This Isn't About Reya

Chapter Thirty-Six

Reya awoke on the pine needle floor of the forest. Her head was pounding; she groaned as she pushed herself to her feet. And when she was upright, she felt the blood rush to her head. The pounding intensified, and she fell to her knees again, clutching her temples.

After the pain subsided, she stood again, blinked hard a few times, and looked around. There was a coat on the ground, where she'd been laying. She stared at it for a moment. It looked like Svetlana's...

"Svetlana..." Reya murmured, her headache clouding her memory. Svetlana, Svetlana, Svet...

That's right. Svetlana.

Reya looked around again. There was no sign of Svetlana. She reached down, picked up the coat, and draped it over her right forearm. Then she became aware of the pain in her forearm and looked down at it. She drew her fingers over it gently, cringed where it was sprained, and wrapped the coat loosely around it.

She took a deep breath and looked around the woods again. She had to focus. Svetlana was missing. Reya had tried to find her, to talk to her before Azrael could. To explain things. But Svetlana was gone.

Reya turned towards the clearing in the woods nearby. Svetlana was not there. Which meant only one thing. Reya walked to the center of the clearing and let the snow draw her downwards, into Azrael's true home.

As the cold, wet whiteness enveloped her, she held her breath and closed her eyes. She felt her feet leave the embrace of snow and enter warm, dry air, and immediately, her feet were dry. They reached downwards, searching for the ground as more of her body left the snow. Eventually, they touched the floor. She let her weight fall on her feet, and the snow withdrew. As it left her face, she blinked open her eyes and watched the black geometry of the ceiling seal itself shut once again.

She breathed. Azrael was here. Reya could smell him. Olives and iron.

Reya followed the soft blue glow of the pods in the walls and came into the main chamber. She looked around, but could not see Svetlana nor Azrael. She was about to turn left into the darker antechamber where Azrael and the newborns lived when something to her right caught her eye. Reya turned towards the incubating chambers and inspected the pods more closely.

The fetuses in the pods were larger than yesterday. Reya approached the nearest one and pressed her palm against it. Immediately, it twitched at her presence, but kept its eyes closed. Reya tilted her head at it.

Much, much larger than yesterday.

She stepped back from the pod and turned around, heading back towards the darker antechamber. As she walked, she felt the eyes of the fetuses on her back. She shuddered, pulled her coat tighter around her body, and walked a little faster.

She walked for awhile before finding any of the newborns. The first one was hiding when she noticed it, its body tucked into a nook in the curves and shards of the cavern wall. The newborns' skin was completely black, head-to-toe; the only way Reya noticed this one was because it stared at her with wide, pale white eyes. 

When she noticed it, she stopped in her tracks and stared back at it. Its babyish face was turned slightly downwards so that its eyes stared up at Reya, past its brow. It was completely still. Reya couldn't even hear it breathing. 

She stared back at it for awhile, uneasy but not afraid. She gave a curt wave and a nervous smile, and its massive form skittered away down a thin hallway with impressive agility. Reya took a moment to collect herself before continuing down the hall. 

The deeper into the caverns she walked, the more of the newborns she found. She stopped making eye contact with them after awhile, and instead focused on stepping around the huge metal waves of the floor. But she could always feel them watching her. As more of the newborns became interested in her, they began to group together, sometimes following her deeper into the cavern for awhile. Eventually, they always skittered away, just like the first.