Sheets of Empty Air

Story by Ryan Cheng

| SPRING 2021 ISSUE | PROSE

Everything is fine. Gala’s boots pounded against the rusted iron of the walkway. Dim fluorescent lights flickered on the ceiling overhead, illuminating a river of dark sludge flowing below her at the bottom of the chamber. The walkway was set in a giant iron pipe filled with the stench of something fouler than human excrement and a humidity she never really got used to.

Things are going according to plan. She leapt down a flight of stairs, knees spitting profanities at her as she slammed down on the floor in a crouch. The screech-roar of some insectoid monstrosity echoed behind her, followed by the sound of tearing metal, probably the steel airlock designed to keep insectoid monstrosities like this out.

She reached the end of the tunnel and found the second airlock already ajar. Gala thanked her carelessness as she slipped into the doorway and hauled it grating shut behind her. She was at the bottom of a narrow shaft, maybe thirty feet deep with iron rungs built into the sides.

“Did you find out what was wrong with the pipes? Was it the pressure?” echoed Quorp’s voice from above. 

“Bug. Large bug. Run,” she gasped out between breaths. She began climbing the ladder, scrabbling with slick fingers against slick iron bars like a rabid animal.

“What? What do you mean? It wasn’t the pressure?” he whined. 

Shut up! Rats and iron, shut up! 

“As the town representative, I have a duty to-” The creature screeched again, ear-piercingly loud even on this side of the airlock.

“Run!” she screamed at him before scrambling upward with renewed vigor. 

Please, don’t run. Sit and wait for that monster to come and eat you. He died protecting me, I’d say to the townsfolk. A hero, an inspiration to us all. The creature began slamming the airlock, shaking the walls with each strike. Gala reached the last rung and scrambled over the edge to the next room. She staggered down an orchard of thick metal cylinders that loomed over her like the obelisks of some forgotten race of giants, capped by thick bolts with ladders stretching to the top of each. A memory flickered in her mind—one of a small, abandoned child, wandering a room like this, filled with steam and the sound of bubbling echoing from deep below. 

The ripping sound of an airlock being torn in two jolted her back as she ran down the aisle and winced as the creature’s cry battered her eardrums, legs burning in protest as she pushed them to go faster.

Why did I sign up for this, anyways? What possessed me to go out of my way to carry out a risky job for this wretched, miserable town for a commission lower than what I spend in three days? 

“The pipes must run, the water must flow for the people of Britain.” The mantra sprang up unbidden in her head, and she muttered the words subconsciously under her breath.

A series of loud bangs behind her interrupted her thoughts. Was the creature already up the shaft? That was fine. There was no way anything short of a mining drill was getting through the next airlock. She reached the end of the chamber, skidded to a halt at the door. And laughed.

The airlock was sealed. The wheel for unlocking it lay hacked off on the floor, and Gala could guess by who. Quorp was nowhere to be found.

Brekken void. That’s how it was in these empty, middle-of-nowhere wasteland towns. People died, and the only thing you could do was try not to join them.

Gala crouched down behind a pillar as the creature entered the room, trying to stifle her breath as she heard the scraping of its claws against the iron. She could smell it now, stinking of low chamber muck as its footsteps quieted to a soft click. A sound like pancakes hitting a frying pan followed. The footsteps came closer, closer, and Gala slid around the pillar as they passed her and faded to the end of the chamber. Globs of acid-green slime as wide as plates lay splattered on the floor where it passed, hissing and bubbling and steaming. Gala dug out a gear from her pocket and tossed it in, watched it lose its shape as it sank in. The footsteps began to return, and Gala once again slid around the pillar to the other side, finding herself face to face with the insect.

That’s how it was in these empty, middle-of-nowhere wasteland towns. People died, and the only thing you could do was try not to join them.

She squeaked and ran back as it roared at her from point-blank range, echoing across the chamber. She ducked around another pillar and the creature followed, colliding into another pillar with a crash that shook the floor before coming after her again.

Everything is fine. She leapt over a gob of slime, the heat of its steam soaking into her legs as the creature slammed into another pillar behind her. 

