“Dad, it’s time.”

I’m awake. I’m not entirely sure I was ever asleep. The ground is hard and uncomfortable; frozen to a degree that even the fire in the middle of our camp couldn’t affect. My bones ache and my muscles are stiff as I push myself upright.

It has been months since I came into this multiverse. I was drawn from one multiverse to the next and was quick to find Eleanor amidst a group of refugees. She was older—eight or nine, she wasn’t sure—a skinny kid with hardened features. They had taken Eleanor in when they had found her while scavenging for supplies.

Since coming here, I had only seen her smile once when the leader in our group, Stephen, had brought back to the camp a dead elk for dinner; a rare treat of fresh meat.

This world was different. Cities were burnt husks. A nuclear apocalypse had hit many decades before, laying waste to civilization. Those that could took to the sky and as the sun rose you could see the airships hovering above in the clouds that housed the elite. Those that were left after the exodus to the sky were thought to be dead, but as the ashes settled and from the ruins they began to emerge, they were called a different name: Draugrs, the spirits of the dead.

When I first came across Eleanor, I tried to take her away, but she refused. I didn’t leave like I did before. Instead I stayed. Each day that passed was a new opportunity to try to break through her anger and convince her to leave, but every time I asked, she told me no. And when pressed she would fire back that I would just abandon her again. So I stayed, trying to prove her wrong.

The biggest challenge in surviving on the ground was resources. Since the apocalypse, scavengers had bled the cities dry. Canned goods and bottled water were a thing of the past and they had found through trial and error—error that resulted mostly in death—that much of the agriculture and water near the cities were poisoned by the nuclear fallout. So groups of Draugrs kept moving further and further away from the cities in search of food and water, adopting aspects of ancient hunter/gatherer cultures.

But resources for the elites in the clouds were rare as well. The airships had tentacles—long, metal, tubed arms—that reached down, thousands upon thousands of feet, from the sky sucking up water and other natural resources, which sometimes included Draugrs. There was speculation and rumor that they, much like the Draugrs, were short on food and had resorted to cannibalism. No one had ever seen one of the elites come down to the ground, but after seeing so many Draugrs snached by one of the tentacles and hauled screaming into the sky, it seemed like a natural conclusion.

Several of the airships were the size of small cities. When they passed overhead and blotted out the sun, it would take several hours before the sun became visible again. These ships were different. They would stop at different locations for longer periods of time. Arms would emerge to anchor the ship to the ground and then the center of the ship would open from which a column of fire would drill down into the Earth. Eleanor had taken me to the edge of one of those holes. It was enormous—almost a quarter mile wide—and so deep that we could not see the bottom. There was speculation about this as well. The assumption was that these ships were drilling into the Earth’s natural resources for their source of fuel.

And that’s why we were awake before the sun had broken over the horizon.

Eleanor was huddled next to the leader, Stephen. They were stuffing explosives and charges into several backpacks that they had discovered in an abandoned military barracks hidden in a mountain.

I squatted down next to them, taking one of the loaded backpacks and inspecting the contents.

“Are you clear on what to do?” Stephen asked.

I nodded. There wasn’t much to it: climb the ship’s legs, make it to the center of the ship, lay down explosives, set the timer, and escape. Even though that was the plan, what we didn’t talk about was how suicidal it was.

There was a fair amount of risk. A scout had reported back that a ship had stopped nearby and had begun drilling. The ship’s anchor legs were at an angle we could walk up and fairly wide, but there wasn’t anything that could keep us from falling off the sides. Additionally, while the backpack’s contents were most definitely explosives (they were stamped with “C4” and “explosive” and “warning” on the sides of the bricks), they weren’t ever tested. As dumb as it sounds, there wasn’t an expiration date printed on them, so the likelihood that they would work was still high.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Alright, let's go,” Stephen said, standing and slinging one of the backpacks over his shoulders. Myself and four other men followed suit.

Turning to Eleanor, I opened my arms for a hug, but she folded hers and remained where she was. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she said.

“Love you too,” I replied and we set off through the woods.

