-Regarding Bavel-

Hey guys! This isn’t any next part or epilogue to Bavel, I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have stuck with me for three and a half years reading this story, it means a whole lot to me that you guys have engaged and enjoyed it for the egregious amount of time it took to write!! I do want to place a disclaimer here that— if you did not like the ending and how things were resolved; if you did not feel like the lore of this story was answered in ANY way shape or form, and the way it leaves is sorely confusing— fear not!! This is only a first draft, and yes it scared me out of my wits to write and share it with all of you as such, this story and its characters really mean a lot to me, but I am so glad you all have enjoyed it for what it is. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!

To answer a couple of questions you might have regarding the end of Bavel!
- Will I be posting more drafts here?
Likely not! Not only do I believe it would become a bit tedious and repetitive for you all to see the same chapters over and over again, but the next time I want to share it, I want it to be the best it possibly can— and by that I mean, of course, getting it published! Again, this draft is far from polished, there are a lot of ideas and details I want to flesh out and explain more thoroughly, and when it is done I hope to have a physical paperback in my hands!
- Will I be posting any other stories here?
Maybe! There is another novella I’ve been writing that I’ve considered posting, but it doesn’t quite work as well in as many small parts as Bavel has. There might be more short stories, or flash fiction that I’ll post in the near future, however, so look out for those! *wink wonk*
- Is there anywhere else I can find you?
Definitely! I have Patreon, actually, where I post a ton of my art, animations, and writings, which you can check out over here: https://www.patreon.com/lumenations
And an Instagram, over here: https://www.instagram.com/shelbopoly/

And again, thank you guys so so much for all of your patience and support, it means the world to me. I hope that you enjoyed my small, sassy, robotic arson bunny and his endless shenanigans!

Sincerely,
Shelbopoly

Everything happens in a blur. I don’t think I short-circuit, I don’t black out, but it feels like everything is moving sluggishly when the force I’ve been exerting suddenly cuts out. I don’t feel the man drowning, I don’t feel the corpse I was pushing on top of him, I don’t feel his lungs, the water, I don’t even feel the woman’s arm wrapped tightly around me to keep me from using my power.
I don’t feel the boats either.
It feels like the aftermath of an explosion, after the initial wave of force blows past and its wake of bloated silence muffles everything in one’s shock to the explosion having happened.
The woman hefts me back to the boat as quickly as she can, clambering in and desperately pulling the cord on the generator to get it to start. The weight holding up the boats snaps. I blink out just as the generator starts, and just as a hand bursts from the water and grasps the side of the boat.

Lia grabs the arm, but takes one look up at the looming boats and she throws off the rope tethering the speedboat instead.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
She takes hold of the steering wheel and pushes the lever controlling the speed. The tiny boat sputters, whirs, and groans from months of no use, but it moves forward. The boy loses his balance and falls on his back, next to my limp body. He scrambles back, but just as quickly flinches from the feeling of freezing wind on his neck. The boats scream, collapsing over the dockside-- Lia pushes at the lever harder, teeth clenched and leaning forward as if it will force the speedboat to go faster-- the boy grips one of the seats, eyes wildly watching the massive row of boats close overtop them as the rudder just skims out of their way. The row fists the water and a massive ripple bloats up under them, effectively shoving them up and out, nearly capsizing as the ocean washes them far from shore.

