Metal, plastic, bones, and glass mesh together as a single crunchy paste inside a tornadic symphony. The world around me is like one of those ancient slideshow projectors in a dank theater, each clip-change jerking me this way and that inside this cage spinning through space and time. It’s all a fragmented montage of blurs and gut punches. I experience it behind fluttering eyelids, and in between airbags and gasps, bouncing over asphalt.

Gravity doesn’t even make sense anymore. There’s no up or down. Only completing forces. Everything is pulled apart and collapsing in on itself at the same time like the birth of a black hole.

My body parts contort into impossible shapes. Or are those Belle’s parts? I don’t even know anymore. My skull and ears ring like a bell in a blender.

When it all comes to a halt, my eyes are still spinning.

Pain—sharp, dull, then nothing but numb tingles. Then only pressure. From outside my body or from within, I can’t tell.

There are flashes of light, wheels screeching.

Voices.

I hear voices but they come to me as if underwater, only in elongated vowels and without meaning.

Silhouettes. Ghouls come to claim me? Or men come to save me?

I’m being pulled, dragged, my body yanked free of my metal cocoon. So many hands all over me. So many overlapping sounds. I’m reduced to a twitching insect in their arms, swallowed up in an ocean of an endless void.

I drift in and out of reality.

Time becomes a nonfactor. Minutes feel like hours, hours like days, days like seconds. It all swims together as a single instance and yet extends into the eternities.

I feel and hear water. I’m freezing cold, I’m burning hot.

Faces. Familiar faces swim around me.

Where have I seen these faces?

—•—•—•—

I open my eyes.

I blink, blink again.

There’s a gash in the ceiling, I notice. I squint for a better look at it. It’s not very light in this room, so it’s hard to make out, but it looks like a kind of orange stuffing hanging down from a hole in the ceiling.

The ceiling of what though?

I sit up and—oh, nope, laying back down.

Everything hurts.

There’s so much pain I can’t isolate a single point to complain about, until I narrow in on my right arm.

It’s wrapped up with a thick gauze.

Is that a paint stick? Looks like a bunch of them duct-taped around my forearm. But why would …?

I look at my palm and my eyes open wide.

“Xeno,” I whisper, “Xeno, I—” I cough, and pain shoots all down my sides and into my lower back.

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I’m so thirsty, I realize. My lips are chapped and my mouth and throat are so dry.

“Xeno, where are we? Where … hey, buddy. Yo, I need to—” I cough again, then force myself to sit up. It’s incredibly painful, but I manage to grunt my way into a nearly upright position for a better look of my surroundings.

I’m in a … sixteen-passenger van? Yeah, looks like it. I’m next to a window near the back. It’s dark outside, near sunset. How much time has passed? I press my bandaged forehead against the window to get a better look at that flickering light way over there. What is that? Is that a fire?

I take a tentative inventory of myself. I'm all bandaged up. My arm most of all, but I’m missing my plaid shirt. In its place are thick bandages, wrapped around my ribcage. I’m still in my jeans. In a panic, I feel my pocket for the marbles. Miraculously, they are still there.

But the platform!

“Xeno,” I rasp, my voice barely escaping my parched throat. “Please, talk to me. I’m sorry I yelled at you, I didn't mean to…”

I stop when I find it difficult to move my fingers. I can move them, but they’re slow to respond. And the pain in my forearm is dull but definitely present. A terrifying thought occurs to me.

“Xeno?” I say. It comes out like a plea this time. “No, no, please, not you too. I can’t do this without you.”

In response, I feel a subtle slither within the core of my arm, but the scar shaped lips make no attempt to move. He’s still in there, I realize, but something is wrong. My arm must be broken and it’s affecting his ability to speak. I can only hope he’s not suffering too.

I hear a sound like a stream of water. I look out the window, near the back of the vehicle, to find a man peeing along the side of it. He whistles a merry little tune as he squirts the last of his bladder onto the wheel.

He looks up, and we make eye contact.

“Oi, he’s up!” he shouts.

The wind rushes through the open windows and I get a whiff of urine and campfire.

“Water,” I manage to say, leaning against the window again. “Please.” The moonlight shines on the man’s face. Where have I seen him before? And that accent …

The man zips up and points at me. “Right. On its way,” he says, then pries open the side doors. He climbs inside, digs around for something. There’s a cracking noise, Then he reaches over two full seats to hand me a bottle.

It takes everything in me to reach up and over with my left hand, but I’m able to grab it and put it to my lips. My hand shakes as I drizzle water into my mouth. I only get a few sips in before another coughing fit takes over.

“You’ve been out for a full day, you 'ave,” says the man. “Lucky we found ya when we did. No tellin' what kind of 'orrors you’d face 'ad we not found ya. Props to Ford, though. Them airbags kept you nice and snug. It was like pullin' you out of a bundle of giant marshmallows, it was.”

And then I place him. Even in the dim light, it comes to me. It’s that Cockney accent.

“Thank you,” I say, and take another sip.

“What are the chances we’d run into you again, eh?” he says. “Fate has a funny way of bringing people together again, don’t it?”

I never learned his actual name, but during my short stint in county jail, I’d named him “Nerves” because of the way he wrung his hands when he spoke. I turn and look out the window. My vision is a bit sharper now, enough to make out three other blokes sitting around a campfire about twenty yards away. I can’t see their faces, but I would bet anything they are Twitchy, Angry, and Dour.

One of them waves a hand to us, indicating to come on over. “Bring him out here,” he says. “We saved some meat for him.”

I squint my eyes. They’d killed some sort of animal, the remains of which are roasting over the fire. The mention of meat makes my stomach growl.

Nerves hops out of the van and walks around to the back. I hear something unlatch and the back door swings open. A rush of chilly air hits me and makes the hair on my skin stand on end.

How did it get so cold so fast?

The seat to my left collapses and slips down into the trunk of the van, creating a sort of stepping area for me.

Slowly, tentatively, I take a step down, then another. It takes all my strength, but with Nerves' help, I manage to turn my body and push myself out. My legs, though weak and wobbly, seem undamaged, but my lower back throbs, and my ribs are probably broken. Each breath, each cough, sends electric pain through me.

Nerves supports me around the waist until I’m standing on the ground. The fact that I can even stand feels like a miracle.

We're parked on the side of the highway. My truck is nowhere in sight—they must have picked me up and left it behind. I don't recognize this place; it seems to be further north, near the big crash site. The gargantuan ship looms on the horizon, appearing even closer now. There’s no town or city, so we can’t be too far north. Mostly red rock and desert still.

As Nerves shuts the door, I catch a glimpse of two shiny objects tucked under the bench-like seat. The first is the smooth, silver single-rider platform, laid out flat on the vehicle floor. The second is a green crystal strapped to the underside of the seat I was sitting on. It's about the size of a football and looks eerily familiar.