Gods Under The Dome

13.1

《Flight》

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"Hey--"

Tujo stumbles at the sudden sound of my voice as it cuts through the hum of overhead police drones. His foot catches on a pile of brick and splintered wood, which by the lacquer and ornate marks seems to have been the hall's door frame. I topple with him, though I manage to put an arm out and stop us both from falling and face planting on the edge of an upturned pillar.

He blinks and gives his shirt a good tug as he composes himself, mindful to avoid looking at me. As if I were an abomination...or Marava.

"W-what?" Embarrassment crawls up his neck and his cheeks until the whole of him looks like he'd been roasted over an open spit.

My stomach gurgles. I cup my mouth as my body, disobeying the orders I'm screaming at it for this is neither the time nor place, lurches. Bile and that morning's brown slop shoots up my throat. Tujo watches on with wide-eyed and arched brows.

"Mind if we stop?"

Pushing away from him, I lean against one of the several tables that had been strewn about the patio of the Hall where earlier, a flock of wannabe Dove spies stood chittering away, trading secrets and incriminating evidence, doing god's work.

Blood smears the cracked concrete now. Pock marks gouge the ground as though a hundred hammers had been slammed into the slabs. The sickening feeling comes back in waves. I'd hoped no innocents would be caught in the blast. Looked as though that was more idiotic, wishful thinking.

I'd become an amalgam of Lilly's optimism and hope steeped in Tujo's inability to grasp the levity of any given situation. Great. What would I inherit next? Quint's passiveness? Sin's tight lips? Marava's perpetual grimace and hate-coated soul? Perhaps I could gain her unparalleled talent to swaddle a grown man with bed sheets.

"You don't look so good." Lilly's voice, and the concern woven through her words, breaks me free of my thoughts. When her face comes into view, eyes as big as the recreated moon, blink back tears. Her lower lip trembles. "You look--"

Puke spews out of my mouth like a garden hose on full blast, and splatters onto the ground, across the table. Got to give props to Lilly. She's as spry as her build would lead one to believe and, with an abrupt jerk backward, manages to steer clear of my vesuvian eruption of vomit.

A thick mass of half-digested potato, which I'd been so reluctant to shove into my stomach in the first place, slinks down one of the table's fancy, iron-wrought legs.

Tujo covers his mouth. "Ugh, that was--"

"--disgusting," Marava finishes.

I drag my sleeve across my lips. "Sorry. I guess I just loved this morning's breakfast so much, I wanted to taste it again, but with that extra seasoning only stomach acid can provide."

In typical Marava fashion, she lances me with a scowl. Her mouth opens, and as some snide remark brews on her tongue, the overhead speaker blares to life. The Sector's soundtrack of cicadas quiets as the robotic voice blasts us with commands.

People of Sector 6b - Maintain calm. Return to your homes in an orderly fashion. Sect Police have been notified and have been dispatched to investigate the disturbance.

If only the pre-recorded voice had been played after the live feed cameras were checked, the overseers sitting in their plush-backed chairs at Center Sect would have seen that most citizens had already gone home. That a dozen or so in the Community Hall had been commanded to vacate by their benevolent leader so no one could witness his callousness as he watched a young girl bleed out on the floor.