They sit there, stunned as the water circles them around and around, thoughts plunging what would have happened if they hadn’t moved as fast as they did, what would have happened if they hadn’t been in the boat at all. What would have happened if I hadn’t been holding the boats up for as long as I did.
Lia pants, staring in one direction and unable to look away from the collapsed ferry ships, the camels and people and Parasites all still running in their respective cries for help, for escape, for food. Then she seems to snap out of her daze and whirl around to my body still lying on the floor of the speedboat. She swears, getting up from her seat and rushing to my side.
“Please-- please tell me he’s okay--” She says, turning me over. The boy watches, increasingly confused, as she unlatches my face and inspects the damage. She fiddles some wires aside, flinches to see the extent of older damage unrepaired, and removes her shaking hands. Moving back to the wheel of the boat, she leans over the vitals of the boat and taps the glass of the battery life.
“What--” the boy finds a voice, as hoarse as it is-- “What are you doing?”
“This thing is very old, the battery isn’t going to last us a day.” She opens a panel on the stand beneath the wheel, pulls some wires out as far as they can go. “Bring him over here.”
The boy’s eyes glide down to look at me, hands instinctively raising in preparation to defend himself. I don’t move. I can’t move. Technically I’m unconscious. He taps my bleeding arm with his foot, and when I don’t react, he gradually crouches down until he’s close enough to stare into the chaos of mechanics behind my glass. He gingerly lifts the latch, trying to find the familiar malice in the screen that is now entirely blank. A minute passes, a minute of curiosity and a strange concern. Then he gently hefts me up, still expecting me to spring awake and gnaw his face off-- I don’t think he understands screens.
The woman takes me from him when he walks over, laying me snugly beneath the wheel where she can pull wires out from me and from the boat and link them together as if they were made for this exact purpose. She reaches into my head again, finds a switch or a knob, and clicks it back and forth-- my screen flickers on between the cracks but it’s not something that wakes me. She swears again, clicking the switch off and on. Off and on. Off and on.
“What are you doing?” The boy asks again with a cough. The air is hot, steaming, humid; it nearly forces him to sit down.
“Bavel’s have batteries that can lend life to other machines. I’m trying--” She curses. “I’m trying to get his battery to display so I know how far we can get before the boat dies. And the longer we sit here the more the boat’s battery is wasted.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t we--? Shouldn’t we go back and help those people?” He asks, moving to peek over the boat. She puts a hand on his shoulder and gently pushes him down. She removes her ker, looking in his eyes.
“We can’t help them, Khalil. They can try to get away, but-- we can’t help them.”
“Yes we can! We can go back, and--”
“And we’ll die with them,” she says. “We are not their best chance of surviving. We are not their saviors. The best they can do is get as far away from that place as possible, and hope the Parasites don’t catch up to them.”
She removes the rest of the heavy fabric of her disguise, and the boy looks for some kind of answer, deep behind the pupils of her eyes. She tugs him close to her, a motherly embrace that he isn’t quite sure how to react to. She keeps him from trying again to look at the coast.
“I am… so sorry you were dragged into this. You didn’t deserve it… not any of it.” Tears spatter the top of his head, and like some disease, he suddenly feels himself welling up with her.
He doesn’t know what to say. He believes he should feel sad, should feel angry, or at the very least terrified, of something. But everything’s happened so quickly at once all he feels is a strange, numb exhaustion overcome him. A realization that: he can’t do anything. Can’t do anything but sit here, embraced by a woman who seeks only to comfort him, and he feels likely needs comfort herself. The old man she worked for is gone. The people she worked to please are gone. The city that was her home, gone. Just as he.

He lifts his arms to hug her back. And they cry.


Days pass. Khalil watches a full sunrise over the water two days in a row, and Lia sits by him when she’s too tired to steer. Heat scorches, the cold numbs, but upon an evening, finally, like a slit of paint on foggy whites and blackish blues, land.

Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
A red dot pulsing in a maw of black. Some hissing, creaking noise-- fracturing glass. A white oval hums awake, and I open my eyes; I think I’m blind for a moment, I see nothing. The sound of hushed trees and wind breathing through grass fades in until it’s too sharp, and the feeling of scratching stalks at the end of my fingers becomes too real. Mechanically, with effort, I sit up. A white shape peers back down at me, blazing the open field in a quiet light. Trees circle, and flowers bushel the place, all hushing through the wind, and when I look back upward, my screen flickers in surprise. The black maw glitters, and the realization of bits of light finally focuses. Fading in all at once, my ears instinctively lower behind me, and my hands come to my chest-- something brushes against my face.
My gaze flickers down. A small, white flower sits clenched in my fist, wilting even as I force my hand open, watch it float to the ground. I quickly check my battery-- not nearly enough to make it across this tiny clearing. As I scan, I see two cut paths through the field. Two things, having made their way to me, and gone back in the same direction. Standing, creaking, I click on my heat sensor: there, far in the distance. Far, far in the distance, two dots of living red, like fire, gradually getting farther away. I stare for a long while, not sure what I’m expecting to feel. A small pang throbs, something I can’t recognize, but something I might have felt, once.
It hurts, but I don’t know what to call it. It bleeds, but I don’t know how to stop it. It cries, but I don’t know why.
Why am I crying?
I can’t look at it anymore. Shaking, I flick off the sensor, I turn away as if it will somehow help.
And, crying, I start walking in the other direction.

