Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I flexed, accessing my talent. The red patch snapped into crystal clarity, flaring with a bright green. Yellow was dangerous, blue was toxic. Green usually meant a lethal mix of the two.
I focused, trying to dig deeper.
The Grasping Hand. The thorns carried lethal poison. If one of those cut me or Bear, we would die in seconds, and the Hand would devour our bodies. In the distance, I could see a lump that was once a living creature, soon to become one of those ridges, drained of all fluids.
How did I know that? This hadn’t been in any of the briefings. I had never seen this before. I hadn’t read about it, no one had talked about it, and I should not have detailed knowledge of this carnivorous invertebrate. I shouldn’t even know it’s an invertebrate. The best my talent could do was identify it as animal and possibly dangerous.
The knowledge was just in my head. I flexed again, concentrating on the bright red stems until they glowed with green again.
A dark plateau unrolled in front of me, acres and acres of red stems, some ten-feet-high, blanketing purple rock with giant dinosaur-like reptiles thrusting through the growth, the stinging thorns sliding harmlessly from their bony carapace…
This was not my memory.
Fear washed over me. My heart pounded in my chest. I went hot, then cold. What the hell was happening to me?
Bear nudged me with her cold nose. I petted her, running my hand over her fur, trying to slow my breathing. Was this my inheritance? Memories from I didn’t know who, obtained I had no idea where.
I stared at the patch. I could have a nervous breakdown right here and now, or I could keep going.
It didn’t matter where the damned memory came from. It warned me about the danger. It might not have been mine, but I knew it was true. Blundering into that growth was certain death.
The Grasping Hand grew in clusters, probably determined by the availability of nutrients. Each of those clumps or ridges used to be a body. This growth was relatively young, the stems short and somewhat sparse.
If I was careful, I could pick my way through it. The problem was Bear. There was no way to communicate to the dog that she had to stay away from the thorns. One tiny scratch and it would be all over. I had to keep Bear safe. No matter what it took. I owed it to Stella, and if Bear died… Bear couldn’t die. We would leave this place together.
I could carry her. She was a big dog, she had to weigh… I flexed again. Seventy-six pounds.
And that was a lot more precise than normal. My talent helped me ballpark weight and distance, but not with that much accuracy. I focused. Seventy-six pounds and four ounces or thirty-four kilograms and five hundred and eighty-six grams. Fuck me.
I didn’t just get vision. My talent had gotten a mysterious upgrade. Who the hell knew what kind of consequences or side effects this sudden precision bump might have.
Since I had it, I might as well use it. I focused on the field of red. Forty-eight yards or one hundred and forty-four feet. Or forty-three point eighty-nine meters.
Great. All I had to do was pick up a seventy-six-pound dog and carry her across half the length of a football field. While carefully avoiding deadly thorns.
I could always double back and try one of the other tunnels. But none of the other passages led toward the exit. We’d been walking for almost two hours. It would be a long trip back, and there was no guarantee we wouldn’t run across this same problem in another tunnel.
Also, very few things could get through the Grasping Hand without some kind of body armor. It was a deterrent, a little bit of safety behind us. Nothing would come at us through that patch.
If I put Bear on my shoulders, I could make it. But not while I carried the backpack. The canteens were bulky and heavy, and the backpack pulled on me. If Bear squirmed, she would throw me off balance and both of us would land right into the thorns. It was the pack or the dog.
All of the water and food we had was in that pack. I could try to throw it ahead of me, but there was no telling where it would land or how far. Dragging it behind me was out of the question. It could get stuck and pull me back, and the thorns would either shred it or deposit poison on it. I had no effective way to neutralize it.
If I got through, I could find a safe spot on the other side, tie Bear to something, and come back for the pack. Yes, that had to be it.