Chapter Text
The walk to the barrier is lonely and quiet. For all that space underground is limited, everyone has built as far away from the reminder of their past defeat as is physically possible. You probably passed the last signs of civilization somewhere close to an hour ago, a lonely little shack that might or might not have been inhabited. The only noises you hear now, besides the steadily increasing hum of the barrier and your own footfalls, are the drips of water falling from stalactites and some lonely crickets that quiet down when you get too close.
Your flashlight batteries died a little while ago, but as you near the barrier, light from the surface is starting to illuminate your way. Your gait remains steady, even as you admire the soft shadows cast by what can only be natural light. It’s so different from the fluorescent cast most of your life has had until now, not flickering out but steady and—warm? The sun, they’d told you, with a warning not to look directly at it for too long. There were photos and drawings, old records from before the war, so you had a general idea of what to expect, but for you, born underground like the rest of your generation, it’s hard to believe in anything but a light bulb or the magic crystals of the marsh.
You can see the barrier, now, though it’s hard to judge how much walking you still have ahead of you to reach it. It’s all-encompassing, simultaneously brighter than any light you’ve ever seen and darker than the city when the power generator fails. You know now why nobody could ever stand to live near it, even more than the reminder of being trapped, being caged, being shoved down, away, out of sight, in the dark to wither and die. What had been a quiet hum of white noise when you first noticed it is now a dull roar, a pulsing threat that fills your chest with each step you take. To live here would drive anyone mad. Even the crickets you heard before have not dared to stray this close.
But the exit from the underground is not completely devoid of life. You notice quite accidentally, your foot catching on something that sends you tumbling to the rocky cave floor. You throw your hands out to catch your fall and land roughly, a stinging in your palms and knees and elbows rewarding you for your carelessness. But when you push yourself up, the sight of the ground beneath you gives you pause.
It looks like—thick ropes and little green pieces of confetti? They’d told you about this, too, pointing it out in the photos and illustrations of the surface, explained that without the sun, you’d never see it underground, not outside of a high security government lab at any rate. ‘Like the one I’m in now,’ you’d wanted to say, but your hands had remained still at your sides. That’s why we’re dying, they’d continued. You didn’t get how not having a bunch of weeds around meant you were all dying, but apparently some plants were edible and also produced oxygen. They’d had limited success growing them in artificial light, but with the sun to grow plants, there would never be food shortages again, you’d been told.
You hadn’t cared too much about the details, to be honest. You hadn’t expected that you’d be the one to make it, so why commit everything to memory? You were just one of seven.
You stand, brushing off your pants and making sure the knife is still secure in its little leather sheath on your belt. Even if you hadn’t expected you’d make it, you’d wanted to be the one. You’d wanted to see if those illustrations were real; you’d wanted to feel warm, like they said you would under the sun, all the way through your fingers without having to bundle up in a blanket; you’d wanted to be important and do something worthwhile, for once in your life, instead of just wasting precious resources.
But maybe, most of all, you hadn’t wanted to die.
And apparently you’d been more determined to make that a reality than your six peers had.
You tread more carefully to avoid the plants (roots? vines? it was hard to learn the vocabulary without real examples, and now you have examples but nobody to identify them for you) and continue your trek. Not long now, you think. You have to be close—you don’t think you could stand it if the roar of the barrier got too much louder.
And then your knee hits something and there’s no more ground in front of you, only the throbbing light-dark-light-dark of the barrier everywhere you look. You can’t hear anything. You pop the metal snap on the strap securing your knife in its sheath, and curl your fingers around its handle. (Just a knife—gunpowder had been gone for generations, and you wouldn’t know what to do with a sword anyway, let alone be able to conceal it if you were seen.)
You can’t see colours anymore, just the chiaroscuro black and white of the barrier, your own hand washed out to a chalky corpse-like shade, but when you raise the knife in front of you, and think about the six who couldn’t be here with you, and bring it down
you think, maybe, you see a rainbow.
Then you see nothing at all.
~~~
They’d warned you the barrier would open to the top of the mountain, and that it would be cold. You, who are always chilled, no matter what gloves or sweaters or boots you wear, were not looking forward to this, but you figured it would be no worse than usual.
You are very, very wrong.
The cold that bites into your fingers is indescribably worse than you had ever imagined. Even worse than when the heat isn’t working and you have to wash your hands in cold water. At least then you can towel your hands dry, but up here there’s no escape from it. Your ears are stinging and your nose and cheeks feel like they are about to fall off. You yank your hood up over your head and pull on the gloves you’re so glad your studious friend insisted you take, and shove your hands under your armpits for good measure. There’s wind up here, much, much stronger than the little breeze any of the fans down home could muster, and yet another new experience for you, but one much less welcome than the plants and sunlight—it’s snowing. You’ve seen ice underground before, little pools of water frosted over. West of the marsh is a place where it’s always cold, and anyone who wants to live there has better be ready to pay through the nose for heating (and be prepared for those inevitable blackouts a couple times a year). But you’ve never seen anything like this, little white flurries whipping around you, that cold wind slashing right through your hoodie.
Where is the sun? That warm, soft light you’d felt through the barrier! If the whole surface is like this, then who needs it! You’d be just as happy to stay underground!
But… it’s real. You made it. You’re on the surface, you got through the barrier. The knife actually—the knife! It’s not at your belt. You must have dropped it when you blacked out going through. You spin in place, looking for it at your feet, but all you see is smooth white in all directions. Panicking, you drop to your knees, sweeping your hands through the snow without regard for the cold. You have to find it!
The snow soaks wet through the knees of your pants, and your fingers are so, so cold even with the gloves, and you can’t see anything but the wind throwing snowflakes in your face. How could you be so careless? How could you let the other six down like this? You made it through the barrier, you can’t let your journey end here just because you had a thoughtless moment and lost the knife!
But you can’t find it anywhere. Your hands turn up nothing but snow. Your shoulders shake and your face, though cold, feels tingly. You scrunch up your nose and try to hold back the tears but they fall, blessedly warm, down your face.
“Hello?”
Somehow the voice cuts right through the howl of the wind, and you scramble, twisting around to face it. It’s hard to make anything out through all the falling snow, but someone is approaching. Someone… tall.
The voice calls out to you again. “Hello! I thought I saw someone up here.” They sound, well, like a woman. They sound very much like a woman who is pleasantly surprised to see you. Your fingers uselessly clutch at the snow, and you think about standing up, about not meeting her on your knees, but what’s the point? The knife is gone.
“What are you doing up here?” she asks, getting closer. It’s easier to hear her over the wind now, and easier to see her, too. Tall is an accurate observation, but her presence is so much more than that. Even in the wind, she is ramrod straight. Her long coat (robe? dress?) is pulled by the wind, and it twists and whips around her legs as she approaches you, but does not seem to deter her in the slightest. You can’t really tell if it’s hair or a hat on her head, but you pray it’s a hat. A hat with horn decorations. A hat with a mask that includes huge, sharp teeth, and moves like a mouth when she speaks to you again, “Are you lost?”
You’re frozen, with cold and fear both, you’re trembling on your knees at the feet of a monster who’d dwarf you even if you stood up. Your journey really is going to end right here, not two feet out of the barrier, because you weren’t prepared for the snow and you dropped the knife and—
—No.
You still haven’t gotten to see the sun. You can’t see anything at all in this gray sky, and you won’t accept that. You’re going to see the sun. You’re going to feel warmed up to your fingers and toes, you’re going to see flowers bloom and hear birds sing.
Your hand jerks to the side and your fingers wrap around the handle of the knife like you never dropped it.
You’re filled with determination.