It didn’t take us long to find the anchoring leg of the ship. It was as the scout reported: we could easily walk up the leg in single file. There would be a few feet on either side of us to give us a little room for error, but not much.

Silently, with Stephen at the lead, we began to make our way up. It was easy at first. Trudging up the arm was similar to walking up a long, never-ending staircase. One foot after the other and don’t look down. The higher we went, the colder it got and the stronger the wind became. Soon we slowed down to a snail’s pace. Each new step was less confident than the last; leaning in, making sure our footing was solid and our balance was maintained before continuing. One of the men—Richard, I think—lost his balance during a strong gust of wind and went quietly over the side. I watched him fall, his eyes wide, his arms flailing, until he disappeared from view.

I wasn’t sure we would ever reach the top, but finally we did.

There was a small opening at the top of the leg where it would be retracted when the ship decided to move to its next location. We slipped through and found ourselves in an empty control room. It felt so foreign being surrounded by electrical things: buttons, lights, colored screens. Certainly we could have done some damage there by randomly pressing on things or pulling out wires, but we didn’t take any chances. Instead leaving through a door and continuing to navigate the maze of the ship, following the distant hum of the drill.

We didn’t encounter any of the elites during our journey—not a single soul. But even so it had the machinations of a trap, so we proceeded with caution.

As we went, the drill became louder and louder, vibrating through us. Finally, as we reached a point in the ship where we could feel our teeth rattling, Stephen stopped. He dropped his backpack to the ground and began to pull out the blocks of C4 and the timers. Myself and the other three men did the same. Into each block we stuck a timer and turned it on. The countdown showed only thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes? It took hours to reach the top. I looked at Stephen for confirmation and he smiled grimly. Him and the other men set their timers and sat down on the floor of the ship closing their eyes in silent acceptance of their fate.

“Fuck this,” I said. I started the timers on the explosives I brought and ran. Tearing through the ship, I retraced my steps to the leg we climbed up and froze. Standing in the opening next to the leg was Eleanor.

“What are you doing here?” I yelled at her.

“I came to save you,” she said. “Where is everyone else?”

“This was a suicide mission! They aren’t coming back.”

I peered through the opening at the leg we had hiked up. “Come on,” I tell her.

“What are we going to do?” Eleanor asked.

“Do you remember where we went after Mom’s funeral?” She shook her head. “We went to a park to play. You loved the slide. You would run up the ladder and slide down the slide over and over again. This is going to be a really long slide.”

Eleanor went through the opening in front of me, sitting on the cool metallic leg. I showed her how to use her arms to steady herself and, using the heels of her feet, she began to push herself forward picking up momentum. I followed her. Faster and faster we went, careening down the leg, using our arms to balance against the edge of the leg. Eleanor let out a whoop of laughter as the wind pulled her hair into a tornado behind her.

We pushed through the clouds and could see the forest below growing closer and closer. We were almost there.

A shudder wrenched through the leg and I looked up to see a fiery explosion ripping through the center of the ship. I could see the leg, high above us whip back and forth, the rippling traveling closer and closer until—

“Eleanor!”

I’m thrown to the side, grabbing the lip of our slide at the last minute. Eleanor is thrown high into the air and lands on the leg, her momentum stopped. I pull myself up and crawl on my belly towards her.

“Eleanor, are you okay?” I roll her over. There’s a shallow cut on her forehead. Her eyes flutter.

“Dad?” she whispers.

The leg shudders again and I look up seeing another large ripple whipping down at us. I brace myself against the edge of the leg, holding onto Eleanor. But it’s not enough. I’m thrown off the side, once again grasping the lip of the edge with one hand and clutching Eleanor’s tiny, bird-like hand in my other.

Looking down at her, Eleanor smiles up at me.

“Dad,” she whispers.

I can feel my grip on the leg’s edge slipping.

“Dad, it’s okay. You have to let me go.”

I shake my head, refusing the inevitable, trying to haul her up, but my grip continues to slip.

The leg shudders again and my grip is broken, both of us falling into oblivion.