-The End-

Bavel (22)
The boy stares down at the man, the world a blinding, ringing sound that pulls his hands to his ears and a scream from his throat. He can’t hear anything, but the raw pain that throbs from the man below him pierces his chest and roots him to the spot. Why did the man stop? Why did he stop?
The woman grabs the boy’s wrist, pulling him out of the way and to the boat. He struggles, confused, trying to shout and feeling his lungs scratch but hearing nothing. She hoists him into the speedboat, yelling at him something he can’t understand. Her eyes are wide, hands shaking and gun gleaming. She puts a hand out in a gesture-- telling the boy to stay where he is, and then she disappears from view. He keeps his hands over his ears and seethes through tears, afraid to even pull up and peek over the side of the boat.
Lia turns to cock her pistol again--
The man socks her across the jaw, smacking her to the ground. He stands on one leg, the other bent, and he limps over her, drawing his electric gun. His scarf has slipped from his neck, and his teeth glare furiously.
“I am not-- JEALOUS of that tinker’s toy! It took the only thing we need to survive, don’t you GET IT?! It’s destroyed what I needed to-- to be here, to think, a-and remember, to live, to-- to be HUMAN!”
Lia begins to push herself from the ground, but doesn’t dare stand. She leers at him, spitting blood. “You stopped being human the moment you turned your back on everyone. It was your choice to form this mindless mob, to slaughter innocent people. You know whose Bavel that is-- so you know whose fault it is for what it’s become. You have no one to blame for all of this but YOURSELF.”
His face wrinkles in rage, semi-obscured by the sandstorm that finally catches them. He opens his mouth to growl back a reply, when he hears the boy scream. He snaps his head up and turns, and he loses all color the moment he knows what he’s looking at.
A Parasite towers over them, its huge body finding balance on its small, bony limbs. It slips in the sand, but eventually finds the wood of the old pier and drags itself forward-- curious why its prey has stopped running. Acid gushes from its gaping mouth, digging holes in the floor, and it grinds to a stop before the boat. Low, loud clicks come from somewhere inside it, a call to its kind or… maybe some kind of laugh. The boy’s knuckles are white as he grips the boat frame, and his hearing fades in only to the sounds of his half-breathing, the sand on wind, and the giant creature. There are no expressions, no face to read, no words it speaks that gives him fear. It can only be described as a raw, animalistic weight that permeates like heat itself, bearing down on tiny ants it only considers worthy smiting.
The electric gun almost drops from the man’s hand.
“Don’t move,” Lia breathes. “Jonathan, don’t--”
“I’m not moving,” he hisses, one foot inching backward.
“Yeah, don’t-- *pant* let it-- *pant* kill you, BEFORE I GET TO,” I wheeze, shouting from down the dock. They shift gazes to the obvious strange dent in the ocean water, the ears that poke up into view, and the small nub hand that reaches up on the edge of the wood. A struggling, small robotic body heaves itself onto the wooden planks, the column of sand built to raise me up sinking back and the water finally closing underneath me. I wheeze still-- why am I wheezing I’m a robot-- and slowly stand straight, shaking from the weight I’m still holding. The wood at my feet cracks.
“You really can’t fight this thing?” I call, barely able to glimpse the enormous bulb through all of the spastic glitches in my eyesight. I figure: why not? “HEY!” I scream, lifting the corpse the boat so generously lent me into the air, and smack it into the Parasite to get its attention. “YOU FAT--” smack “UGLY--” smack “BALLOON--” smack. “I would really appreciate you leaving the killing to ME!” I throw the corpse meters away into the dune, and watch the Parasite grind in a circle to face me-- clearly not interested in the month’s old corpse, and rather the thing made with the materials of its preferred diet. Acid dribbles from its mouth, its body heaving, and I can tell, somehow it’s shifting its weight to lurch at me.
“You think you’re going to kill me?” I sneer, shaking. My gaze flicks at the man, that jolt of raw feeling trying to force it away, but for a moment I catch a something similar from him. Something that paralyzes him now being before this creature, and something that, seeing the boy, seeing him helpless, pushes me forward. The man is--
The word fear flickers through my thoughts for half a second, a word I’d forgotten, a word only said once before the world went black the first time, fifteen years ago. A word I tried to forget, to shut out, but pierces me now. Cautiously I pull it back, pick it apart, feel it around my actions, my reactions, to him-- and I realize: he is as much afraid of this thing, as I am of him. I take another step, the dock splitting from the weight. I growl, hands clenching: “Really?” I’m able to look at the man now. He stares at me, wondering how stupid I could possibly be. “This little thing?” I step again. Finally, my movement seems to register in the Parasite, and having no sense of self-preservation, explodes at it, vomiting acid. Where I would normally grin, I scowl, stop moving, and make no movement to save myself. Instead, I watch with soured contentment as it heavily sprints toward me, and cracks through the jetty, through the first holes it made going down. The dock splits, almost giving way underneath me, but adding more weight to the one I’m already holding feels like nothing all of a sudden. The will to live, to see the boy is enough to keep me standing, enough to lift one hand, enough to send hundreds of splinters driving into the Parasite before it can even think of drowning. Acid gushes from the wounds, hissing against the water and consuming the monster in itself until its pathetic screeches wail into silence. I lift my head, still scowling. “You.”
The boy instantly disappears below the lip of the speedboat, whimpering to himself; but I’m glaring at the man. So much fear-- the word hurts to think-- leading to so much… stupidity. So much that stopped me from being able to even look at him without feeling like my body was splitting at the seams. Part of me is convinced the only reason I’m able to look at him now is because I already feel like I’m falling apart.
I lift my hand again. The man fumbles with his gun, struggling to break from paralysis and stop me from doing anything-- the corpse comes flying back from the sand and bullets into him, sending him flying off of the dock past the woman and into the water. It pins him down, and I push him to the sand where I feel him struggle to fight, clawing at the body to get off of him. My tiny fist closes, expression seething, my attention split between the row of boats pushing harder and harder to fall, and the man I want to feel struggle until he stops moving. Until I know-- until I KNOW-- he can’t come back. All of my anger, all of my hate pushes to keep him stuck there, as much as it hurts, as much as I can start feeling the joints at my arms bleed, as much as my sensors scream to stop before I overstrain my limits. I push harder, screaming in rage, screaming out of everything this man did-- everything he has been to stop me, not just now, not just everything that’s happened in a few days-- but for the past fifteen years. I push at his lungs, never so much rage and pain built up to kill.
I hardly notice the woman snatch up the gun where the man dropped it. She sees the boats hanging above, glances at the boy. She looks at the generator on the speedboat, whips back to me, and curses. “He’s going to short-circuit.”
She sprints off the dock onto the sand, nearly slipping as she tries to make it to me, and I only catch her at the last second before she grabs my cabinet, and forces my arms down to their sides.

