I decided that chatty leader-Jerath was my least favourite of all the Jeraths—he was so much more fun when he was silent and spraying sols with street water.
It was dark and kind of damp in this section. I preferred wide-open spaces, and less elbows in my ribs. Also, the sweaty nerves thing was really starting to become an olfactory problem. The sols should probably cross off the not smell us thing. That just wasn’t going to work. Finally, after climbing down four million and fifty stairs, we reached the dwellers’ section. There was no natural light in this part; we were clearly far, far underground.
“Did anyone tell them about things collapsing on me?” I whispered to Emmy. “Someone should have warned them.”
She shook her head, before her hand snaked around to cover my mouth. “We’re one floor down, Will, you’re going to be fine.”
One! Was she insane? Those stairs had been never-ending!
“Female dorms are to the left, males to the right.” Jerath was actually waving his hands now. Whatever chill he’d been channelling on the way here was long gone. “I’ll be waiting for you back in the main foyer. You have until the bells ring for next class.” He was gone then, back up the never-ending stairs.
Emmy was in the mood to get shit done. She had her arm around my entire middle this time, and was barrelling through all the poor dwellers who thought they were getting first pick of beds. From what I saw in our dash through, it looked like the dwellers’ underground bunker was a small, dull room. Rocks under our feet, and above our heads. Real homey feel to it, what with all the dust and the lack of natural light.
“Are all the dwellers here?” I asked, trying not to breathe in the second-hand air. There was nothing fresh down there, that was for sure.
“Nope, this is just for the newbies. Although there are always a lot of newbies. Sols aren’t very gentle with their play things.”
Emmy hadn’t answered that time. Someone else knew things too, which lowered my need to ever learn. I was good with that. I swivelled to see a petite girl with a huge mane of bushy, dirty-blonde curls. She was doing well to keep pace with my manic best friend. Her huge, azure eyes gave her face a cute-but-slightly-weird look. She seemed friendly enough though.
“So where do the dwellers who last longer than a life-cycle go?” I asked.
Emmy had told me on the way over that we would be considered ‘recruits’ for the first life-cycle, and that after that, we would become ‘resident’ dwellers. Creepy, I thought. Hi! I’m just the resident dweller. I’ll be waiting down here in the dungeon if you feel like some tea. Anyway, using that information, it made sense that we’d be stuck down here for that long.
“Another building,” the girl answered. “To the east of the academy estate. I heard that it’s also underground, but slightly nicer. My cousin was here for many life-cycles; she now serves in Soldel.”
We were in the female wing now, and it was about the same level of awesome as the previous room, just add in twenty or so small boxes masquerading as bedrooms. Emmy was dragging me toward the boxed room closest to the door, when I dug my feet in and pointed toward the name tags on the small edges above the doorway. It said Janelle Brown and Samsa Neel.
“Think we have to find our names,” I said tentatively. I recognised her mood, so I was treading lightly.
She actually growled then, like a weird forest-cat growl. “We need to be near the entrance so that we don’t miss any calls.”
Right. That was my first thought also.
With a huff, I was dragged along each of the cordoned-off rooms, until finally Emmanuelle Knight came into sight. There was only one name above her door, which was odd. It looked like the two chosen from each of the villages were rooming together. Except for those who had a male and a female.
With a shrug, I followed her in, glad to see that there were two beds in the tiny box. “Guess they forgot about me. It happens.” This was the start; I could feel it. The start of Willa Knight ceasing to exist at all.
A metallic tinkling sound broke the silence around us. It was a dull noise, like it came from far away. Back up the million-or-so stairs, I was sure.
Emmy’s face went deathly white. She shot-putted her bag across the room, and I watched as it slammed against the wall before falling to the tiny bed on the left side.
“Was that really necess—”
She cut me off. “The bells. It’s the goddamn freaking bells.”
“I hate this place,” I groaned, as she pulled her leg out and used her foot to nudge me toward the door. “Seriously, Emmy, did you just kick me?”
“Why aren’t you moving? Why is your stupid bag filled with stupid pots still in your stupid hands?”
I lunged at her, tickling her in all the places where she was most vulnerable. Which was every place with exposed skin. She was the most sensitive person I knew when it came to tickling.