As long as I keep running till the stars fall from the sky. She wheeled around a corner, pushed with both hands off of a pillar, hissed as the hot iron seared her palms, mouth stinging as she sucked in acid fumes from the steam. She leapt over another clump of slime and another, legs sending her death threats as she forced them to jump once again to a dry spot she could barely see for the steam rising up in great white sheets in front of her; she pushed her hand against the side of a pillar, felt something burning and fwipped it off to find green slime dripping down from her fingers, gritted her teeth and wiped it off on her pants as she ducked around the next pillar, panting. The pillars swayed like pendulums, the ground rippled in front of her like a mirage. The pressure in her head rose and throbbed as she drew in more fumes with another breath.

Is this how you want it to end? Scampering around like a trapped rat in a maze until that monster runs you to the ground? Her thoughts pushed through the piled-up muck in her mind as she ran again. The creature roared at the edge of her consciousness. 

Her breath burned. Her hand stung. She stumbled through the slime, boots hissing like the floor was a frying pan. Her thoughts slowed, her brain filled with sewage. But she pushed on, forced her mind to push on even as it grew fuzzy and muddled by the acid vapor in the steam. 

Steam.

Ah. 

Gala held back a delirious grin. Brekken void, this is the stupidest idea I’ve ever had. The creature crashed into something somewhere behind her, and somehow she squeezed enough energy from her dying legs to make one final sprint. She took a quick glance back to see nothing but white fog, turned to the nearest set of rungs and snuck up the pillar, swaying and dizzy but putting hand over slick hand all the same. She lay flat at the top with bated breath, metal hot and trembling against her skin, the sound of bubbling faint beneath her ear as she pressed it flat to the top of the silo. The creature passed her. She couldn’t see it through the steam, but she heard the bang of its body against a pillar and the pathetic squeal that followed. 

It worked. She broke into a peal of silent hysterics. It worked. Is that all I had to do? Climb up a ladder and wait?

She sat there, mind in a haze, as the creature rampaged about below. So what now? I could wait for Quorp to have a change of heart and come back for me. But that’s not happening. Let’s just get out of this steam first. She lurched to her feet and watched the pillars sway in front of her like they were floating on some unseen surface. After a breath she hopped to the pillar next to her, flapped her arms to keep her balance, jumped to the next pillar, tottered on the edge for a moment before reeling back to safety. A wave of nausea washed over her, and she stood tense and still, waiting for it to pass. One. Two. It began to recede.

The creature scuttled below her, slamming into the pillar she was standing on with a screech, and what little control she had vanished.

“Oulgfh,” she said as she vomited over the edge of the pillar.

No. No. Nonononononononononono- The creature roared, and Gala’s heart sank. 

The pillar jolted beneath her as something banged into it, and she wobbled and spun. She jumped to another pillar. Another bang came, and another. She crossed over to another pillar, glanced back to see the vague shape of the creature through the steam, halfway up the pillar and slamming its claw into the iron face of it again.

Wait. Waitwaitholdon. Gala began climbing down her silo’s ladder, facing away from where the bug was scaling its own pillar. She heard another bang and clung to the rungs tight. The creature would nearly be to the top now. If this works I am the luckiest person on this blackened Earth. 

The next impact came. And following it like an afterthought was a small hiss of steam. The room shuddered with a heavy iron groan passing through the chamber from somewhere deep below. And then a crashing boom reverberated around her that almost shook her off the rungs. A shadow and a gale of hot wind passed over her, followed by a crash. She peeked over the edge of the pillar. The steam was gone, but replenishing quickly. A plume of smoke drifted from what had been the silo the bug was standing on, now half its former height and open with a jagged rim like a volcano. The pillars near it were splattered green, black-brown matter and steel shards littering the floor.

Gala took a deep breath of clean air. Breathed out. The floor fizzed quietly below her.

A ragged screech rang through the chamber, and her heart sank. She hauled herself to the top of the pillar and jumped to the next pillar toward the sound. She looked over the ledge to where the bug lay, and vomited. It was alive, but it didn’t look like it would be coming after her any time soon.

She hopped across the tops of pillars to the airlock and pushed to see if it would open. It didn’t. So she turned and limped off, retracing her steps out of the chamber. There was always another way out. Might take some looking, but she’d find it. And she still needed to fix that pipe.