Free Transcending the Legacy by Venessa Kimball Page B

ahead of me. I pull them expecting to be rejected, but instead they open. The hallway is dark and unkempt like the others, but I feel like this is the one that is going to take me out of this place. The flat, level ground begins to rise in elevation and the urge to breathe out a little more tears at my psyche.
    Internally, I scold myself, “No, don’t do it, Michael!”
    My sight is in and out, blurring and distorting, but not before I see two corroded iron doors barred with a long metal pipe. This has to be out.
    My legs pump as I rush toward the doors, hitting it with my body and lifting up on the long metal pipe at the same time. The metal pipe gives, but it takes every ounce of energy and I can’t hold in my breath any longer.
    I release it all, then breath in new poison uncontrollably, my body needing anything to continue. My throat immediately constricts, then spasms, allowing a small amount of substance into my lungs. I hold in what little supply I receive and fall into the two doors, hoping they give way and release me.
    The metal gives and I am freed into an empty alley. I slide my body against the wall, keep my eyes focused on my feet leading me along the black asphalt. Leaning my head against the brick wall, I look for life; no people, no cars passing, nothing. I am feeling my body slow, depleted of all energy. My heart is pumping hard, working on little fuel now, but I still try to yell. “Help!”
    It is weak and likely no one heard it. I try again, projecting my voice. “Help!”
    I stop sliding forward and stare at the alley opening, waiting for someone, anyone to come around either corner. The lids of my eyes take on a mind of their own and slowly fall closed. I let my body slide down the wall and breathe freely, glutting my body with the poison air. The once quickened sound of my heart begins to slow, leaving room for me to hear the deafening silence of this tainted world. Is this the world my father Jaeger Sanderson pictured?
    “Is it father?” I hiss.
    Just as the Onoch’s had a legacy to protect this meek and ordinary world, my family had a legacy driven to expand and make this ordinary world superior. Would it be? I try to open my eyes again, trying to take in a glimpse of what the world has become, but my body fails me. I think of the beings that have descended beyond the veil and into our world. They had promised me and my fellowship salvation and protection for aiding their passage. Why are they not saving me now? Among the sound of my slowing heart, my ragged, wheezing gasps, I hear a low, patterned hum.
    Hum.
    Hum.
    Hum.
    Hum.
    I try to concentrate on the patterned sound to ignore every scorching breath I take. The scratchy croak I release is slowing, my body enforcing its own shut down.
     
    * * *
     
    The feeling of cold metal on my back wakes me again. I swallow expecting the pain, but it doesn’t rise in my throat like before. I feel a mask over my face as I become more alert. Instinctively I reach for it to pull it away, but before I can a strong hand covers mine keeping me from removing it. “You don’t want to do that. Leave it,” says the man hovering over me.
    I try to sit up , but once again, the man’s strong hold holds me down. I meet his almond shaped eyes as he says calming, “Just breathe.”
    I inhale the oxygen pumping through the mask deeply and I feel his arms release mine. He trusts that I won’t try to escape now that I am breathing air. Another man comes to stand on the other side of me. He looks familiar. Were they Sondians? Dobrians? How are they able to breathe the tainted air that suffocates me? “Who are you?” I ask through the plastic mask.
    The man with the crossed arms speaks first. “Michi.”
    He nods to the man across from him, hovering over me and says, “This is Katsuro.”
    Katsuro speaks in native Japanese through his gruff sigh then chides me in English, “Where are Sam and Corinna?”
    How does this man know Sam and Corinna and what makes him