hole in the earth 1

Nil’s hands released. He crouched, flanked by rusty corners, head down. He held still, then slipped off balance from the shifting of his feet, from the ripped sole of his left boot, gray and shredded leather and his hands released. Bowed, pills spilled to the clattering floor. “If you knew what I know,” someone said. He didn’t gasp, thought of grasping capsules, disturbing the drop of gravity to shift said pills out of marked states read somehow in the name of divination. “I don’t know.” He stared.

Dark eyes slammed shut. Blue and black capsules, he knew. He didn’t care. “If you knew what I know?” A door opened.

“I don’t want any more drugs. I think I can smell my cells burning off,” he didn’t say.

“No---“ she said, elongated and high. “No new supplies for you.” She skipped in and rested something on the ground gently. He tracked movement through vibrations across the steel floor, in darkness. A frame or three skipped and his eyes snapped up to the sound of creaking leather, a bag set on the floor and her creasing boots.

She slid from a graceful stride to her typical flat-step walk. Around the bag, in the middle of the floor. He leaned back on his heels, slipped down to a cold seat; feet pushed pills away as fingers fumbled for a cigarette somewhere. His sleeveless shirt stank of shedding skin. Fingers found the curled paper and he looked up from the tips of eyes through oiled hair, wiry arms, scabs, like a filthy serpent. Breathe in, breathe out smoke.

Her feet kicked up rust dust as the pace became more determined. She circled the bag with white hair spun out like a swing, suddenly lunged with a burst of breath as “ha” and freed two mismatched blades. She turned to him, grinned. Held the blades claw-like, one curved and one straight, crude workmanship to brandish at a weapons dealer. But sharp.

Now what?

He was still doped. He felt his jaw reflex relax, circuits flip from voluntary to involuntary, barely able to suck the cigarette leaning between chapped lips. In ratty leathers she posed, blue eyes gleamed smugly. She tested the weight of the blades, sliced through air and danced jagged. His eyes followed a frame or two slower, breathing in, breathing out smoke. She stood and stopped.

“I wonder who I nicked these off of?” she exclaimed, tilting her face quizzically.