The Ever Lord: Sen Runs

“Sen?”

Sixty three, sixty-four, sixty five…

Sen of House Yebidesh, filial to House Hyan, burst into a sprint through the dark corridors of the underground bunker, his tiny bag tightly strapped to his back. Footfalls echoed like bullets, ricocheting through the metal halls and back to his ears. Stealth didn’t matter now; speed was what counted. If he was lucky, he would reach the other end of the hallway in time. He wouldn’t have to use the ChillPatch.

“Ho there, slow down! What’s going on?”

Frantically, Sen dodged the grasping hand. It wasn’t there. He kept moving, closing his eyes to the darkness, counting to himself in his head.

Without warning, his left leg, tired and worn from exertion, refused to clear the small lip through the central hatch.

Sen fell.

Seventy-five.

Without even sparing the effort to curse himself, Sen rolled to the side, pushing himself hard against the wall, his sore face pressing hard against the sharp metal. He struggled to breathe steadily and quietly as his left arm wormed its way between the wall and his chest to break the small ChillPatch over his heart.

“Sen, what are you doing?”

Deep in his bones, Sen writhed. He didn’t want to do it. He hated the ChillPatch. His mind screamed at him not to do it. His fingers caressed the small plastic square for a split second before he felt it snap under the pressure.

The world began to spin. Sen desperately clung to the wall with his fingertips, pressing himself against it as hard as he could. He felt his body slide up and down the wall as a thick chill spread through his veins.

“It’s a powerful anesthetic,” Madam Garimar set the stiff cloth down on the table. “It numbs the nerves and lowers the body’s temperature to keep diseases at bay. It has several hallucinogenic side effects on conscious subjects, so make sure your patients are sedated. Sen, are you paying attention?”

Sen was trying to pay attention, but it was hard to focus. Was he holding onto the wall or the floor? Who was speaking to him? The whispering was distracting. What was he doing? How was he still alive?

The count. The count was keeping him alive.

Seventy-seven. Seventy-eight.

Through the icy haze that gripped his mind and wracked his body with pain, Sen continued counting, his eyes pressed tightly closed as he sank deeper to the wall.

Eighty. Sen began to panic. Eighty was the number — the evil number! He was afraid of that number. Why? Nothing was happening. Had he miscounted? Had he died at last?

Eighty-two. Eighty-three…

He felt it before he heard it, a heartbeat not his own. The hairs on the back of his neck vibrated like tuning forks, scratching and picking at his skull. The metal wall vibrated with a slow rhythm as the heavy thudding pulse rippled through the air. The steady beat grew louder, closer, pushing Sen deeper and deeper into the wall until he felt the metal close over his head.

Sen struggled to hold in a cough. Now stealth mattered: errant air movements, body temperature, sounds, anything could give away his hiding place. He had seven seconds before the heartbeat would be out of range completely. Body temperature. He was so cold. Colder than a human body. As cold as the dead metal wall.

Eighty-nine. The marching heartbeat was outside the wall, now, moving down the hallway towards him, past him, away from him.

There was silence once more.

Ninety-seven, ninety-eight…

“Sen, stop crouching there and hurry up! We have triage to take care of!”

His muscles didn’t move. He needed to move, or else he would freeze to death. So cold. He focused on his fingers and struggled to open them, to release his clenched fists.

He couldn’t feel his fingers. His hands were gone. His legs, gone. He was a hollow shell, bodiless and lifeless. Were his limbs moving? Slowly, the wall released its embrace and he fell away, struggling to lift his torso from the frozen floor and run, run, run!

“A good ChillPatch will last you several hours at least.” Madam Garimar’s tone was smooth and calm. Educational. Was there an antidote? Another patch? Should he set the opposing temperatures loose in his body in a war of dawn and dusk, of fire and ice, deciding whether he would live or die?

He looked up. He was moving. How was he walking? Were his limbs moving?

