Chapter 11
Chapter 11
The words seemed less directed at the unresponsive Arietta and more like an incantation for Isaac himself.
His body rigid, jaw clenched, he kissed her. Her lips were shockingly cold, offering no reaction. Isaac forced Arietta’s jaw down, opening her mouth. He roughly invaded the small space, his tongue twisting and probing against hers, which lay inert.
The kiss felt utterly different. There were no sweet moans, no quickening breaths. Arietta’s lips tasted of Isaac’s own blood. She lay still as a corpse.
* * *
Arietta’s consciousness drifted in a distant haze. Lost in the vastness of time and space, she would occasionally awaken within past versions of herself. She came to in the dead of night.
The familiar dampness of Downstream air hung heavy. Despite the winter chill, the room was warm thanks to the lit heater. As she drifted back towards sleep, a noise from outside stirred her.
She wondered if her mother had gone for water, but no. Her mother slept soundly beside her. Arietta carefully peeled back the covers, glancing at her mother’s face. The same dark hair as her own lay serenely against the Downstream night air.
The elegant forehead, sculpted nose, and finely drawn lips and chin were a familiar beauty. Her mother didn’t stir, apparently in a deep sleep. Then, the noise came again, closer this time.
Arietta rose and silently crept to the door. Pressing her ear against the wood, she heard footsteps, carefully muffled. They weren’t heavy.
‘A child, maybe my age?’
Eight-year-old Arietta made her assessment. After all, alarms lined the entrance and floor. An adult intruder would have triggered them. The footsteps retreated. Arietta considered the intruder’s direction.
‘The kitchen!’ Her eyes widened.
The kitchen held their food and purifier, and Seia, Arietta’s mother, hadn’t even bothered to lock the cupboards. Seia’s logic was that if the windows were boarded, no further precautions were necessary. ‘If the windows are covered and no one can see inside, how would anyone know what we have?’ Seia would ask, laughing like a mischievous girl, seeking Arietta’s agreement. The most beautiful, carefree, and naive woman in Downstream. Arietta had inherited her temperament. They had lived a comfortable, even luxurious life, despite the precariousness of their situation—a young woman and a child alone. There was no reason for their animalistic sense of danger to suddenly resurface. In a house with four walls and a roof, with food and purifier always on hand, and even a heater, they lived a life of affluence compared to most on the surface. No fear of starvation, no fear of Downstream’s polluted air, no fear of freezing.
Arietta opened the bedroom door. She didn’t want to wake her mother, and if it was a child her age, she felt she could handle it herself. How, exactly, she hadn’t considered.
It was the impulsive thought process of a child. Arietta tiptoed toward the kitchen, her steps even quieter than the intruder’s.
But even if she had made noise, the intruder wouldn’t have heard. He was too busy rummaging in the kitchen. With his back turned, innocent and unguarded, he frantically stuffed items from the cupboard into a bag he’d brought.
Watching the busy shadow, Arietta flipped the lamp switch. A buzzing sound filled the air as the bio-core connected with the igniter. Startled by the sudden light behind him, the intruder whirled around to face Arietta.
His face was now clearly visible. A skinny boy, thin as a starved rat. His dark hair was a tangled mess, his lips dry and cracked, his fingertips grimy. Realizing he’d been caught, a look of dismay washed over the boy’s face. He clutched the oversized bag tightly, as if afraid of losing his prize.
Arietta, hands clasped behind her back, stared at him. Their eyes met. Just as Arietta saw the boy, he saw her. Well-kept long hair, smooth, rosy cheeks, red lips, clean fingernails. A girl his age who clearly didn’t go hungry and had access to clean water.
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