Free Heaven Eyes by David Almond

did you die?” I said to her. “Why? Why?”
    No answer.
    “Mum,” I whispered. “Mum. Please, Mum!”
    No answer. Just her hand in mine. Just her cold, still, dead hand in mine.
    I lay down at her side in silence. The cold and stillness entered my bones. I lay there in the slime as the mutants gathered around me. The scratch of their claws replaced my mum’s caressing touch. Their vicious hiss replaced her voice. I moved beyond words, beyond laughter, beyond tears. No hope. No joy. No life. Death grew all around and drew me in.

“E RIN L AW ! E RIN L AW !”
    Her voice echoed through the alleyways and the buildings and found its way through the dangling door, past the ghosts and mutants, into my deep darkness.
    “Erin Law! Erin Law!”
    It found its way into my head and called me back from silence, emptiness, deadness.
    “Erin Law! Erin Law!”
    I rubbed my face and felt the thick slime on my skin, in my hair. I retched and spat. I sat up and tried to call her but I only gasped and croaked.
    “Erin Law! Erin Law!”
    I stood up and tottered through the darkness with my hands held out in front of me, but I was sore and stiff and I stumbled and fell into the stony litter.
    “Heaven!” I tried to shout. “Heaven!”
    I crawled, but couldn’t tell if I was crawling to the light or deeper into the dark.
    “Heaven!” I called. “Heaven Eyes!”
    I wiped my face and tasted the blood that trickled from my hands.
    “Heaven Eyes!”
    “Erin Law!”
    Her voice was closer, clearer. I strained to hear her footsteps through whatever walls and floors surrounded me.
    “Where is you, Erin Law?”
    I wiped tears from my eyes.
    “I don’t know,” I whispered.
    “I’m here!” I called. “Here I am!”
    “Erin Law! Erin Law! Erin Law!”
    I stumbled and crawled and tried to find the ancient stairway, tried to climb out of the stench of damp and doom. But crawled in useless circles, crawled to places where there were cracks and chasms in the floor, where there were more stairways heading down, openings to even deeper cellars. I felt the mutants’ fingers, urging me down. I heard their hiss. “Yes. Yesss. Further down. Further down.” I struggled with them. I tried to focus on Heaven Eye’s voice, but it was tiny, distant, something from another world. I told myself I was lost, never to be found, that I had gone too deep into impenetrabledark, that no one could ever find me and help me out. “Further down,” the voices hissed. “Yes. Further down.” I stopped crawling. I held my mum’s hand again for the final time as she closed her eyes for the final time.
    “Erin Law! Erin Law!”
    The voice circled and searched and faded and grew and faded again and would not give up.
    “Erin Law! Where is you, Erin Law?”
    “I don’t know,” I wept.
    I sobbed. I held my mum’s dead hand.
    “I don’t know!” I called.
    I lay down in the slime again. I felt the coldness entering my bones again.
    “Here!” I called.
    I closed my eyes. The voice circled and searched and circled and searched. I went back deep into my dark.
    “Erin Law!”
    It was closer.
    “I eye you, Erin Law!”
    I grunted.
    “Keep still. Keep still as still.”
    “What?”
    “I eye you. Keep still and Heaven Eyes will come to you.”
    I stared into the dark, saw nothing. Impossible to see anything in such deep deep dark. Heard the footstepsin the litter coming nearer, heard her breath as she came nearer, heard the rustle of her clothes as she came nearer. But saw nothing. Then the touch of her fingers on my face.
    “Oh my sister Erin Law! What is you doing in this deep deep dark?”

“I DID TELL YOU ,” she said. “I did tell you there is holes in the ground where the darkness and the dangers is. You must watch out for them, my sister.”
    She wiped the slime from my face with her gentle fingers.
    “There is places to tumble out the world and not be found again,” she said. “You must watch out for them.”
    We stood beyond the