RiftBorn - 1
My mind is…empty…and as I open my eyes to stare out into the shadows around me, I know only one thing.
I must survive.
And that means I must move—staying still is a good way to die and the truth is the only thing I know in that moment.
Shaking all over like a spent horse, I force myself to stand up to my full height on the thin ledge, toes hanging over into open space. Shafts of light flow down from above me, dust motes filtering the view. Am I underground?
The scent of sulfur, fresh turned dirt, and my own fear flood my nose, and coat the back of my throat.
That same fear nips up my spine, quickening my breath, flooding my body with the urge to move, even while my body aches with each intake of air. I touch my side in the dark, feeling for something…was I injured?
Where am I? What is this place? Why am I here?
Far below me from the depths of whatever I’ve fallen into, a sound echoes upward. A barking throat tearing howl answered by another, and another.
An image of what they are comes to me, floating through my mind until I see it far clearer than I wish.
The sounds belong to a hybrid creature, a blending of two kinds of pack animals into a true monstrosity that was deadly fast, aggressive and always hungry—but I cannot pull their name from the depths of my empty mind.
“Fuckers,” I whisper under my breath, my voice strange to my ears, husky and low. I blink again, and another round of sharper hunting barks—closer yet—still below me, but closer.
This could not be real. Was I dreaming and this was some sort of lucid nightmare?
It didn’t matter what this place was, or why I was here.
I had to go and that meant…I tipped my head back and looked up. Climbing out.
Turning, I reach up, and search for a handhold.
I dig my fingers into a chunk of stone, and pull myself upward, one hand over the other, jamming my toes into whatever purchase there is available.
The sharp rocks slice at my feet and hands, the grit sliding into the open wounds, grating against the open flesh.
The pain kept me focused, kept the fear of all I didn’t understand at bay.
Survival. You must survive at all costs.
Hand over hand, I climb, pausing only to be sure of what crevice I take hold of next. One loose handhold, one slip and I would be meeting the hybrid creatures face to face, rather than seeing them in my mind.
As I climb, I take stock of myself—as if meeting myself for the first time.
I have no boots or socks on, just a pair of jeans, a shredded tank top, a ring on my ring finger on my left hand that scrapes against the stone every time I grip with that hand. My hair was bound back in a simple low ponytail, the length of it swung long, halfway down to my hips.
What else did I know? My name is…I do not know my name?
My mind wasn’t whirling so much that I thought I’d been hit in the head—there were no spots in my eyes, and I wasn’t nauseous. It was more that whatever lay in my past, whoever I had been, had been…wiped clean.
The light drew me onward and up—beckoning me to leave the darkness behind. A soft cry above. Laughter. Voices.
People. Maybe they were my people? Were they looking for me? Had I fallen in here, and they’d not noticed?
The idea that there was someone waiting for me had me moving faster, ever upward toward a thin band of light. Stones fell behind me. Fingers bleeding, that ache on my left side growing with each breath. A rib broken or fractured if I were to guess.
I breathe past it.
I’m injured. Probably from the fall into this hole.
Hole? Rift? The word feels familiar as my mind offers it up.
The barking and howling from the hybrids far below me has gone silent.
My breath comes in short, measured gasps as the pain of the broken rib makes itself known, sharper, deeper every time I lift my left arm. But that pain is familiar—I know I’ve broken ribs before.
Of all the things to remember—not my name, but the feel of broken bones.
Near the top of the hole, I can find no more handholds and I keep my body flat to the wall, gripping for all I am worth.
The section above me is sheer rock for at least fifteen feet.
There is no way I’m climbing it on my own and I have nothing left to find a way around to an easier ascent. Not with what was waiting behind me.
But those voices above, they are closer.
Are they close enough?
“Someone help me!” I yell, my voice hoarse as though I have been screaming for hours. “Please!”
There is silence as if someone cut the music, then sudden commotion above. Tiny pebbles and sand fall onto my upturned face making me blink and turn my face. Faces that I cannot see details on stare down at me, blocking the sun. But someone was there.
“A girl is in the Rift! Get a rope!”
Girl? I don’t feel that young. But not the time to correct them that I’m a woman. Grown, I’m grown, I know that much.
“Hang on, we’ll get you out!”
