Gram Alder's Arc

Chapter 11 of 11

The void swallowed Gram whole. He landed on smooth black ground and stood in a place with no sky. The floor curved up around him like the inside of a great dark ball. It drank the light off his skin. Ahead, Soph stopped walking. She stared at a shape at the far edge of the black. "That's her," Soph said. Her voice went flat. "That's my sister." Gram looked. The shape stood on two legs, but it was no woman now. Its skin was black and wet, like spilled ink that never dried. Long arms hung past its knees. Claws curled from thin fingers. One eye glowed yellow in a narrow head. It turned toward them and its silhouette rippled, as if it had no fixed edge. This was the thing three years in the void had made of Soph's sister. "Stay back," Gram said. He put himself between Soph and the creature. He had no rifle. No fire. No plan. He had come through the door with empty hands to face a thing that had already broken one person whole. The ink walker crept closer. Its clawed feet made no sound. Gram knew this posture. He had seen it in the tiger the first night at her den. Not a charge. A test. The creature did not know if he was food or threat. Soph drew her knife. "Move, Gram. I'll do it." "No." He caught her wrist. "You put steel in it, it stops being her forever." He let go of Soph. He knelt on the black floor. He turned his palm up and held it out, low, the way he had for the cubs. His heart slammed. But his hand stayed still. He had spent two months teaching one wild thing that an open hand meant no harm. He gambled that some part of this one still remembered a hand. "Easy," Gram said. Soft. Slow. "We came for you. Nobody's hunting you." The ink walker froze. Its yellow eye fixed on his open palm. It leaned down. Cold breath washed over his fingers. Its head lowered, and its wet brow touched his hand. It did not bite. "Mei," Soph breathed. She dropped to her knees beside Gram. "It's me." The creature turned its narrow head toward Soph's voice. Something in the yellow eye shifted. It made a low sound, almost human. "We have to move," Gram said. "The moon's turning. The door seals." He rose slow, palm still out. "Come. Both of you. Now." The ink walker followed his open hand. It walked between them toward the seam of red light where they had entered. Soph stumbled after, wet-eyed, gripping her sister's black arm. Gram had come with nothing and reached the thing that broke a person. Behind them, the void trembled. The red light thinned. They had one path out, and it was closing.