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

the burden you carry. You blame yourself for the evil you were forced to do. But you need to let it go. You need to release yourself."

"I killed you." My throat closes up. My eyes sting. "I killed all of you."

"You were in a horrible place. There was nothing you could do—"

"I should have killed him sooner." I was a coward. So weak.

"You can't wallow in regret, Milton. You can't change the past, and you can't let it control you. If you do, he wins."

Jackson? "Why is he here?"

"Why am I here?"

"Because I love you."

She giggles and dips her chin. "I love you too, Milton."

My insides fill with warmth, and tears trail down my cheeks. I'm glad my face shield hides them.

"No matter what, remember that I love you. And that you love me. Let go of the past, Milton. Embrace this moment, right now." She takes my hand and squeezes it. "With me."

We pick up speed then, diving headfirst through the blue, the wind flattening our suits against us and tugging at my hood, rattling my face shield. I can't tell where we're going, but the landscape below is passing faster than I could have imagined possible, so much faster than during my superspeedy sprints.

"Do you know where we are?" she asks.

Everything down there looks the same. She points, and as she does, we angle our trajectory and begin to descend, closing in on a deformed mountain range. My stomach sinks. She's taking me back...where I left them all to die. Why?

I try to pull away from her, but she tightens her grip on my hand, and we plunge toward the foothills.

"Why here?" my voice cracks.

Her face shield turns toward me. "You'll see."

"I don't want to."

"You can't keep running away, Milton."

What's she talking about? How's she even talking? I left her body wrapped in a tarp back in the bunker storeroom. With all the others. At All-Clear, I shut that giant door behind me and never looked back. I couldn't.

The earth looms before us now and we shift our postures, rotating backward so the ground meets our boots as we land. Julia does so with practiced ease. I hit the gravel and sprawl forward, rolling a few times before I'm able to stagger to my feet, covered in dust.

"You okay?" She jogs my way.

"Yeah," I manage, stretching my sore back. "I'll have to practice that."

"You're doing better each time."

I've flown before? Why can't I remember? Something like that should stand out.

I glance around us. Then I stare. This is it, where the mutants came en masse with all their jeeps and rifles and rocket launchers. Where I ran past them and left the survivors to their fate up in the caves. Where I paused to turn a few of the mutants' weapons on each other before I raced off.

I remember running away like it was yesterday. But I remember something else, too: the voice in my head telling me what to do, where to go. Why did I listen, obeying without question? Was it controlling me?

"Does this look familiar?" she asks quietly.

I nod. But there are some things here I don't remember from before—mounds of different shapes and sizes in the sand. Of course the vehicles and hungry cannibals are gone. That battle's been over for who knows how long. But what are these strange sand formations?

I point out the closest one and step toward it. "They weren't here before."

She walks beside me as I approach the mound protruding a meter from the earth. I poke it with my gloved finger. It gives slightly, soft like a hydropack, the ashen sand on the surface shifting, sliding to the ground. Whatever's underneath is covered in a thick layer of the stuff. I stare at it for a moment like I'm waiting for it to reveal itself to me. Then I wipe with both hands, shoving the sand aside.

What emerges is the head of a mutant, buried waist-deep and frozen, jaw locked open in horror.

"Okay then." I drop back a step, my adrenaline surging. "Didn't expect that."

"It's dead."

"Right."

"They all are." She gestures at the sand sculptures around us. "He buried them."

"Who?"

"Once they did what he wanted them to, he drowned them in the dust of the earth. He didn't need them anymore. He'll do the same to you, if you do as he asks."

"Hold on now." I raise both hands. "Who the hell are you talking about?"

She grasps my arm, squeezing it as she implores me, "He'll try to use your past against you, make you think you're something you're not. You can't listen to him. You've got to let go of the past—"

"Right. I get it. Forgive myself, warm fuzzies and all that." I take her by the shoulders. "But who are you talking about?"

"You already know."

The gravel shifts next to us as the dust begins to swirl upward and outward, seeming to come alive. At the same time, the dry earth gives a low rumble and breaks open, the clay below spreading apart to release the figure of a man who erupts headfirst from the ground. He leaps to stand before us, his jumpsuit and face shield covered in dirt.

"How was your flight?" Jackson's voice emerges as he brushes himself off with his gloved hands.

"Exhilarating." Julia crosses her arms. "You should try it."

"No thanks."

"What are you doing here?" I blurt out.

His face shield tilts toward me. "Now that's a multifaceted question, to be sure. Were you enjoying your one-on-one time with her, and my presence here is both unexpected and unwelcome? Or do you think I'm dead, and I should be back in that bunker where you left me, a corpse festering in my own blood? Or could it be that you know none of this is real—we're not really here—but you're okay with it, as long as it's her you see and not me?"

"I thought we left you at the Preserve—or wherever we were."

"Oh." He returns to dusting himself off. "Well, you're gonna find you can't leave me