Time: 01.01.17 — 09:21:00 UTC-4
Setting: Niajin moves deeper into the canyon, attempting to evade her pursuers
Niajin slipped through the fissure, vanishing from sight of her pursuers. She had never noticed it before — simply because it hadn’t been there. The earthquake a few days earlier must have dislodged a mass of rock, revealing the entrance to a narrow gorge carved between two almost-vertical walls. At the same time, the landslide had sealed the passage of the water.
That was where the spring was born, its flow cut off by the collapse. A residue of water, gathered by ephemeral streams born from sudden storms that sometimes struck the ridges, still filtered slowly through the rocks despite the long droughts.
The water stagnated on a compact, impermeable layer of stone, forming a small, deep pool before vanishing into the cracks above.
Just before the heap of boulders — the dam created by the quake — a small mirror of crystal-clear water had collected.
Perhaps slipping in there hadn’t been such a bad idea after all. It was probably a dead end, but after all… what choice did she have? The WO vehicles, despite the harshness of the terrain, could advance where it seemed impossible. The soldiers had mounted their bikes again and were already descending at maximum speed. At the very least, she had to delay them. From that point of view, the place looked ideal. But the most important thing was water.
She bent toward the source and, as before a flawless mirror, saw her own face reflected on the surface. It wasn’t time for vanity. Almost plunging her parched lips into the liquid, she felt a pressurized flow flooding her palate and, at first, she couldn’t realize what was happening. Then it dawned on her that her slightly pointed canines were drawing the water through an inner cavity, like the needles of a syringe. A new set of contractile muscles had just activated. Within moments, the pool was nearly drained, and her abdomen swelled with the stored water. Niajin now carried a large reserve of water, and she muddied what was left with her hands.
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“They’ll need to drink too,” she thought. “A little extra work for their filtration systems will slow them down.”
She drew a long breath. Her own scent filled her lungs, and the pain at the back of her neck eased.
The water had restored strength to her body, and the feather came alive, weaving a network of fibers that wrapped the swollen, bleeding wound. The fibers absorbed the blood and sealed it. Within seconds she felt healed: not only had the pain vanished through the release of endorphins, but the skin at her neck had turned smooth and tender again, like that of a child. Healed — completely.
“And now, what do I do?” she thought. “I’m starving.”
Despite the water she had taken in — or perhaps because of it — she felt weak with hunger. But for the moment, there was nothing she could do. The complex biochemical reactions that had formed the oily and volatile compounds secreted through her skin had consumed a great deal of energy. Now she had to find the strength to keep moving. She could not stop.
Meanwhile the motorbikes had reached the spot where she had fallen and stopped. The soldiers dismounted, trying to retrace her position and activating their thermal sensors to recover her trail. They were very close. She had little time.
She looked around. The rare sudden rains had carved the rock and stirred the sand, leaving the imprints of floods and torrents. Beyond the fissure the path opened into a nearly perfect oval cavity in the stone.
Past that tall, narrow slit, a deep canyon revealed itself, sculpted by water in the rock. From the cracks above, shafts of light poured down like waterfalls, coloring the walls with hues shifting from red to orange, then to blue and violet. A play of light, ledges, and hollows fractured the space, making it difficult to follow the way among the rocks.
The entrance of the canyon traced an almost perfect ellipse — a dark oval set between orange cliffs. Water had shaped them, leaving engraved the signs of its swirling flow, like the imprint of a frozen instant. It was like walking among the waves of a torrential stream made of stone and sand, petrified in time.
Niajin walked about a kilometer through that fantastic world, lit from above, until a vertical wall rose before her: the passage ended there.
Behind her she heard footsteps.
“At least they couldn’t get the bikes through. On foot, I’m faster,” she thought.
She had to climb. She knew how. Years of training in the desert had taught her. She began the ascent. The holds were uncertain, the rock brittle, but experience guided her. The echo of hurried steps grew closer and closer.
She could already catch their scent — and with it, the rising disgust for humankind.