The minutes are not long, but they feel like they drag as my muscles tremble, my body flat against the wall, legs and arms in awkward positions mid climb. Sweat runs freely, sliding down my legs, dripping from my chin.
A woman calls down to me.
“How did you fall in the Rift? This seam only opened last night.”
Rift. Seams. The words were familiar but slippery—I needed someone to help me hold onto their meaning.
Before I can muster an answer, a rope is lowered, a loop made in the end of it.
I had to trust that they wouldn’t drop me. I tucked a foot into the loop and tested my weight against it, feeling the rope tighten. It could break. They could let go.
“You got it?”
Breathing hard I let go of one hand hold. Halfway on the rope, halfway clinging to the wall.
“I’m ready.”
“Hang on! We got you!”
Those above pulled and I was forced to let go of the wall. My body spun and I put my hand out to the flat vertical slice of rock, steadying myself. The rope was rough, smelled old, and brittle.
And it was my lifeline. The grind of it as it slid over the top of the Rift, I could feel it vibrate right down to me, as if it were slowly being sawed through. I didn’t think going slow or hurrying was going to help.
I held my breath.
Inch by painfully slow inch, I am pulled the last fifteen feet out of the Rift without the rope breaking. Again, the word Rift tickles something in my mind, but the sensation is gone in a flash, devoured in whatever darkness has taken the rest of my memories.
The light burns my eyes as I crawl out of the earth, as if I have been in the darkness far longer than having only just fallen in.
My knees take the brunt of my crawl out, but I barely feel the rocks jabbing into them, or my palms. Because I am alive.
And a part of me thinks I wasn’t supposed to find a way out of the darkness. No one touches me at first, and for that I am grateful.
Emotions boil under my skin, and it takes all I have in me to keep them in line, to not let them spill over. Relief.
Gratitude.
And a certainty that I should not let the emotions be seen, no matter how much they flood my system, no matter how much I want to sit there and shake with them all.
Do not let them see your weakness.
I swallow it all as hands gently take my arms, helping me sit up. I am still on my knees, the open Rift just behind me, blinking up into the faces of my rescuers. Two of them are crouched next to me, men, both muscled as if hard labor was a daily event for them.
But otherwise, they were complete opposites from height to hair color, to face shape.
The bigger of the two men was round faced, with pale skin and flaming bright red hair that stood up all over as if he’d kissed a bit of lightning, freckles covered his face so heavily he looked like he’d been splattered with mud.
His friend was shorter, with long black hair braided on either side of his head, beads in the end of each braid, his face was all sharp angles—where Red’s muscles were big, bulky, Braided Guy was leaner and wiry.
They could have been green skinned with purple hair for all I cared in that moment. I tipped my head to them, and touched my four fingers to my chin, a gesture I didn’t understand but knew. “Thank you.”
“What the ever loving…what happened that you got down there without going by our camp? Without us seeing you?” Red stood and offered me a hand. I took it and wobbled upright, bare feet clenching on the cool earth, the grass a reminder that I was out of the hole.
“I don’t know. I…I woke up there.” I put a hand to my head, looking for a bump, an injury beyond the ribs that were damaged. “I’m not from here? I thought maybe you were my people.”
You don’t have people anymore. Five words floating from the depths of my own mind and still they cut through me like a slap to the face. I wrapped my arms around my middle, shocked at the wave of grief that threatened to flatten me. But I couldn’t give into it, not here.
Braided Guy shook his head, his eyes narrowed on me. “No you aren’t from our camp. Nobody here but us and a few other families. You are not one of us.”
I nodded and turned to look at the Rift being careful not to show how hurt I was—hide your injuries. Three words that echoed through my head, in a voice I was sure was not my own.
I took a step to the side, stones biting into my bare feet as I moved closer to the opening, away from the soft grass.
The Rift was easily twenty feet across, and stretched thirty-five or more feet in either direction, curled like the lips of a madman. Laughing up at the rest of the world. The soil around the edges of it were black, as if the opening had burned its way through the earth.
“Don’t get too close, sometimes the edges slough.” The red-haired fellow touched my elbow, as if he’d grab me quick if indeed the earth tried to swallow me up. Again.
I dug my toes into the charred ground. Uncertainty, and a healthy amount of fear roiling through me.
Fear could be channeled, I knew that much. The uncertainty felt…new to me.