The Other

Frigid

The padlock beeped damningly again, its cheerful little tone implying that the code Bien punched in was wrong.

Yet it couldn't be. The code had always worked before.

"Come on," he hissed, typing the code into the luminescent padlock. The lock blinked in dismay and the thick metal door to the lower caverns didn't open.  He tapped the screen in his atmospheric suit, if only to contact someone on the inside—but it was dead.

Maelin's two suns were setting, soon to plunge the moon into a darkness that would last for two weeks. And the coldness that came with it would turn Bien into a flesh-scicle. 

And the creatures that came with it...

Bien gritted his teeth and punched in the code again so hard his finger hurt.

Be-ep be-ep.

"Schaed!!" Bien scooped up a fistful of brown rocks and vaulted them at the door. They clattered to the ground without making so much as a dent. He stared at the closed entrance, the padlock's pale blue light reflecting off its surface in the fading light.

Bien fell to his knees, warmth from Nyen and Ayia fading as night encroached. Eternal cold started seeping through his atmospheric suit, all the way to his dark skin. 

He had heard all the stories; a cold, cold death would be his fate—

Soft, uncanny clicking whispered against his ears; the noise of Night's monsters, who hunted only by sound.

Bien's stomach dropped.

No.

His eyes scoured his surroundings, over boulders and coarse vegetation, over his two shadows, yet he couldn't see a single Ryx. They wouldn't attack until the suns fully set.

And there was that malfunctioning door, refusing to open.

"Think—"

Another door, a half mile away. And Jued usually waited for stragglers there.

Bien glanced at the two setting suns, minutes from disappearing. Then towards the darkening boulders that hid night's monsters.

I'll never make it in time.

But—

Frantically, Bien unshouldered his bag, dumping its contents onto the dusty ground. His oxygenator tumbled, a meal-bar and Ghen's muffins rolled, and—

And a small black bag, a silver drawstring keeping it closed plopped before him.

Bien undid the clasps on his gloves and peeled them off his fingers, revealing dark skin—

Air as cold as death seized his hand.

"Damn you, Neib," he hissed. Then plunged his fingers into the bag.

He withdrew a pinch of black sand as dark as the Eternal Night. Bien glanced at his second shadow—

—And Called his Other forth. The pinch of Darshak between his fingers vanished and his second shadow—Neib—darkened. Became fuller, became alive.

Bien felt his Other's presence in his mind, a soft pressure above his eyes. And Bien hated it.

Gritting his teeth, he Commanded, "go to entrance 7, alert Jued—run."

Neib disconnected from his figure and darted away, faster than any human, its shape distorting across the landscape.

And with shadowed eyes, Bien watched as his last hope for salvation disappeared from sight.

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Contest || Every Day in May: An Interactive Workshop
              - Day 5: Challenge 1

Prompt || Write a scene where a character must contend with the environment of your world

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One of the five winners of Every Day in May challenge 1