To anyone else, the passageways all would have looked the same in the dim light, with only a random scorch mark or crumbled wall to provide any landmark. To Sen, every crack was a road sign. He had kept himself alive for two months in the bunker, learning the routes the monsters took and how best to avoid them. There were three of the monsters; enough to take out a whole battalion.

Sen fell to the right.

“Wrong way, sawbones; the Hospital is to the left.”

Once he had almost walked straight into a monster’s path when he lost the count. This time, he kept the count and held onto the wall as carefully as he could, trying to ignore the strange sounds and voices in his ears.

“Sen! By his Blood, help me! Please!”

He focused on the ground, gritting his teeth against the sounds of screams, and the sight of boiling flesh. He could barely move. He was running down the spinning halls. He fell to the side and stopped short next to a broken doorway. He pressed his head against the door, breathing hard.

“Hey, Sen,”

Sen looked into the eyes of Madam Garimar.

“You’re dead,” he said. His hands cracked and shattered to the floor.

“Don’t be silly,” Garimar smiled, her mouth crinkling along with her eyes. “Now come along. This is your first day at Hagath-Min, isn’t it? It’s important to make a good impression for the Captains. They love punctuality.”

A hand flew out and opened the door. Sen’s hand? He had no hands. He fell across the hall to a small vent. He tore off the loose wire covering and crawled inside, his small bag catching and pulling on the edge. He twisted himself around and pulled the vent cover closed with a loud bang.

He began to breathe again. His fingers his fingers gripped the vent as he counted between his breaths, forcing himself to match a five-count with each inhale and exhale. When at last the sound of metal boots faded into the distance, someone’s fingers let go of the cover.

A good Chillpatch could last you an hour.

It was three yards from the vent to the closet. Three yards of cramped and painful crawling.

At last, Sen fell through the other end of the vent and collapsed on the small pile of rags in the corner. The closet wasn’t much bigger than the vent, just barely large enough for a person, but if anywhere in the Bunker could be safe, the closet was safe. The door was worthless, sealed shut from an explosion. A small pile of torn and rotten blankets were Sen’s bed, that he could only fit in by curling up into a tight ball. His only other possessions — a small medical kit and two sealed ration packets — were stuffed in a small stack in the corner. There was no room for anything else.

It was the closest thing he had to a home.

How long did he lie there? An hour at least. His hands returned to him. His heart beat hateful burning warmth through his chest. He was alive. The pain was real. Here was now.

Sen pulled the bag out of the vent and opened it, spilling the small handful of sealed rations out and over the other two. There. That would be enough for another week, if he stayed hungry. There was little left for him to do now but stare at the ceiling and struggle to stay awake.

“Yebidesh?” There was a knock on the closet door. “Field-Medic Yebidesh, are you in there?”

Sen closed his eyes tight. He recognized the voice as Capitan Weggham, head of the medical division.

“The General is screaming blue fire for you. You haven’t been repairing the troops. We need you in the Hospital wing, now.”

There were SleepPatches, of course, but he had to ration them. They were almost more valuable than the food. Sen slept a lot; the cold air and low rations made lowering his metabolism a priority, and sleep was the most efficient way to do that.

The problem was the dreams. However terrible the Bunker was, it wasn’t nearly as terrible as what he saw when he slept.

The SleepPatches gave him dreamless sleep. Without them, he saw flames. He heard screaming and felt blood pour down his arms. He saw old friends melt away in yellowing light…

“Field-Medic Yebidesh, get out of that closet right now! Your House needs you!”

“I can’t open the door,” Sen whispered.

“Yes you damn well can! Get out of there now! There are soldiers dying out here!”

“The door is broken,” Sen’s voice cracked. “There is no hallway anymore. It collapsed from a high-explosive grenade.” Sen squeezed his eyes tighter. “They cut us off from each other. You’re not outside. You’re dead.”

Mercifully, there was no answer.