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Talen

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“We aren’t far from where I want to stop for the night,” Aerin says. “Once we get some sleep, we should make it to the exit in a couple of hours.”

True to her word, we soon turn down a short hallway and enter a room.

“No electricity here or food,” she says, “but there are bunk beds and water.”

Using her flashlight, I set myself up on the bottom bunk, glad to be off my feet. Aerin settles on another lower bunk across from me. The plastic mats on the bed are thin and musty but certainly more comfortable than the floor. I can’t pretend that I’m happy about the arrangements. Awkwardness be dammed—I much prefer sharing a bed with her.

I feel like I only just fell asleep when I wake to Aerin shaking my shoulder.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go.”

I stumble sleepily after her. When my eyes are able to focus, I see that she has a long coil of nylon rope wrapped around her shoulder, and I wonder how long she’s been awake.

“Where did you get that?” I ask.

“There’s a supply room off the barracks,” Aerin says. “I found it the last time I was here.”

“What’s the rope for?”

“Maybe nothing,” she mutters. “We’ll see. You just have to wait.”

“I’m getting tired of hearing that.” I frown and follow after her.

I’m annoyed with the lack of answers and the monotony of the main corridor under the mountain, but Aerin is right—it doesn’t take much longer to get to the end of it. One moment, we’re in the corridor with only the meager, crank flashlight to guide our way, and the next we’re in a large, open room with a high ceiling.

“This is it,” Aerin says. “We’re here.”

I follow her through the empty room to a huge set of doors. Aerin has me hold the flashlight as she turns a crank in the middle of the doors and then pulls one of them to the side. I blink as daylight penetrates the room, and Aerin leans against the door to give it a good shove. It opens a bit more, making enough space for us to pass.

Outside is a small, obviously manmade plateau leading up to the door. A hundred feet away, it drops sharply, and I take a few steps to look over the eastern cliff. Just below, I see a rut-filled dirt road leading down the hill. To the northwest, a stone lookout tower with a rusted metal staircase sits on the mountain summit, surrounded by tall, spindly evergreens. I gaze up at the trees. All of their branches are pointed eastward.

“Over here,” Aerin says, pointing toward the tower.

“Where are we?” I ask as I follow her.

“Spruce Knob,” she says, “the highest point of the Allegheny Mountains.”

We head up a small incline off the northwest side of the plateau and go around a group of rocks. As we reach the other side, the wind hits me hard in the face, stinging my eyes.

“It’s so windy here all the time,” Aerin says. She points to the trees. “Those are red spruce trees. It’s the wind that makes all their branches point east.”

We approach the east side of the lookout tower and then head around it. As we crest the summit, the view opens up to reveal the grey sky. I tilt my head to look out over the mountains, and my mouth drops open as I gasp.

The west side of the mountain is a sheer, impassible cliff. At the bottom of the cliff, where West Virginia should be, there is nothing but deep, grey water as far as I can see. Waves crash into the cliff below, and as I stare down, several boulders break away from the cliff and crash into the water.

“Where’s the land?” I whisper into the cold wind.

“There isn’t any land,” Aerin says. “That’s the whole point. I told you—the West is gone!”

Chapter 12

I sit on top of the stone lookout tower on the summit of the mountain and stare out at the sea that shouldn’t be there. Cold wind continues to whip around, hurling dust into my face though there is little ash in the air. I squint into the distance, positive that if I just look long enough, the clouds will part and show me some evidence of land. It never happens.

“I don’t understand,” I finally say. “What…what am I looking at?”

“What used to be the West,” she says.

“Is it an ocean? I mean, is it that deep, or is it shallow?”



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