The Inkwell presents: A Coat, A Message

A Knighton November

Written by Taylor Savoie

Okay...one little step. One at a time...one foot in front of the ot—

One heavy brown boot punched through the rotting steel. Fingers grabbed for something, anything, clenching over and over as her stomach dropped and she exhaled sharply. Annie's hands clasped around an old railing and her arm yanked taut behind her. She didn't dare breathe. She stared down into the bowels of the hulking monster, helmet lights illuminating only a cloud of big, black nothing. Floor after floor, this hole continued down beyond the reach of her light. Annie turned her head to look up at the ceiling for the first time, only to find that the gaping darkness continued above her as well.

Her other foot had hooked around another small hole in the old floor and now Annie wrenched herself upward, backpedaling from the rusted steel pit on her backside. This had been a mistake.

She had just been seeing things. There was no radar blip, no light. Just a trick of some escaping gas from one of these sleeping beasts of metal. She should leave – she wasn't a scrapper. She didn't belong here.

Annie's fingers clenched inward, the metal of her suit grinding together quietly as she drew in one last deep breath.

No. She pulled herself to her feet and leaned up against the wall.

I know what I saw. Annie gritted her teeth and approached the hole again. Far below, a clang echoed up in the darkness. Had that panel just hit the ground floor now? How big was this boat, anyway? Nevermind the ship...how deep was this hole? She gulped down a nervous mouthful of air and stepped again.

Don't look down, you silly girl. Stop thinking about it and just—

A snapping noise echoed above her. She sucked in a breath and her head darted up to see where the noise had come from. Something banged down hard on the floor above and she heard it begin to roll toward the hole, following the slant of the ship.

Shit, shit, shit!

She shuffled along faster, trying her best to stick to the small section of floor still attached to the outer wall of the hallway. Annie couldn't tell what it was from her quick glance, but she wasn't going to look up again and find out.

She jumped for the far-side edge of the gap with every ounce of strength she had. Her fingers hit the steel flooring just as another loud crash rang out from behind her.

Annie looked down, stifling a scream. It had been a vat of some kind, a long, large metal cylinder, crashing into the ragged edges of the hole on its way down to the bottom. She looked back and realized the perch she'd been standing was sheared off, just as her fingers slipped.

Before she could even scream, her back hit right on the edge of the gap a floor below and knocked the wind out of her lungs. She coughed and sputtered weakly as she heard the rusted floor begin to creak beneath her. She rolled to her side desperately, away from the gap as the floor caved in.

There better be another way out of here. Annie, you stupid girl!

After a few moments of rest, Annie dragged herself to her feet and turned to continue down the hallway. She found herself at another junction deeper in the maze of corridors. Again, all the words on the signs were either illegible or completely rusted away, but the small map on the wall was just as intact as the previous one. She had a little guesswork to do – not knowing for sure where she'd entered to begin with – and now she was a level down from where she'd started, but after a moment she'd concluded she was still heading toward where she'd seen the faint blue light.