Bavel (21) I curl forward, most of me top-heavy and trapped underneath the dead body that somehow makes the drop twice as fast, and twice as slow at the same time. Both of my hands automatically extend in front of me to brace for the fall, while thoughts spear through my head that I can’t be waterproof enough to survive a plunge into ocean water. Shade swallows me, moving past and wrapping itself over waves ahead; the massive boat leans down, screaming, almost faster than my fall, but not nearly enough. My ears twitch inward, the rusty grinding vibrating the inside of my head, and the corpse seems to hold me in its arms, comforting me straight to my death. I close my eyes— I try to— I feel the near tangible weight in my hands of the ocean, how much force and pressure trapped in itself like steam swelling a flimsy pipe, and yet how fluid, how slippery and silky it’s making itself, resisting the power that pushes from my hands to move, move, MOVE OUT OF THE WAY— The water roars at me, a dent plunging into the sand and clawing over itself away from the shadow of the boat, sizzling loudly as I plod into the ground, and the body cannons on top of me. My screen flickers black for a second and the water rushes back in, but I strain my hand out desperately, and it stutters back. The boat rushes down at me, and I thrust my other hand at it, pain pounding through my arm at how heavy it is in the air. It pushes its entire weight at me, but I can’t let it— not now, not NOW. The water fights its way in closer, and my head sparks trying to focus in nearly every direction at once. A scream scratches its way out of my speaker, and I swear a piece of my wood cracks from the sheer force of keeping everything suspended away from me. The body on top of me twitches, just barely lifting into the air. My screen flashes on and off erratically, and I grimace through the pain as I force my own weight up onto my feet, force myself straight, force myself to look for the coast and the safety of the hot, dry sand. I lift my head with a heavy creak, and that is when I spot the boy. Scuffs of sand stream out behind the boy as he runs to the coast, wrists bleeding from the rope still around his wrists and sweat steaming burnt skin and dripping over his sharp, dark eyes. The ocean should be beautiful— a fat, wide, heavy blanket gently blown by the wind. But the sun stings the air, soured with salt and wheezing breath and a full grown genocidal man hunting for blood. The boy begins to make for the boats, but suspects well enough to keep away from the strange dust cloud growing from the first on the row. The whole line of boats had started to fall just moments after he fell off the camel, but they’ve slowed to a stop— the last boat refuses to crash, and the sight unnerves the boy as he spies the small speedboat at the end of the dock on his far left. Father took him fishing, just once, when their village still had a tiny boat, and a people to sail it. He isn’t sure what kind of boat it is, but he runs toward it as if he knows how he could use it. A screaming camel nearly runs him over, and the boy trips up pushing himself back as it thrashes over him, throwing a steaming corpse off its back. He brings his hands to his nose, squeezing his eyes shut before the image of burning flesh settles in his mind. What? What’s going on? How-- Another camel rides past him, its rider clutching their side in pain and their steed wheezing blood, barely managing to keep running. More people, more riders, even the robotic creatures all run from the stirring cloud, a cloud that seems to wail out to him. He pushes up from the ground and keeps running, avoiding everyone as he makes it onto the pier. The old wood makes creaking plunk sounds as he sprints to the speedboat, and reaches out for the edge-- His collar catches on his throat, choking him, and for a moment he thinks the Bavel has caught him, keeping him from escape, but he feels the sweat of a hand pull him back, the sickly, gasping breath of a man who snatches the boy’s arm, crushing it as he’s turned to face the Loakan’s leader. “Let me go!!” Khalil screams, battering at the man’s fist that only keeps hardening, almost snapping his arm. “AAAHHH!!” “You’re… not… getting AWAY!” The man shouts, pulling him closer. Strings of hair from his ponytail gleam with sweat, and his panting reeks of death. “You’re going to get that Bavel, or I’m going to kill you, right now!” “I don’t CARE!” The boy shouts back. “All your people are dying and you’re letting them--!” He glances behind the man, seeing dark shapes just barely peek from the cloud of sand. “Y-you’re going to let your people die??” “My ‘people’ wouldn’t be dying if not for you and your lousy, annoying Bavel! Do you know what that thing has done? What those things are??” His inflection sparks desperately. “Parasites will kill everything alive. Once it has a scent it will never stop… it won’t stop until we’re all dead. Except for the fact that Bavels don’t have blood scents to smell!” He grabs the boy’s neck, choking him. “The boat… the boat…” Khalil breathes, grasping at the man to make him stop. “The boat is barely big enough to fit three people. It’s probably dead, and there’s nothing we can--” He pushes the boy forward suddenly, letting him go and jumping back as a camel with a hooded figure bullets between them, and the figure lands, pulling a gun on the man before he can pull out his own. “Leave the kid alone, Jonathan,” the figure says. The Loakan leader sniffs, coughs, and wheezes a laugh. “I can’t believe it. Lia, you made it…. all the way out here,” he scoffs, wasting no time moving toward her. “How didn’t I recognize you…?” “Maybe because you were too busy dancing on my boss’ corpse,” she says coldly. The man chuckles. “Some boss to let his secretary down the path of murder.” “Some friend to try and kill the people he loved.” He slips a knife out from his belt, taking another step forward. What hint of playfulness and familiarity the man allowed himself to feel dissolves. “You don’t want to be spreading lies, Lia. It could get you killed.” She replies with equal chill. “Is that what you’ve told yourself all these years?” “This isn’t your business. Just give me the boy.” “I’m not going to do that.” “Why do you care? He isn’t yours. He isn’t anyone’s. He deserves to die for what he’s done.” “He’s a child. What could he have done?” “He brought that Bavel here. He’s been dragging that thing behind him--” “You think that was his choice? The Bavel wants to kill him because it’s defective. The destruction of the West has nothing to do with him.” She pauses, and her lip stretches to the side in disgust. “Are you jealous? Of a Bavel?” “Shut up.” He takes another step, lifting his knife. “You shut up right now.” “You’re jealous that a Bavel killed all the people you were keen on killing? You’re jealous that a Bavel has done more in about a year than you and your whole group has done in fifteen? You’re jealous of a Bavel that’s like you in almost every way?” He starts forward, but she cocks her pistol, the barrel almost touching his forehead. Her face is red, fiery, angry. “Use your HEAD, Jonathan! Your men are dying, camels running, your group is ripping apart and all you can worry about right now is that boy? One Bavel? You are going to get yourself killed, and it’s going to be your fault, out of your selfish ambitions.” Her face twists in painful rage. Tears drip down her face. “I knew you as a boy. I watched you grow whenever I could come by Myrna’s. I cared about you. And I watched as you turned your own family down-- You-- ” The gun shakes in her hand. “What happened to you?” He stares at her, breathing heavily. She seems to see right through his visor because he flinches, the knife slacking in his hand. He shivers, bringing his free hand to his face, and draws back, letting the words sink in. “I…” His mouth is dry, and he glances at the cloud that looks about to overcome them. At the remaining people escaping the spitting screeches and claws of the creatures pursuing them. At the knife in his hand. The boy stands behind Lia and begins to take a step further away out of some primal fear. There’s a hatred that emanates from the man, a rage that permeates in a strange, tense, boiling heat. The man watches his fingers slowly return to its grip around the hilt, and he looks back up at Lia, his expression invisible, but his tone a deadly drip. “I grew up.” And he swipes his arm upward, snapping Lia’s armed hand from its aim as she pulls the trigger, and he strikes inward-- And stops before the edge of the knife punctures the boy’s chest. The boy has his hands out side to side, his head turned and eyes closed in wait of the pain. He whimpers, teeth bared, and the man’s eyes are wide, following the edge of the blade to the rib it’s touching. “Wha--” Jonathan breathes. Lia whips her hand down, cocking the gun again and shooting the man in the thigh before he can think again. The pain burrows a millisecond after the bullet, and the man falls back on his side, screaming. The knife klinks to the sand as he clutches his leg and the blood soaks his gloves and the sand underneath it.

