The Unearthing (Book I of the Tebel Chronicles)

Chapter 2

'You? They're after you? Well, they can have you! You're not worth dying for.' Joel pushed her roughly towards the approaching agent and ran up another side street. Cyan stumbled and fell hard. She could feel the ground growling under her knees and hands as she knelt under the pending storm. Keep moving! Taking a quick look at the approaching agent, she leapt to her feet and bolted down the street in the opposite direction. Why did he want her anyway? She ignored the warning shot he fired. Her lungs were on fire, but she knew she could lose him once she'd crossed the bridge.

Cyan felt it coming before the low rumble rose from deep beneath the earth, heading closer and higher. She could almost feel the anger palpably and recognized it before the shock of realization hit the faces in the nearby cars. The bridge throbbed with soft but increasing intensity under her feet. She now knew the ground had been sending her warnings all day – how could the city have missed it?

Cyan sat up gasping. Scenes from her last minutes before waking in the desert flooded her mind, mingled with the fear of the desert creature attacking her from under the sand. The screams and chaos that had erupted as people fled from their cars to get off the bridge. Cyan had already known it was too late. The New York skyline was pulsating and buildings were starting to topple on either side of the bridge. Skyscrapers had crumbled as if made of sand. All around the hiss and wail of the earth had shattered the stormy night and nearly drowned out the ferocious storm that had been thundering above, throwing its fury in shafts of lightning across the sky. Cyan had almost been able to taste the static in the air. The fear was suddenly fresh as she remembered being jostled towards the rail as people ran past haphazardly, not caring who they trampled along the way.

Cyan looked up at the night's clouds rolling away from the rising sun. The disappointment that they hadn't brought rain was what finally allowed her to take control of her memories and think about her current situation. Her deep thirst was all consuming. Like many memories before, she carefully locked the trauma of what had happened in New York away. Something to process at another stage, along with many, many other things.

Water, shelter, phone, she reminded herself. The sun was already getting higher in the sky. Cyan's head was pounding from no water in two days. She knew she was going to be in trouble if she found nothing by the end of this day. She had no other choice but to head in the same direction that she had taken the previous two nights and pray that she didn't encounter another creature. Cyan walked along the flatter desert. Her headache was fierce. What she wouldn't give for an aspirin or three. She picked up a small pebble to suck on; trying to fool her body into thinking it was getting liquid. But it turned out to be hard sand that fell apart in her mouth, chafing at her tongue as she coughed and spat to get the sand out. She swore out loud. The sound rang out in the desert heat. She swore again, louder. She could almost see Joanna's disapproving glare. Stop! she commanded herself, walking faster to try to escape her own thoughts. That only lasted seconds before she was back to dragging herself through the desert, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other as the sun baked down. She had to stop thinking about it. About them. But her headache was limiting her ability to protect her mind. Joel. Joanna. Joel. Joanna. How had they become the most important adults in her life? How did people like that sleep at night anyway? The anger helped. It propelled her forward and she let her mind fume about the various kids she had known over the years. Kids Joel and Joanna had ruined. Just like her. She even forgot her thirst and headache for precious minutes. She needed to get out of this desert. Thinking about Joel and Joanna would only lead to thinking about her parents. Better left alone.

Cyan started trying to recite half-remembered poems from school to stop these thoughts threatening to betray her. Her vision was blurry and she couldn't think straight anymore. The sun was setting and her eyes were seeing double. There were no clouds tonight and the brightness of the stars hurt. It seemed like there were too many of everything. She lay down pulling her sweater over her head to shut the world out again. She knew she was in trouble. If she didn't find water tomorrow she would die.