The Touch Of Twilight Read Online Free PDF

in this reality,” she scoffed, and when she saw me glance her way, quickly added, “Or any other.”
    Hunter’s voice bloomed to the left of me. “Hey noob, keep that tooth hook away from me.”
    “Sorry,” came Riddick’s reply. “The gas in the air is disorienting.”
    “Just another day at the office,” said Felix, but even he sounded muted. I suddenly noticed they’d all fallen back. Realizing I was leading a flanged assault with no backup, I immediately backpedaled.
    “That’s not cool, you guys. You didn’t—”
    I was going to say they hadn’t given me a warning to pull back, but that’s when I realized they were all moving in slow motion, their limbs wheeling forward as if swimming in Jell-O, straining with the effort. Hunter was trying to motion them back, but it was taking too long. I did it for him, then dragged Vanessa backward until I felt a second gravity field release around her body. A coincidence that the gaseous sheets lessened upon retreat? I think not.
    I’d managed to pull Riddick from the smoky quagmire before the other teams reached our rendezvous point.
    “The air’s too heavy. It’s like breathing in foam,” Micah said, gasping. At nearly seven feet tall, he was by far the largest member of our troop, and seemed to be having the most difficult time breathing, though everyone was panting hard. Everyone, that was, but me.
    “I can see well enough,” Tekla said, bending over so her thin frame was almost hidden in her soft gray salwar-kamiz. “But I can only go so far before it feels like I’m being smothered.”
    I looked at the others, and they each nodded. So we huddled in silence until Warren popped up next to Tekla, his footsteps muffled in the heavy air.
    “The air repel you too?” Gregor asked him, as Hunter and Micah swiveled to guard our perimeter, close enough to hear our words. Warren nodded, rubbing at red-rimmed eyes, and I realized that was exactly the smoke’s purpose. We weren’t meant to reach the center, our beard, or the detonation’s origin.
    Back against mine, Micah broke into a hacking cough. Alarmed, I put my hand on his great shoulder, and he spat on the ground at our feet. It was black. “Shit. This stuff is toxic.”
    Warren straightened. “Let’s try it again together. I think it’s just a wall, and not one thick enough to be sustained for any depth.”
    I glanced back up at the tight black nucleus sitting atop the fractured building and bit my lip.
    “One large phalanx might breach it, especially if we focus our energies on a sole entry point. So on my count. Go.”
    We marched like Spartans…for a few feet. Then the others slowed, molasses-limbed, eyes bulging along with their lungs. Despite the foreign environment, I was breathing easily. So while the smothered coughs and gasps continued to vibrate feebly at my back, I faced the heart of the smothering sheets and drew in a deep breath. Blackness sank past the porous barrier of my skin, filling my muscles, replacing the water hydrating them with a density that made me feel like an outcropping from the earth itself. I was granite, with petrified veins and a solid heart that didn’t need oxygen because it didn’t need to beat. The air coated my tongue like wet ash, lining my throat until my not-breathing allowed it to harden and bake in my marrow. The others—still filmy, floating, fleshy beings—fell behind.
    I caught Warren’s gaze, his eyes large and white above the coat sleeve covering his mouth. He motioned me back with his head, an achingly slow movement, and one I could see pained him. We fell back, and I waited until they all recovered. This time it took minutes.
    “We have to pull out,” Warren said, sucking in great mouthfuls of breath. “Get masks and breathing apparatuses of some sort.”
    Masks would crumble like wadded paper under the weight of this concrete matter, I thought, rubbing an arm that felt like marble beneath my touch. I told Warren this, and what the air