Opening Moments of Extinguished Sun.. or something like that.

So I'm feeling up to sharing!!  8,000 words deep and I'm intrigued!  Thought I might do a little sharing... at least of the opening... 

Sorry for the wonky formatting...

They said it would take longer for it to happen.  Thousands of years, in fact.  But I vividly remember the day it went red.  The moment the orange faded to a deep, dark abyss.  It looked like blood at first, a swirling pool of death in a star-splattered sky.  Like an oozing wound, releasing its final breath of life in a single moment, plunging our entire world into chaos…

Thane

“Don’t look down,” her fearless glee sounds fuzzy through the mask.  It’s a red day.  All of the streets are blanketed in a foreboding ruby hue.  The red color streaming down from the Dome’s artificial lights indicates the air quality.  Right now, masks aren’t optional.  Two minutes.  That’s how long we’d survive without them.

I place my foot deliberately upon the plank of wood, keeping my eyes glued to the red stained makeshift bridge that stretches across the empty expanse between the two buildings.  I don’t dare glance below me; all I’ll find is emptiness, then forty feet below: solid ground.

“Come on, princess,” she snorts, her voice a shivering bass stifled by the mechanics of the life source strapped to her face. 

I ignore her and slowly inch my arms up for balance, wavering briefly before regaining my confidence on the board.  If the distance between buildings had only been a foot shorter I would have jumped across.  Of course she knows this, but it doesn’t make taunting me any less entertaining. 

My next step is wider; I manage to make it half way across the plank when I feel it sag underneath my weight.  My heart quickens and I accomplish my third and fourth step in an unbalanced haste, then jump down beside her, my solid boots slamming upon what once was some type of shrubbery.  Now its decaying body is nothing more than a blackened stain upon an empty home. 

I heave the plank up from the ledge and drop it onto my shoulder after taking a glance down at the empty space I’ve just successfully crossed over.  There’s nothing below us except for the ground, red in the light of the day’s color.  Some empty containers scoot along the floor, inching across the lifeless decay that litters all of the streets in the Dome. 

“So, you want to carry it?”  My voice reaches a congealed scratchy depth that makes it almost impossible to understand me, but I know she’s heard, regardless of the fact that she’s moved on without even acknowledging my words.

The next ledge is the last, and thankfully short enough to jump.  I place my piece down upon the gravelly ledge and slide it out over the open space until it collides with the building on the other side.  Then I take three carefully measured steps backward and begin my running start before I can ponder over the broken space I’m about to thrust myself across with no restraints.  But the fear never seeps in long enough to affect my leap, and my feet are firmly planted upon the roof in the five or so seconds it takes for Nitra to make it across the board. 

I can barely hear her mechanical utterance of “show off.”  We leave the plank where it is, already in place for our return trip, and she falls into step behind me as I move soundlessly to the barely visible boarded up entrance fifteen feet ahead of us.

I bend low and slide my fingers along the boards until they slip into the catch; I lift with all my strength and Nitra catches the ricochet before the lid slams to the floor.  She slowly places the piece down and I catch the muffled sounds of a conversation far below.

My finger collides with where my lips would be as a precaution and Nitra nods in assent.  No one should be here.  The next delivery is supposed to be in six days; this was supposed to be intelligence gathering: names, dates, quantities and times.  A complication this early on unsettles me.

I drop my feet into the empty space and place my hands on either side of the void, then I lower myself in.  My feet silently stop on the nearest beige file cabinet and I step carefully down, placing my feet upon the floor gradually, heel to toe, purposefully slow and gentle. 

The room is empty save for the cabinets encircling us.  The door on the opposite side of the room is closed, but in the crack, where we normally find blackness, there’s a faint pulsating yellow glow that flickers in and out of view.

Nitra’s down the hole and at my side as soon as I reach the door, her small feet making not a single sound against the floor.  I place my hands upon the ground; the thick carpet is grimy against my fingertips and likely hasn’t been maintained since the sun died.  Like all the other buildings on any part of the Surface, Dead or Domed, this one has been a long time out of maintenance.    I work my way slowly forward and get in close to the crack, still incapable of deciphering any of the words the unlikely visitors are exchanging.  It doesn’t help that the unknown persons have their masks on, forcing their masculine tremors incomprehensibly deeper. 

I place my ear to the crack under the door and the square face of my mask presses against the nasty carpet; I’m forced to inhale the years-worth of excrement that’s built up since the building’s abandonment.   I choke down the cough in silent misery. 

“Well, what are we supposed to do?”  Tone is lost to the mechanical workings of the breathing apparatus, but his ferocity is clear in the hastiness of his speech. 

“There’s nothing to do but wait for the next shipment.” 

