Nightsea Outlaw

Sam's heart broke in her chest. Three days. Three days earlier, and she could have seen her brother alive. Three days earlier, and she could have apologized to him. Three days earlier, and she wouldn't have been too late.

She fell to her knees, her hands the only support on the smooth stone floor. She could still remember the last time they had spoken, how he had smiled and laughed the night before he left.

Burning tears ran down her face. The world around her seemed to disappear entirely. Her chest heaved, and she closed her eyes. For the last five years, she had done her best to keep it together, even after Josh had left her behind. Every day, she had lived her life hoping that things would get better.

But that was all a lie.

"Sam.” A hand touched her shoulder, and she looked up.

Alex knelt beside her, his face a smudge through her tears. Sam tried to say something, but all that came out was blubbering nonsense. Alex rubbed her back with one hand, and Sam did her best to get her emotions under control.

"You never knew," Alex said. "Don't blame yourself. You never knew he was here. You're not responsible for this.”

"Then who is?" Sam choked out. "Who's fault is this? I should have known. I should have figured it out. He didn't just disappear."

Alex paused, only his hand moving across her back. Sam focused on breathing in and out. Every time she breathed out, her entire body shook. She closed her eyes to the world around her, knocking a fresh wave of tears down her cheeks.

"Goldfist and Silvertooth are the ones who did it," Alex said. "If it weren't for them, none of this would have happened to Dry Gulch. None of these people would be slaves. No one would have died in the mines. You didn't do this."

Sam stopped breathing, her eyes blinking open. He was right. It didn't make it hurt any less, but he was right. She repeated the thought in her head, forcing it again and again until the weight of her sadness pushed back from her mind. It would be there, but it was distant now. All that was left was an empty hole in the pit of her stomach.

"I didn't do it." Sam looked up at Alex, blinking away the tears a final time.

"That's right," Alex said, his mouth a flat line as he looked up at the other woman. "We need to get you all out of here sooner rather than later."

"I'm not leaving this structure to you," Li Wen said, her arms crossed in front of the stone. "I don't know what you plan to do with it, but it can't be any good if Goldfist wanted it too."

"You think you can stop me?" Alex stood up from Sam's side, and a chill ran up her spine.

The way he said the words reminded her of his capabilities. She had seen him take on Silvertooth and Goldfist in just two days. He had dropped a water tower on Silvertooth by himself and taken down Goldfist with his own hands. Deep inside her mind, she suddenly worried about what someone like Alex would do with the stone door on the platform.

She shook her head and forced herself to stand up, rubbing her eyes dry with her arms and turning to the ten men and women who remained on the stone island. She didn't care what Alex wanted to do. He had already proven that he would face death itself to help her out.

"Let's go," she said to the former slaves gathered around her, pointing toward the bridge. "Unless any of you want to argue with him."

None of them did. Sam followed them to the bridge, her hand on the gun at her hip. Alex remained behind with Li Wen as they argued, but that wasn't Sam's problem. Scions above, she would make sure those who survived got out of those mines, if nothing else.

Their path to the tunnel took them all past Goldfist's limp form. Sam stopped beside the prone giant, and she looked him over. A pool of blood was forming around his body, all coming from the cuts across him and the stump that was his left arm. Sam noticed that the giant was still breathing, albeit faintly, as he lay face down in his blood. Her hand shook on the butt of the gun.

"It's all his fault," Sam whispered as she looked down at Goldfist. "Everything that happened. It's all his fault."

The former slaves stopped and looked back at her, but Sam kept her eyes focused on Goldfist. Alex had said it himself: everything that happened was Goldfist's fault. He had come to the town and taken over. He had released the mist. He had captured her brother and worked him in the mines for two years. He had killed her brother. The gun was cold in her hand. He wasn't dead yet. He was still breathing. She could end it all now. All she had to do was draw the gun and pull the trigger.

"Someone needs to right it," she said as she drew the gun and pointed it down at Goldfist's head.

Click.

She pulled back the hammer on the gun, and it clicked solidly in place. Her hand shook as she pointed it down at Goldfist's head. The bullet may have been small, but a shot into the back of the head would make Goldfist's size irrelevant, right? The thought passed through her head, and she shook her head to clear it. What did it matter?

The former slaves looked back, frozen. She met their eyes and nodded. They had suffered even more than she had. They deserved to see Goldfist put down permanently. She would never let him harm anyone else again.

"You can't have regrets when you're dead.” Alex wasn't anywhere near her, but his words still came to her. "You're stronger than I am, Sam."

"Grah!" she grunted, pulling the gun away and throwing it to the ground in front of Goldfist.

