Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

a hand through my shaggy mop of hair, damp with perspiration. The jumpsuit absorbed most of my sweat—thanks to the ingenuity of those scientists who designed it—and used the moisture to cool off the rest of me. I turn my face shield over in my hands as I watch her.

"Any reason why you don't wear a suit?"

"They sicken me." Her lips and chin are free now—perfect, beautiful—as well as her cute little nose. The area above her eyes is still covered. I like her face. Her skin looks soft.

"But you can't argue with the results. They were definitely looking ahead, you know. They knew what we'd need out here with no water and this savage sun. It's ingenious, really. The packs keep us hydrated, and the suits regulate our temperature." Am I rambling? Have I destroyed whatever potential existed for our first conversation?

She's bald. There isn't a single hair on her head, not even the stubble from a day-old shave. She meets my gaze. "They're disgusting and unnecessary. A link to a world that no longer exists."

She's really bald—not an ugly bald like an old man, but a smooth bald, like an olive-toned egg. I try not to stare. "Well...all I know is I would've died out here without mine a long time ago."

"You would have adapted. Become nocturnal."

Are we arguing? Barely a complete sentence out of her, and now this inane banter about my suit?

"Maybe." Why don't I just let it go? "But I like to sleep at night when it's cool, you see. I've gotten to like it out under the stars. They remind me that…some things haven't changed. Y'know?"

Trying to wax poetic?

She appears unmoved. "Most things have." She stands and turns toward the dark interior of the cave. "This way."

I rise to follow her but find myself suddenly hesitant. My eyes have adjusted enough to see that this cave extends deep into the mountain. The darkness where she's heading looks impenetrable. Maybe it should be left alone.

"Are we safe now?" My voice echoes after her.

She half-turns to look at me. "What?"

"Before. You said it wasn't safe." I gesture toward the darkness ahead of her. "Is it safe in there?"

"If I said no, would you turn back?"

She has me there—and she knows it. I have nowhere else to go. "Lead on."

I follow her into the darkness and stay close enough to keep her in sight (somewhat), my hand out to the side to brush the cave wall. For some reason, my thoughts drift back to Julia.

She's never far from my mind.

I was just a kid—fourteen or so—and it was right after the first missiles launched around the world. The sector governors had the bunkers ready to go as if they'd been expecting the global chaos to ensue. The Cold War was finally over, and they had to make up for lost time, I guess. The earth rumbled as we were escorted in a rickety elevator down toward its core—a hundred of us taken from our homes that night. Julia and I stood next to each other, pressed in tight like cattle as we made the long descent into the bunker below. We were strangers, but it didn't matter. Our eyes met in the amber light. Our hands clasped and squeezed. We were in this together.

I miss her so much, I ache inside. I wish she'd made it.

More than anything, I hope she can forgive me.

"We go down from here," my companion says.

"What?"

She stops me with a hand on my chest. "Can't you see?"

Is that a rhetorical question? "It's pitch black in here." I frown. "Can you?"

Instead of answering, she sighs. "I'm afraid this will be difficult for you."

What about her? She doesn't sound condescending, more like she knows something I don't. And that's already starting to get old.

"You'll need to feel your way." She takes my hand and pulls me down toward what feels like a plastic pipe. "Take this ladder."

"Okay." Blind as a bat, I feel along the pipe until I find the top rung of the ladder she's talking about. "How far down?"

"Twenty meters. I'll go first."

Her garments shift as she begins her descent.

"All right then." I take a deep breath and blow it out, contemplating my odds of surviving a twenty-meter fall to whatever lies below. My boot makes contact, and I rest my full weight on the plastic rung. "There you are." It gives under me, bowing slightly. I bring over my other leg and start down, one rung at a time. The way the ladder bends and creaks as I make each step—it's like I'm the only one on it.

"You still there?"

"Of course." Her voice echoes from far below. She's already at the bottom.

"Didn't even use the ladder, did you?" I recall the way she launched herself down at me when we met.

"No."

Her matter-of-fact tone almost makes me smile. "There's something different about you. Can't quite put my finger on it." My boot slips off a rung, but I catch myself, clutching onto the sides of the ladder and knocking into the rock wall with my shoulder.

"Focus," she says.

"Right." Maybe I shouldn't try to multitask. But then again, I've never been good at following directions. "How close am I?"

"Fifteen meters to go."

"You can see me, huh? I mean—you can see in the dark?"

"Yes."

Maybe she's some kind of mutant. They warned us it could happen if we left the bunker too soon. Sector 43 was auto-locked, programmed to release the blast doors after twenty years passed. By then, supposedly, the nuclear winter would be over, and the atmosphere would have re-adjusted, naturally replenishing itself. But I'm sure there were some bunkers with manual locks, built in basements by folks who were pretty sure they wouldn't make the governors' lottery. The scientists and the soldiers did their best to root them out and eradicate them—for our welfare, of course—but some may have remained on D-Day. People left to their own devices could have come out five or ten years too soon, and the fallout in