First Spark

chapter six

Mares pov

My legs don't burn as much as I thought they would. Especially since most of the journey has been uphill. By the time we come across all the fallen debris I've barely broken a sweat. I see Eden stop to take a drink. Her hair has been pulled back halfway and the bag she's been carrying has been switched out between her and Grey. I offered to take Noahs for a bit but he didn't take me up on it.

A few yards ahead I can see a spot of sunlight coming through. When I walk close enough I look up and see just how far the distance is from where I fell. I wonder in amazement how I survived it. The light shines against dark rock and hardened mud. A stark contrast to the yellow light from the sun. I hope no one else comes by using the same shortcut I did. They might not be as lucky. I look out of the hole and see a tree trunk come into focus. It triggers something in my memory.

Suddenly I'm back where I was yesterday, walking through the woods. I hear something ahead of the me. A voice. It screams "no!" I stop in my tracks and hide behind that tree.

-

Thats all I can rember from it. I decide to tell them about this memory later.

When I look back over grey is walking around the outline of the sunlight. After kicking a few rocks to the side he motions me over.

"I'm going to go ahead and assume this is yours." Beneath him is the cracked glass from my transcribe. I curse and jog to pick it up.

"It must have fallen out of my pocket. I completely forgot about it." Transcribes are what we use for computers. Writing things down on paper wasn't an option anymore, so they made these to save space and the economy. I reach down and pick it up careful not to let the broken glass cut my fingers. "Wonder if it still works?"

"Doubtful. But then again so is falling from up there and making it out with just a couple cuts. Try it out." He keeps moving around the debris while I work on turning it back on. After holding the power button for a few seconds the screen flickers on. Only a quarter of the screen lights up because it got crushed, but I smile anyway.

"I got it!" I shout happily.

"Got what?" Noahs asks walking up behind me. His eyes squint away from the sunlight.

I guess living down here in the dark gives them light sesitivity.

It also explains how they see so far ahead in the dark while I see a third of what they do.

"My transcribe. I didn't think I'd see it again."

"Your what?"

"Transcribe. It's like a mini computer that we carry around." He frowns at it and that looks back up at me.

"Is it supposed to be flickering like that?" His eyes twitch when the screen glitches on and off.

"No, the whole screen is supposed to be lit but since it fell and cracked, it's broken. You guys don't have these things down here?"

"Maybe the rich people do but I've never seen something like this. What does it do?" He leans closer to it and finches when it glitches again. I laugh softly.

"It's like a book of everything. If you want to find out how the city was built you can type it in and it'll tell you. If you want a recipe for dinner it can do that too."

"How does it all fit in the little box?"

"Um, think of a book with alot of pages. Transcribes are like a really big book. When you run out of room, or pages, you can delete things, or take the pages out and replace them with new sheets of paper."