Bavel (2
“I don’t know if I’ve said this, ever enough, but I HATE YOU SO MUCH.”
“I think I have realized that, yes.”
“And you are an absolute IMBECILE—“
“Yes.”
“And we are going TO DIE!”
“That depends on whether you decide it’s a smart idea NOT to draw attention to ourselves,” my twin snaps back, climbing up stair after stair as the rumbling crescendoes in the hallway behind us. He flails a hand. “SHHHHUH.”
We both freeze and immediately lower our brightnesses to a near black. Below us, in the metal hallway adjacent to the narrow staircase, unholy screeches of acidic death roar past us in a rolling, thunderous wave; all of the disgusting pale bulbs smash up against each other in a blind rampage to the entrance of the boat, making the structure groan and shake. As quickly as distant thunder, they’re gone, and I turn my head back to the top of the stairs.
“We could lift each other to the top,” my twin suggests.
“I’m not helping you— HEY WHAT NO—“ He lifts a hand, ignoring my flailing as he hurls me over him. I smack into the wall out of sight and thump to the ground, immediately checking myself for any damage. My head appears over the top stair to scowl.
“Stop being a baby,” he comments, gesturing to himself. “Now lift me.”
“No.” I turn away and inspect the landing, two ways to head. “And I’m fifteen, technically.”
“Yes. Technically,” my twin replies, grunting as he makes his way up.
“What are we doing?” I ask again, making for the left end.
“Going to the captain’s deck. To the right,” he corrects, hefting his chubby arms onto the last step.
“You’re planning to get this junk running? HA! Those giant— things—”
“Parasites,” he says, dragging the rest of himself up.
“—Have probably eaten through the entire boat. Not to mention this whole thing would fall apart from rust alone.”
“We’re not starting this boat.” He stands, catching up to me.
“Then what are we doing?”
We reach the captain’s door, and he crouches low before leaping to reach the handle. He grabs the rusted metal, but it doesn’t give, and he hangs there for a minute, blinking.
“This usually worked.”
I roll my eyes and lift both hands toward him. Yanking down, I tear my twin to the floor and wrench the handle from place. He yelps, holding the places where his arms enter the sides of his cupboard, and his face twists in pain as he stumbles back against the wall.
“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” I mock half-heartedly, pushing against the door to get it to move.
“You nearly tore my arms off!” He snaps.
I stop and step up to him, glowering. “I’ve had much worse,” I hiss, whipping back to the door. “Now, what,” I squeeze through the small gap into the enormous, hollow room. “Are we here for?” He follows me, clutching his arms and staring at my back in thought.

