A/N I'm so sorry for such a long wait. I've been preoccupied with other things. Hopefully I'll be able to update a bit quicker from now on.
.oOo.
This chapter is dedicated to Miranda, a friend loyal and true.
I plop down in one of the two seats in the small space, while Ever takes the other and started fiddling with the glowing buttons on the giant console in front of us. A glass dome stretches in front of me. I can barely see the sand dunes through the darkness. “Do you even know how to drive one of these?” I ask as she continues to press the buttons haphazardly. Heavy footsteps against metal ring out from the other side of the hatch. Ever turns to look at me with wide eyes, her hands still flying over the controls. “Hurry up and help me find the right one!” My hands join hers in slapping glowing switches. “None of these work!” I stand up and move towards the hatch, levers lining the curved wall beside it. There’s banging against the door as I pull down one, two, three, four levers. An alarm blares from the other side and the clang of metal colliding with metal follows.
I hardly have time to throw myself into my seat when the sub suddenly lurches forward. A hatch slides open on the control board and some joystick thing (the one you find on old game machines) extends in front of me and Ever. This shouldn’t be too hard, I think as I take the joystick, it’ll be just like playing Pac-Man in the old arcade. Except, I could actually die. Yeah, should be a piece of metaphorical cake. I look over at Ever, who’s already steering with hers, veering sharply to the side to dodge some boulders. The sudden motion throws me against the left wall, my shoulder cracking against it.
“Can’t you be at least a bit gentler?”
“A bit gentler and we would’ve crashed.”
“According to you, everything will kill us.” I mumble.
“It’s better to believe everything is dangerous than to find out later that it’s true. So shut up and put on your seatbelt.”
“There is no seatbelt.” I deadpan. Ever reaches across me and pushes a tiny glowing symbol of a belt. Sure enough, a thick seatbelt shoots its way across my chest, pinning me to my seat. She settles back into her chair and presses the same button. We cruise for a few minutes, only the whirring of propellers filling the uncomfortable silence. I think back on our little “escape”, if only to distract me from Ever’s stoic quietness. It seemed too easy to escape from there. I would think they would have a stronger security system for something at the bottom of the ocean. And there’s also that guy that freaked Ever out… “Say, who was that boy who was chasing us? Charles?” I hear her sharply inhale. She doesn’t make a sound for several minutes. I start to forget about the question when she finally speaks. “Chase. His name was-is-Chase.” I wait for more, pursing my lips and leaning towards her as much as my seatbelt allows, which isn’t much. “And?” Ever gives a sidelong glance at me and raises a silvery eyebrow. “And what? We were roommates and we tried to escape together. But obviously we failed, so I was thrown back in a cell and he was supposed to be killed. The end.” You could practically hear her scowl.
She directs her gaze back out the window, but I can tell she’s not focusing ahead. She has that far-off look in her eyes, the one Alexa had when she was deep thinking. I wrap my fingers around the joystick and stare ahead. Someone has to make sure we don’t die in our first hour of freedom.
.oOo.
We finally surfaced at this tiny secluded cove around dawn. The ride took a few hours, at least. I’m sure it would’ve been shorter if we went into open water so we wouldn’t have to waste time dodging rocks, but no, Everstorm would find us and kill us. Ever’s paranoia is getting a bit extreme, in my opinion. It dimmed some when she saw the sunrise. I don’t blame her, though. I think I forgot what real sunlight looked like down there. Ever immediately “scouted”, as she called it, after a full ten minutes of watching the sun, as if they were waiting for us. As for me, I was just glad to be out of that metal death tank.
