SILAS

The motorcycle's control panel flickers frantically, like blue strobe-lights, dancing to an erratic beat. Then they go out.

"Come on. C'mon, c'mon."

I press the power button again. The result is the same. Except this time, as the blue lights go out, there's a red light in the corner, in the shape of a battery symbol.

Great.

I suppose I did leave the light on. Still, isn't this supposed to be advanced technology? Why's the battery so crappy? Did it get damaged in the chase somehow?

Not that it matters, at this point.

Besides, maybe this wasn't such a bad thing. It would be dangerous to drive down these narrow, winding passes in the dark, and even more dangerous to light my way with bright headlights. It would be a sure way to get found.

So I leave the bike behind.

Pretty sure there's nothing else I need to grab. Nothing to keep track of anymore. Besides the electronic chip in my pocket. It's just me now, and Sal's vague directions.

It's easy enough to find my way back to the cave entrance. I just...follow the cold.

I can't help but marvel at how a place so unbearably hot in the day can turn to ice like this at night. Given the lack of light, it's obvious some time has passed, even if I don't know how much. But it doesn't feel like it. It feels like I closed my eyes for a second, and a switch flipped. And now I'm in a completely different place, regardless of what my eyes might tell me.

As I approach the mouth of the cave, the icy winds nip at my arms and face, and worm in through the torn parts of my clothing, like arctic eels.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I pause just inside the cave, trying to remember the direction from which I'd come. It's the slope that saves me, the one I had to navigate down to get here. So the higher end of this little canyon—that should be south. Or semi-south. Anyway, it's the best I have to go off of until the sun's up. Unless...

I step out. Immediately I'm hit with a constant, windy barrage coming in from the south—or what I believe to be south. A loud, hollow wail echoes in the walls of the passage. Putting a hand to my wildly whipping hair to keep it out of my face, I lean back, peering up into the sky.

Nothing. No grey, moody clouds, backlit by the moon. Just a black curtain stretched out across the sky.

To be honest, I've always found the night sky more than a little terrifying. Even the open sky in general. There's something about staring up into that infinite space and realizing how small you are in the scheme of it all.

This, though, is somehow worse. It's not megalophobic. It's claustrophobic. Constricting.

More importantly, at the moment, there are no stars. Just another reason why I'm going to have to wait for sunrise to be certain. Not that I've been great at using stars as a navigational tool to begin with, so I don't know why that came to mind. Just because a character in a movie can do it doesn't mean I can.

In any case, I don't think I should wait around. Better to keep moving.

I trudge downhill. The terrain alternates between sandy drifts and hard bumps of rock. The wind pushes hard at my back, as if urging me on. But I take my time. I don't think I've ever tried to navigate a place this dark in my life. It's all outlines and shapes. Rough, shifting gradations of surfaces, faintly gleaming from some kind of frost or dew. Though what light source might be causing this to happen, I don't know. There has to be some light, otherwise it would be pitch-black, and I wouldn't be able to see anything at all.

Maybe this is what it's like to be mostly—or even partially—blind. Like wearing several pairs of sunglasses on top of each other and being tossed into a corn maze.

Perhaps maze isn't the right word. Everything moves in the same direction, for the most part. If there are forks, I'm not aware of them, and if I was, I would just pick a path at random, anyway. I mean, if I had to choose one of two roads, what criteria would I use, assuming both paths were heading in the same general direction?

My goal right now, above all else, is to keep moving. If I stop, especially before daybreak, it's more likely I'll be found. The scanners on the ship have a harder time tracking things down in these types of weather conditions.

Don't ask me how I know that. Don't ask me how any of this makes sense. Because it doesn't.

Still. I do know it.

So I walk on.