Lia exhales heavily through the fabric wound around her face. She wipes the sweat from her eyes for what must be the hundredth time, and glances down at her water flask for what must be the thousandth. She wishes she could just strip into a two-piece and plunge headfirst into the ocean, just meters away; but the similarly clad, stoic Loakan plow ahead without a second glance, seemingly unbothered by the heat. Seemingly.
At the back of the line, she notices ahead that the group of camels and struggling horses gradually pick up into a canter, disturbed by plumes of sand that are close to the docks now less than half a mile away. What she doesn’t see is the front of the line, where the Loakan’s leader is frantically scrambling up onto his camel— sitting just ahead of Khalil— and whipping the animal into motion, wrenching the rein to the far left as they speed into a gallop. He screams something down the line, and in no less than twenty seconds the entire squad of Loakan begin to peel away in sporadic scattering.
“What’s happening?” Lia moves next to the Loakan ahead of her, who pants through her own thick clothing and rasps:
“Parasites!” And her camel takes off in an angle diagonal from the dock.
“Wait—“ Lia’s head snaps to attention at the growing mass of sand swallowing whole a dozen of people too slow to run. She swears under her breath, and kicks her own camel into a gallop, heading instead directly toward it; she tightens her fists on the reins, narrowing her eyes. “Bavel,” she whispers, almost warningly.