She hated herself. She hated that she hadn't been able to pull the trigger. When she faced down Silvertooth, she wasn't able to shoot him. Now, she couldn't bring herself to shoot Goldfist, even after all he had done. She hated every moment of it.

"Let's get going," she said, turning to the ten freed slaves.

"What is it?" Wen asked, pointing at the stone door behind her.

She didn't trust this man named Alex. As near as she could tell from what the dark-robed man and Goldfist had said, something powerful was locked behind the doors. She wasn't about to let some random man access it if she could stop it.

"You didn't answer my question," Alex said, stepping forward with his staff and onto the platform.

He towered above her when standing at his full height. She was by no means a tall or overly strong woman, especially after so many years working in the mines. Instead, she would rely on something that went beyond strength.

She opened the gate inside her chest, and cold spread throughout her body. Her breath came out in a white mist as she looked him in the eyes. She could see them widen in shock. She smiled as she clenched her hands into cold fists.

"You're cursed too, then," Alex said before a smirk cut across his face. "Feels like you dropped the temperature by six degrees."

Wen raised her eyebrows, “Celsius?"

"Yeah. You're from Earth, then?" he asked.

"Oxford."

"Buenos Aires, originally," Alex said, stepping back.

Wen let the gate in her chest close, and the temperature around her rose quickly along with it. Sweat broke out across her body, a side effect of her curse changing the temperature. She took a few deep breaths as she waited for it to pass.

"That's assuming it's the same Earth and not just slightly different," Alex said. "Not that it matters. Always good to meet someone else that got stuck here."

"How did you make it here?"

"Bright light hit my plane, and I woke up in the ocean. You?"

"A bright light opened up in front of me, and I went through. I ended up in a forest on some abandoned island. Took weeks for a ship to come by."

"Hah, lucky."

He reached up and rubbed the back of his head before looking over to the door. Wen followed his gaze and tensed up again. She had forgotten what they were arguing about in the surprise of finding someone else from Earth.

"Look," Alex said, tapping his staff on the stone. "Neither of us is in a condition to fight, and I'm in a hurry. How about this? I'll open the portal, and you'll keep behind me while I do what I have to do in there. When I'm done, I'll open a door topside at the mine, and we'll both leave it together."

Wen squinted, looking Alex over and then back to the stone door. He was right that she didn't want to fight. Her curse was only effective when she had her tools with her, and she would have to get them remade when she got out of the mines. Two years was a long time, and she hoped that she could find a gunsmith who could work with her.

"Okay." She nodded, stepping back and letting Alex approach the stone door.

He reached out a hand and touched the stone as Wen stepped behind him. Under his breath, he whispered words in a language she couldn't understand. He repeated himself a few times, and she paid attention as best she could to try and understand what he was saying. However, the words didn't match any language she had ever learned, and they seemed to bypass the natural process in the new world that forced everyone to speak the same language.

"There it is," Alex whispered, and his hand glowed a faint blue against the center crease of the door.

A circle of bright blue light drew itself on the stone around the circle, reaching out along the stone and up to the script that ran along the stone pillars. The light flowed out from that center, lighting up the runes Wen had been unable to figure out until the entire dais was glowing.

The entire platform shook as the light completed its path. Stone fell away, revealing stark silver metal beneath. Wen fell to her knees as the stone pillars in front of her shattered like a cracking egg, revealing two large metal pillars, still as square as the stone, and a metallic door where the stone one had been.

Hrrrm. Click. Hiss.

The door opened slowly, sliding down into a slot in the floor. Behind the door, a blue portal with blackened spots across it opened and glowed. Alex turned back to her, a smile on his face. He practically laughed as he spoke.

"Bet you didn't expect to see that, did you?" he asked as he turned back and stepped inside the portal.

He disappeared inside, leaving Wen on her knees in front of it. So many questions flooded through her head as she looked over the platform. Why had it been covered in stone? Why was it buried so deep beneath the island? What did it do, and why was it so important that Goldfist wanted it? Her breath came quick in her chest as the possibilities ran across her mind. However, another thought came into the back of her head, just a whisper in the whirling tide pool of her questions. What if the portal closed while she was still outside?

She forced herself to stand up, running toward the blue portal and jumping through without hesitation. Her foot landed on solid, soft ground, and she immediately looked all around her. She stood in a long tunnel with metal walls and carpeted floors. Fluorescent lights ran along the corners of the tunnels and into the distance. She saw Alex waiting down the tunnel for her, his hand on his staff. She turned to look behind her, but the portal was gone.

There was nothing to do. She could only accept her circumstances. She stepped forward and followed behind Alex as he turned and led her deeper into the structure.