The Network ( Book One of the Grounders Series )

16

How many people can say they started crying with relief as they fell to their deaths, in hell?

Not very many. But I can.

Joss and Rox were just below the three of us when the wind currents caught them perfectly. They spun in midair, suddenly becoming a lot lighter.

It only took a few more moments of free falling for the wind to catch us. We rise as the current hits us and fall slower as if passes on. This happens three more times before we finally hit the water at the bottom of the cliff.

I thrash, feeling as if my lungs will explode if I don't get air into them immediately.

I suck in a strangled breath once I'm above surface.

"We need to get to the banks," Cicada says, holding my arms.

"How?" I say. I my arms and legs thrash in all direction but I can't seem to go anywhere.

Another vision comes to me. There is a large rectangle full of water. People with most of their skin showing jump into the water and...swim. They are swimming through the water.

I try this. I move my arms and legs, this time more precise and in sync. Ripples radiate around me as I move toward the bank at a turtle's pace. I'm moving.

I'm swimming.

In the Network there would've been no need to learn to swim, we don't have any bodies of water anywhere. So where could that vision have come from.

Jonah and the other's catch on quickly and follow me toward the stone beach at the edge of the cavern.

I collapse onto the stone and let myself lay their for some time. My entire body is sore from the bees venom and from the exertion of running, jumping, and now swimming.

I don't remember the exact moment, but at some point I drift off to slumber laying pitifully on the bank like a beached whale.

I wake to Cicada pushing on my shoulder. Her hair is still wet and her face is covered in pockmarks from the bees and plastered with grime and sweat. Her eyes shine brightly like diamonds in the rough.

"We caught a ton of fish with your bow. Turns out this thing is an ocean. Come eat."

I push myself of the ground and stand, stretching my stiff muscles. For the first time that I can remember, I miss my clan, my home, my comfortable bed.

A pile of fish had accumulated in our small encampment. Everyone was sitting around the food, plucking a piece out of the pile, devouring it, tossing the scraps away, and then grabbing a new piece.

I join them, grabbing a silvery, scaly fish and biting into it. The fish we ate in the Network was usually cooked. The Council had said that they occasionally land into our filter vats in Lithana.

This way of eating was much more repulsing. The slippery innards of the fish slid down my throat easily, making my cringe at the feeling.

We'd all gone into some kind of zombie-mode, devouring our food mindlessly while staring off into space. After all we were all starving after almost a day of surviving extreme scenarios.

At some point during our frenzy we all reached down to grab another fish and our knuckles bumped together.

I look down and see that our fish are gone, nothing remains but water scraps.

The Dragon speaks, his voice booming through the cavern.

You have crossed the line, Grounders!