The man clutches the reins close to his body, gritting his teeth behind his mask. Parasites. Of course those two little demonic creatures knew— somehow! It must be Ayize’s behind this. He might have been a pig, but he was wicked smart; of course his Bavel would be his spitting image.
The Loakan leader compulsively slams a fist into the camel’s back, startling it but not getting it to go any faster than its gallop. He glances back at the dock, and the dozens of his people struggling to keep up. There is only a handful by his side now, and at least half of his crew are being overtaken by the cloud of sand hiding the Parasites.
“This is your fault, boy!” He snaps instinctively, twisting to look at empty space behind him. “Wh—“ He wrenches the reins toward him, forcing his camel to skid to a stop. He turns around, frantically searching the beach for Khalil, and spots him untying himself on the ground a few hundred yards away. The boy manages to tug off the rope on his ankles, and doesn’t hesitate to jump to his feet and bolt toward the dock.
“No,” the man breathes, baring his teeth. “NO!” He whips the camel, but it spits, taking steps back. He slaps it, but it shakes its head and turns away. “GO. You STUPID—“ The man shouts in anger and swings off of it, snatching his electric gun and hitting the sand at a run.

We both stop when we see the corpses littering the room. They’re hardly new, but they certainly didn’t die of starvation, or from the acidic monsters; one of the windows is broken, and there are animalistic slashes, tears, and bites in the flesh of the victims. From some wolf-sized creature, or creatures. But whatever they were certainly didn’t finish the job. One of the half-eaten bodies has its hand clung around the wheel of the boat.
My twin doesn’t stare, and strides to the nearest and lowest window we can look through. I make my way slowly to him, but it takes me longer to look away.
“There.” He points across the line of other half-eaten boats to a small speedboat that looks suspiciously well-kept. There is an old sand-colored tarp haphazardly tossed to its side.
“How did you know—“

