Descending Road - MY SCREAMS CONTINUE by Dana W. Paxson

MY SCREAMS CONTINUE

The lights begin to glow a little. Dawn. I crouch and reach forward one more time. My fingers close on the shard. Yes — it is as sharp as I had thought. I prick the metal-strong skin at my left shoulder, and my bronze blood wells and trickles down my chest. No more will I be this living relief-sculpture, gray and trapped like the wall of stone around me. My limbs throb.

I want to change my point of view, turn my gaze left and right along the street. I make the first exquisite cut around my head, where the skin leaves the vicinity of my skull to become part of the wall. The cryssteel sings pain to me as I outline my neck and head, sawing through my dermal prison.

Air rushes in, burning into the uncovered flesh behind the wall’s barrier. Screaming, I flay myself. Any of my own original skin is now long gone, absorbed by the preservation drugs they gave me, the gene drugs that made me able to feed only and forever on the photons of the hallway light. For a time, I will bathe in pure pain: an incentive to find a skin to replace the gift prison-hide that has so long armored me in here.

My screams continue; no one is near enough at this hour to hear me. I saw quickly through the last confining sheets of the flexible metal at my feet; I step free, and fall on my face. My legs barely work. To learn to use them again will take some time.

The dawn lights become an underground sunrise. No one will come this way for hours. I twist in crawling pain to see my calf and buttock muscles, no skin covering them now. Slowly, carefully, I pull the prison-skin from my front. My exposed flesh — chest, face, neck, thighs, sex — burns now as if I have been set aflame. On the dusty stone floor fall dribbles of golden fluid: my eternal blood, another gift of the City‘s minions. No hemoglobin needed for a wall-prisoner.

The pain lashes me to full attention, to fight my way to my feet, stagger back and forth, and school my muscles. Now, needing real blood again, I am thirsty. I know the old ways, the spiral stairs of the City‘s filthy airshafts; I stumble off to the left, toward a steel door in the wall of this corridor. It should be Shaft Arbonel. That shaft will take me to my walled-off home, ages after I closed the last crevices, knowing then that they would find me.

Yes, say the door’s faint dead runes, Arbonel. The door, rusted shut, gives way when I slam it with a hand, flies back, and bounces from the wall; its squeal mocks my hand’s explosion of nerve lightning. The stink of the shaft boils out to me. I open my arms to the stench and stagger forward. Here in the shaft, darkness rules again, except for a pinpoint of light thousands of feet above me. That point is the sun of planetary morning.

Sharp-toothed rats, interested in my scent, follow me now; I ascend the stair winding around the shaft, stopping to rest and breathe. No energy here. If I slip from the steps, and fail to splatter on the flights below me, I will die in the quickening slime ten thousand feet down.

Even Jono the Corer can die.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	MY SCREAMS CONTINUE 6303 Arcus The lights begin to glow a little. Dawn. I crouch and reach forward one more time. My fingers close on the shard. Yes — it is as sharp as I had thought. I prick the metal-strong skin at my left shoulder, and my bronze blood wells and trickles down my chest. No more will I be this living relief-sculpture, gray and trapped like the wall of stone around me. My limbs throb. I want to change my point of view, turn my gaze left and right along the street. I make the first exquisite cut around my head, where the skin leaves the vicinity of my skull to become part of the wall. The cryssteel sings pain to me as I outline my neck and head, sawing through my dermal prison. Air rushes in, burning into the uncovered flesh behind the wall’s barrier. Screaming, I flay myself. Any of my own original skin is now long gone, absorbed by the preservation drugs they gave me, the gene drugs that made me able to feed only and forever on the photons of the hallway light. For a time, I will bathe in pure pain: an incentive to find a skin to replace the gift prison-hide that has so long armored me in here. My screams continue; no one is near enough at this hour to hear me. I saw quickly through the last confining sheets of the flexible metal at my feet; I step free, and fall on my face. My legs barely work. To learn to use them again will take some time. The dawn lights become an underground sunrise. No one will come this way for hours. I twist in crawling pain to see my calf and buttock muscles, no skin covering them now. Slowly, carefully, I pull the prison-skin from my front. My exposed flesh — chest, face, neck, thighs, sex — burns now as if I have been set aflame. On the dusty stone floor fall dribbles of golden fluid: my eternal blood, another gift of the City‘s minions. No hemoglobin needed for a wall-prisoner. The pain lashes me to full attention, to fight my way to my feet, stagger back and forth, and school my muscles. Now, needing real blood again, I am thirsty. I know the old ways, the spiral stairs of the City‘s filthy airshafts; I stumble off to the left, toward a steel door in the wall of this corridor. It should be Shaft Arbonel. That shaft will take me to my walled-off home, ages after I closed the last crevices, knowing then that they would find me. Yes, say the door’s faint dead runes, Arbonel. The door, rusted shut, gives way when I slam it with a hand, flies back, and bounces from the wall; its squeal mocks my hand’s explosion of nerve lightning. The stink of the shaft boils out to me. I open my arms to the stench and stagger forward. Here in the shaft, darkness rules again, except for a pinpoint of light thousands of feet above me. That point is the sun of planetary morning. Sharp-toothed rats, interested in my scent, follow me now; I ascend the stair winding around the shaft, stopping to rest and breathe. No energy here. If I slip from the steps, and fail to splatter on the flights below me, I will die in the quickening slime ten thousand feet down. Even Jono the Corer can die.