The Forsaken

if we just curl up and freeze to death inside it.
    Gadya grabs the wheel too. We both crank the handle with all our strength, screaming as we hear more feelers in the sky above us, getting louder. The metal wheel feels locked and immobilized at first.
    Then, with a sudden hiss, the wheel slowly starts to turn. . . .

SELECTED
    “ IT ’ S OPEN! ” I YELL , barely believing our good fortune. Part of me thinks I’m hallucinating. Another part thinks it’s a trap and an army of feelers is going to burst out and fly us up into the void.
    “Go, go, go!” Gadya screams at me.
    We yank the hatch wide open. As pressurized air pours out, we fling ourselves inside.
    I don’t know where we’re headed, or who or what we’ll find there. I just tell myself it can’t be worse than what’s outside.
    Gadya sprawls to the floor, clutching her damaged ankle as I slam the huge door shut. I spin the handle, trying to lock us inside and keep the feelers out. I hear a clank, and the handle stops turning.
    I’m gasping for air. I lean over, heaving, trying to listen for the feelers. There’s nothing but silence.
    I gaze around. We’re inside a frigid, square cement chamber. It’s cold but doesn’t have the dry-ice feeling. It’s dimly lit by a few recessed fluorescent bulbs, and the concrete walls are slick with ice.
    Three large metal doorways to our left appear to lead into further catacombs. I can see icy stalactites hanging down from the high ceiling, as though pipes have leaked and the water has frozen. The floor is pretty much a sheet of ice, as slippery as the frozen lake.
    “Where is everyone?” Gadya asks, trying to get a look at her ankle. Indeed, the space is deserted, like it was abandoned long ago.
    “I don’t know.” I can barely speak, and not just because I’m out of breath. I’m mourning all of our friends. I failed to help David—after he saved me so many times. Just like I couldn’t save Liam. And now there’s no way to ever make it up to them.
    “I thought there’d be people in here,” Gadya says, her voice rising in a groan of desperation. Her fists are clenched, but there’s no one around for her to fight. “None of this makes any sense!”
    “It looks like no one’s been here for years.”
    “How is that possible?”
    I hear the raw panic in her voice. This is not the place either of us expected. It’s not the gleaming nerve center of a city. It’s just an empty hole inside an old industrial building.
    “Liam, Sinxen, Markus,” Gadya says. “David, too. They died for this? For this? ”
    I gaze around. “At least they have lights in here. That means they’ve got power. Which is more than we had at the village.”
    Gadya doesn’t respond. I see a bank of dusty computer monitors embedded in one of the walls. They’re all dead, their LCD screens cracked and frozen.
    Gadya sinks against a concrete pillar. “I think my ankle’s broken from jumping off that pipe. I can’t move it anymore. Not even a little.”
    “We have to go deeper and find somewhere to hide,” I tell her urgently. “Then we can rest.”
    Gadya nods. She sits there wincing in pain as I start trying to open the metal doors closest to us. The first two are either locked or I’m not strong enough to open them. Then I come to the final one, the largest of the three, which has a huge concrete arch above it. A sign next to the door reads BALCONY DELTA OPENING: PORTAL TWELVE .
    Gadya watches me with hooded eyes.
    “It’s not over until we give up,” I tell her. “And I haven’t given up yet. Have you?”
    “Never,” she spits back.
    I grip the third door’s chrome wheel handle. It’s freezing, and my gloves are in tatters. I put all my strength into it as I try to crank the wheel. At first I think it’s never going to turn, that it’s either locked or frozen shut.
    And then it gives.
    I turn the handle faster, spinning it. The door begins to move. I leap back as it starts opening outward, under its own power.
    Gadya is startled too. She pushes herself off the floor. We know that anything could come through this door.
    But nothing does, except stale air. It’s like we’ve broken into a mausoleum. Inside is blackness, with a few small lights burning white in the darkness like electric candles.
    Neither Gadya nor I say anything. We just stand there for a moment, completely puzzled.
    “It’s deserted,” Gadya finally says. “Like the rest of this place.”
    We creep closer to the entrance, trying