Project Genesis

CHAPTER SIX.

Orion had been silent for a while, the effects of her sudden exertion finally catching up with her. She had finished wrapping Corvus' leg with gauze, securing it with some safety pins that she had found in her bag. He winced as he tried to move his leg, beads of sweat gathered on the surface of his tanned forehead. Orion began to busy herself, putting the remainder of the gauze back into her bag. She looked over the gauze wrapped around Corvus' leg, trying to ignore the black tendrils emerging at the edges of the bandages.

"Um, Orion..." Corvus trailed off but Orion followed his gaze, her eyes widening as she realized what she was staring at.

Orion hadn't really noticed what laid behind them until that moment, but when she did, she recoiled in shock. Expanding before her eyes was a city, or at least what used to be a city. The streets were lined with cars, all abandoned with doors open. The buildings varied, some towering high, others crumbling to the ground. The most unsettling thing of all was the thick layer of dust that seemed to cover just about everything. Everything looked so still, peaceful almost in an eerie way. The fading sunlight reflected off of shards of broken windows casting scattered orange light onto other buildings.

"Looks like people left here in a hurry," Corvus observed. Orion nodded her head slowly in agreement.

"I think we should get down from here," Orion said, regarding the ledge that they were currently situated on. It wasn't very large, only about a two-meter square, but it kept emitting unsettling squeaks and groans every time one of the pair would move.

"How do you plan on doing that?" Corvus had a point, she hadn't thought of how they were supposed to get down from the platform.

The sunlight was almost gone, and in the back of her mind Orion knew this place was going to get a whole lot scarier in the dark.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a rope dangling to the left of the platform. Peering over the ledge she saw that it ran all the way to the base of the wall. It was barely noticeable, tucked away beside the platform, but she noted that it was the only thing not completely coated with dust.

"I think we can make it down if we use this rope, it's probably how the others..." Orion froze.

The others.

When she had looked down she hadn't seen any of them on the ground below; she could feel her momentary lapse of hope caving in quickly. Corvus noticed the expression on her face.

"What?" He tried to move to look over the edge but was stopped by pain radiating through his leg.

"They're not down there," she said, eyes wide.

"Maybe they just went to find some food or shelter, I'm sure we will find them, Orion." He gave her a sympathetic smile of reassurance, but she still felt uneasy.

"Is your leg going to hold out long enough to get down the rope?" Orion questioned warily.

"It's going to have to," he responded, his face grim.

Slowly, they shuffled around so that Corvus could get a hold of the rope. He swung his legs over the ledge tentatively until he was seated with his legs dangling off the platform. Orion sat behind him, watching nervously as he began to put his weight on the rope. He winced, his body weight now being fully supported by his arms as he started to lower himself down the rope. When he was about halfway down the rope, Orion grasped on and began to follow him downwards.

The rope burned her already raw hands, ripping at her skin each time she let it slide through her palms slightly. The pain overwhelmed her senses as she began to quicken her downwards pace. Beneath her, she heard a light thump as Corvus hit the ground, letting out a string of curses as pain shot through his leg.