“National service,” he reminds me. “And closest emergency escape. Ayize—“ His mouth twitches— “Ayize made sure to have it made without metal. No one comes down to this port anymore, so he thought it’d be smart.”
“I find it hard to agree.”
“He never ended up using it. So the battery in it is probably old. One of us—“ He looks at me— “Will have to use our battery to power it.”
“How thoughtful,” I pat a hand on his face. “Thank you for your sacrifice.” His gaze flattens.
“Don’t think I don’t find it a little suspicious how a Bavel has been able to extend its battery #life by fifteen years without a replacement.”
“A miracle.” I give him an innocent smile.
“Like coming back from the dead.”
“Exactly! You understand.” I draw my hand back and stare at the distance between us and the boat. “Now, how are we getting….”
I turn my head slowly and leer at my twin, who looks suspiciously satisfied with himself.
“You can’t power the boat and drive at the same time,” he says delightfully.
“I hate you so much,” I grumble tiredly, walking to the shattered window. He turns slowly, watching me go, still rubbing at his arms.
“Why do you?” The question is so sudden I almost graze my hand against a piece of glass still stuck to the frame. My mouth pulls to one side and I stare back at him, still leering.
“Again, with the stupid questions.”
“You come from out of nowhere,” he explains as he walks toward me, counting off fingers. “Not even Ayize admitted to recognizing you— and he recognizes every Bavel he’s made— you have an insane lust for murder—“
“And arson,” I add.
“And you have this obsession with a kid who probably didn’t do anything to you. Was he your owner?” He asks plainly.
“You’re really that interested in knowing little old me?” I laugh. “That’s cute.”
“I’m interested, yes.” He tilts his head and smirks slightly. “You’ve stopped smiling.”
“I’m not interested in giving answers,” I simmer.
“Is the boy your owner?”
“NO,” I snap, ears flattening. His raise, piqued.
“Fifteen years old…” He taps the knob to one of his drawers. I can see the data running faintly through his screen. “That might be why he wouldn’t’ve remembered you.”
“Oh joy— why?”
“The massacre,” he says. “Ayize whipped out Bavels left and right just to level the threat.”
“Massacre?” Definitely not my crusade of death.
“Let’s not get off topic,” he says, smiling in a way where, for a second, it feels like a mirror. “Why are you attached to the boy?”
“I just want to kill him!” I shout, spreading my arms.
“And you’re that determined to have come all the way from the west to hunt him down?”
“That’s not why—“ I flinch. “I didn’t tell you where I was from.”
“You didn’t have to.” He taps his head. “The boy comes from the west, so assumedly you would too.” He pauses. “Did it take you fifteen years to travel all the way here?”
“There were a few years of… relaxation,” I reply vaguely, standing behind him.
He snorts, and then laughs, walking to the edge of the deck. “‘Relaxation?’ Contemplating widespread genocide?” My fingers twitch, and he rocks forward for a second, but he steps back fast enough to keep from falling. He whips to look at me, and his smile fades; I’m frozen to the spot, and though I can see him, all he can see is a blank, static screen.
“‘Recording wretch,’” a voice comes from me, startling my twin. The voice is familiar for us both— more for me, than for him.
“That’s—“ He whispers, mind racing. An image glitches on his screen, a memory of a beautiful yellow house, but it flickers away. He straightens with sudden terror. “You’re—“ The boat under us groans.
Somewhere far off, something like a loud cracking bell snaps, and the entire boat suddenly pitches to one side. We both slip, rocketing off the edge; my twin falls first, but without thinking he twists and grabs me with that invisible force, flinging me into the air fast enough and far enough to slam onto the deck of the next boat just yards away. I meet his eyes for a second before he drops out of sight, but I have hardly enough time to process before the side of the boat smashes into the one I’m on, and the floor starts to tip again. I stumble, but scramble to my feet, sprinting to the side that’s tipping down; I don’t know what I’m doing, but just as the side crashes into the next, I leap onto it, scraping my arms in a roll and scuffing my cabinet. The screaming of bending metal blots out anything else, and I have to push myself forward across the wide deck just to barely make it to the next boat before it begins to crash in on itself, eaten from the inside and supported by nothing but wet sand. I lock my eyes on the speedboat, tripping over a tumbling dead body and collapsing into the gravity of the leaning floor. I try grating my hands into the metal to stop myself, but the body falls on top of me, propelling me forward to the edge rail and into the open air, over open water.