There’s an angry slam as something collides with the wall, “I don’t have the liberty to wait two weeks.  I need next week’s shipment.  Now.” 

“There’s nothing we can do about it.  They’ve found a way to cut off shipments at the source. The Dorobo are getting more resourceful.”  There’s a sharp intake of breath, what sounds like an out of tune accordion, and I shoot my head up to send Nitra a frantic shake of my head, my finger again moves to my face to silence her.

But it’s too late. 

“Did you hear that?”  Bellows conspicuously from the room next door and I’m on my feet and sprinting carelessly up the cabinets in the time it takes the cartridge dealers to throw open the door.  They burst into the room, guns raised, shots firing without question, bullets ricocheting against walls and whizzing audibly past my ears.  But we’re already on the move and out of the hatch, breathlessly navigating our escape route across building tops. 

I don’t hesitate, I don’t think once, I don’t calculate, I don’t consider the splattering death that awaits me if I misstep even by an inch. 

We’re rooftops away when I realize no one’s followed.  The bullets have ceased and the sounds of heavy footfalls have faded away.  I turn back and find Nitra’s right on my heels, then I see the dark outline of two stationary figures, the only part of my environment not drowned out in a blood red light. 

They’ve stopped, a few buildings back from us.  “Filthy Dorobo!”  The man’s scream barely reaches my ears, “Next time I catch your rotten mask I’m piercing your brain with a bullet!” 

I flip my middle finger into the air without care for the consequences and watch his right arm rise from his side, then I hear one final shot exit his weapon; I throw my body out and pull Nitra down with me, not a consideration for the impact of the solid cement against our bones.  The bullet wizzes over our heads, missing by mere inches, and we’re back on our feet in half a second, resuming our sprint across the rooftops. 

It’s become habit now.  We’ve made this same trip more often than we can count.  It’s like maneuvering the back of my own palm, every movement, crease and scar is engrained in my brain.

Then, I fall. 

Nitra

Thane’s hit the ground.  Hard.  I can hear the slap of his skin against the pavement, the crack of cartilage and flesh snapping at the force of his collision.

“You okay?”  I hastily bend at the knees so I’m at his level; he rolls over and looks up at me, a low groan escaping through the crisscross cuts in his mask.  My fingers slide across the front casing, revealing his O2 cartridge-it’s a natural reaction whenever someone falls. 

“Thirty-two,” I mutter assuredly.  It’s not a lot of Oxygen, but it’s also not too depleted to have affected his gross motor abilities or balance.

“Must have been a rock,” he laughs at himself and my lips relax the frown that had cut itself into my cheeks.  I breathe another sigh as he heaves himself up into a sitting position, his arm strewn out lazily on his knee. “Way to give us up.”  He’s not angry, even though I can’t remotely gauge his tone through the mask.  No, we both know he enjoys the thrill almost as much as me. 

“Sorry.”  I begrudgingly mumble; a creepy crawly discomfort slips through me, “I just don’t get it.  They can’t believe we took it.  A whole delivery’s worth.  We don’t even take enough of their stock for them to notice anything’s missing.”

He nods, “I know, I was thinking the same thing.”  He stops talking briefly and I can tell there’s more to the situation than he’s letting on.  If only I could see his lips through the mask, then I’d know exactly what he was thinking; just the way his mouth moves around his face paints a clear picture of his thoughts, the creases in his cheeks and contortion of his lips.   “We’re almost out.”  His voice is practically inaudible, whispers are the most difficult to decipher.  But I know exactly what he’s saying.

Without next week’s planned acquisition, we’re completely screwed.

“What should we do?”  I’ve sprawled my legs out on the empty gray concrete roof and relaxed a little, now that no bullets are flying past my face and deafening my already damaged ear drums.

“We’ll need a new plan if we’re going to make it through the month,” he mutters.

But we both know that the two of us will be fine, no matter what.  We will always have enough.  As long as we’re a part of the Dorobo, as long as we are the most successful acquisition team, we’re at the top of the list for new cartridges.  It’s everyone else we need to worry about-his brother among them.  The fragile boy who can barely fend for himself.

“We better get back,” I say, pushing myself back to my feet at the thought of Lium.  He’s the reason we both do what we do.  He’s like my brother now too.  I extend my hand out to Thane but he refuses the help. 

A horn sounds thrice through the air, bouncing around the Dome and penetrating every ear in the Dome on the Surface.  The rosy hue fades out, a deep orange swimming across what once was the horizon.  It’s almost like a sun rise, a phenomenon so long taken for granted.  Sometimes I think the day color system was created to simulate the sun, at least a little bit. 

“First sign of good news.”  I can almost hear his smile at the change in air quality. 

Orange.  That means ten minutes.  That’s how long we’d survive without a mask.