans were leaving now.
As if they were some magnetic force that had hauled him up from darkness, now absent, Ur settled back into the shadows, contracting himself. Here and there, pieces of rubble were dragged into place. Things were propped up.
One section of wall was cracked, and in time, the wall would break free.
With more time, the binding that encircled the building would be broken.
With care, Ur moved a metal beam, winding around it, manifesting limbs to grasp at it, tongues to encircle it, until it had the leverage needed to lift it clear off the ground.
It placed the beam so it sat diagonally against the wall, reducing the stress that would be placed on it.
A few more years would pass before the section of wall broke free.
A decade more would pass before the binding broke.
Everything in place.
Everything, in time.
As if provoked by the idle thought of consuming, a mouth on the side of one wormlike section of body reached out and snatched at a largely dismembered hand. The hand crunched.
Ur retreated into the shadows of the rubble, and into the chasm that dwelt beneath the factory.
A piece of rebar dragged against the ground, held by a tiny hand, retreating with the rest of Ur as he disappeared into the shadows.
A tiny hand attached to a tiny form, three-quarters of the way complete, eyes shut. Two more were pressed against it, part of the same growth, the three compacted so tightly together that the shape of them distorted. All in the form of human babes, with jet black skin. One with horns, one with tufts of spiky fur, the other smooth and bald.
The binding would break in time.
Ur would bear its motes first.
The hand dropped the rebar, and the metal sang as it clattered.
Ur was already gone. The factory still.
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