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Note to the Reader
Chapter 5 can be read out of context. It gives the feel of the strange and psychedelically horrifying Volcano world without giving the plot away.
I almost did not finish editing Chapter 5 on time. While I had chapters 1-4 pretty much ready to shoot, this chapter and the ones after require more editing, especially because subsequent chapters have revealed to me details that deserve a place in these earlier chapters.
When I wrote this chapter, the story was still fresh. It was written about half a year ago if not more. This is not the final version I will someday publish as part of the entire finished work. For that reason, some areas and terms are still immature, terms like “Uppers” and “Lowers” for example, I want other names for them but currently cannot think of any.
If you are reading this at the earliest stage, then, first of all, I’d like to sincerely thank you, I do not take it for granted for one second. Secondly, be liberal with your imagination. This world is still in the making.
Chapter 5
Shai grabbed me the second Father left the room. “We need to go.” She said. Her green eyes were stern and resolute.
She knew what a silver slip meant. It meant crime. It meant permanence. Silver slips are made from the toughest material mined in the volcano. They cannot be dissolved or destroyed. An embedded monitoring chip tracks the recipient, delivers the message, and ensures that the slip cannot be used for anything else until its objective is complete. Silver slips that have not completed their duty are tales of mysticism. Despite all that, Shai was adamant about making a run for it.
“You can be sure as hell the Guard is right behind that slip. We need to hurry,” she said, “Getting caught is not an option.”
She tornadoed around the room and packed only what was valuable and necessary in two bags. She did it in a few minutes. I stood frozen in shock the entire time. The Guard was looking for me. A flaming panic spurred in my chest.
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“Follow my lead.” Shai said. We stood naked on the edge of South Lake. The gleaming red mud oozed between my toes. I took a step into the lake and the mud dispersed from them into the clear crimson water. Round pebbles floated forward and back in the mellow ebbing over and around my feet. It began to sting.
“Close your eyes, take hold of my foot, and don’t let go.” Shai said, “We’re going deep under. Deeper than you’ve ever been. You need to trust me, and not let go.”
My heart pounded. Swimming in South Lake is forbidden and dangerous. Mother took me a few times as a child and I was always terrified. She did not care that it was illegal, she also never got caught. She swum there almost every morning. She loved the Lake.
“Mom, I’m not going in!” I remembered the first time she took me, “It’s forbidden!”
“Don’t be scared,” She said calmly, her face flickered on top of Shai’s in my mind for a second, then mother off her clothes and went in. The crimson waters brushed the soft skin around her ankles. My ankles were disjointed and dry, I hated my body. I looked over at the giant claws on the west rim of the lake’s container, as a small girl, they looked to me like the entrance to an endless forest whose purpose was to solely to hide demented monsters and demons, and the lake, well, it hid versions of demons lurking deep underwater, coming up only for flesh and bones, hyper sensitive to the slightest movement of water, like a little girl’s wavering arm slowly skimming the surface -“Jump in!” Mother said as I stared at her blankly through the nightmares that pulled me instantly back… - … slowly skimming the surface, the monsters waiting to sink their gnarly teeth in my skin and numb me with their poison so they could swallow me whole and let me drown in their bellies as their acid disintegrates my bones and….
“Come on Leh! Jump in!” Mother was so jubilant, “What are you afraid of!”
The water became as opaque as metal only a few meters in, I hadn’t had the courage to go in. The forest of endless claws of protruding dark rock surrounding the rim of the lake threatened me from all angles, on the west end of the lake they preceded the formidable stratigraphy of the vertiginous western wall behind them, warning me not to get any closer. They encompassed the entirety of South Lake except the shore from where we entered. South Lake was magnificent in its size, it was the largest known body of water in the Volcano and the lowest lake in the Upper territory, acting as a de-facto barrier between the Upper and Lower Quivo territories.
Quivoens living in the Upper and Lower territories are two different people. I was taught to be afraid of the Lowers, and despite my proximity to them, as my family was of the lowest form of Upper Quivoens, I had never met a Lower. Father’s ancestors came from a wealthy family that had defamed itself at one point in history and all its members were banished to live in the lowest part of the Upper territory. Because they were capable engineers and respected by certain people in high circles, they were given ownership over the only shore of South Lake, so that they could endlessly study and continue their contribution. They were given the territory of the eastern corner. And there they built the only crevice house that has direct access to South Lake. On every other side the south lake container is suspended in mid air and is almost inaccessible, except for one military bridge that connects it to the wall on the Western end.
“Is it safe to swim?” Shai asked as we walked towards it.
“Well,” I said, my heart palpitating, my fingers sweaty, my breathing short. “It’s poisonous.” I blurted. “The water comes from the outside, it is funneled from the ocean and purified of the oceanic acid. Then it is navigated into lake. My father’s family was very involved in all of that. South Lake is one of the most contaminated lakes in Quivo. It is both a barrier of heat and purifier from below, as well as the primary water source for drinking and bathing. The Lake itself is dangerous as the water still has high levels of acid. Without South Lake, life in the crevices would be too hot, uninhabitable. The air in the volcano is naturally hot, and the lower the hotter. It travels upwards in caverns, pushing through small tunnels, usually no more than half a meter in width, and enters the lakes from beneath, and the pressure is immense, enough to keep water from flowing down. So essentially, the holes are too small and the pressure too strong for the water to drip through.
So no, it isn’t fucking safe to swim in! It isn’t like the clean lakes in the upper ‘Cano.
“Well too fucking bad because we have no choice!” Shai said and pulled me in with a force much too powerful for a petite woman.
My face hit the water before I could take one last breath. The acid stung. Tiny needles pierced the skin all over my body and my eyes, the worst was in the eyes. The air vanished from my lungs. I frantically flailed my arms, trying to grasp anything, something in the stinging darkness.
The agonizing pain had wrenched from me the ability to distinguish up from down so that effectively I was experiencing total vertigo. Just as I forcibly accepted my inevitable demise with a burning shot of acid swallowed into my lungs I found a stiff log-like shape and held on to it with dear life. I held onto Shai’s ankle as tightly as I could while the current of the water rushed by me, every new particle of water scorching my skin in a way that spicy pepper burns the tongue, but tenfold more intense and in every cell that came into contact with the water. Quickly I became numb to the pain and started to hallucinate. Silhouettes, eerily similar in their shape, shifted dynamically in the front of my vision. At first they looked like clouds, or shapes shifting in a body of water. Then they started to take form and turned into a thousand demon faces - I use demons for lack of a better word, for whenever I try to recall those faces I cannot see them physically for what they were, they were nothing like the fish-demons I dreamed of as a child, it was something much more terrifying, and while not physical at all, much more real. I would never wish such intense anxiety as they incurred in me on anyone.
“Wake up!” Shai’s spittle landed indiscriminately on different parts of my face. “You can’t be… you can’t get stuck there… you can’t… it’s why you shouldn’t dive….”
“You’re fucking telling me!” I spat.
She sat in deep mud next to me and held her knees to her heaving chest. Red water dripped down her long tanned neck. Wet hair stuck to her forehead.
“How did you get us here?” I asked after I had caught my breath. I was surprised I was alive.
She fixed her hair backward in a swift motion. “Thank god we don’t have to do it again.” she forced a smile.
“Come on,” she reached for my hand, ”We have to get going.”
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Next Chapter 👇
Coming Next Monday! 👻