Shai Soi

Chapter 36

The room was the size of a dam turbine room. Along each side of the space were arrays of the weirdest looking cells I'd ever seen. Square in shape with domed net mesh over the top and bars that glowed blue around the sides. No inhabited cage was perpendicular with another, making everything seem even bigger and more isolated. In the middle of them was a hole for drainage and along the sides was a trough. Taking a peek in one there were remains of oats. Oats? There were many different species here and the Namuh government thought it best to serve oats? Many of the cells were occupied, but this was a huge room and not that many shai. Were the Namuhi actively looking for more or had they already been filled and emptied? Even still, every animal screeched and roared and trumpeted doing their best to deafen my one good ear.

I tried not to look at the cages, even as Manfred made it his personal duty to bang on every single inhabited cell. If I searched through every single one, he'd call me out for being so suspicious. But I wanted to search immediately for my parents. Thinking that they were trapped in this horrific environment tore my heart in two. My mom was here, suffering from an infection the doctor's didn't want to heal. Sadie was here too. The river's current had started messing with my sense of connection as soon as I stepped through the elevator, but I knew she was alive. Somewhere.

Sam led us down the biggest aisle and turned until we got to a rickety metal staircase that creaked when we climbed it. Milfred went first, holding up one side of the cart and I did the same with the other. I knew where we were going before we reached the top. My sense of connection completely broke when I caught sight of the river. A smaller room than before was filed with the roaring whitecaps of a redirected river. It slammed against the concrete walls, furious with it's containment just like the shai downstairs. We stepped onto a balcony over looking where the water splashed through a small slot in the stone and into a whirlpool far below.

No one else was here as far as I could see. It was only me, Manfred, Sam and the trapped shai in the room below them. I could take out Sam easily enough. Manfred?... I wasn't so sure. Sam had to shout above the noise, "We'll take the vials and dump them here. If the guys upstairs are trying to contain the other beast we might have to wait to really clean them!"

The good thing about our task was that Manfred had to put the gun on saftey and slung it across his back. The bad news was I couldn't feel anything. I didn't know if Nathaniel made it or where my parents were or where Sadie was. It was eating me away inside. I didn't know what else to do. The blood of my peers dripped down my fingers. My vision swam.

"Getting nauseous, Cherry? Never knew you were one to get sick at a little blood," Manfred taunted. 

"This is wrong," I muttered. I dipped my hand in the water and watched it turn red.

"What?" Manfred shouted over the water. He took two vials and held them to the water. I looked through the smiling mask. I couldn't see his face but I imagined it at ease with washing out the blood of the 'beasts' that he abused downstairs. My chest heated. We weren't monsters. We were people just like everybody else. My shara popped. I stomped down my anger.

"Nothing!" I shouted through gritted teeth. Two more minutes. I'd give Nathaniel two more minutes. "Sam, have you secured the rowdy one?"

"Of course. Whoa!" The vial he'd been holding slipped from his slick fingers and disappeared in the whirlpool below.

I got an idea. "Where does this go?"

"The river? I've already told you."

"Uh, I forgot."

Manfred tensed. After a second of indecision where his fingers twitched toward his strap, he put his two vials back in the tray and grabbed another. "You seem to forget a lot nowadays."