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“I’m all right,” I assured him, stepping back. Though I didn’t know if I would ever be all right again.
“There’s another video,” he said. I turned to him, startled. “It’s not from 2003. It’s from 2018. It’s fromtoday.”
“Abby,” I whispered. I glanced at my echo, but she made no move to stop me, so I returned to the bench. “Play it,” I told him.
“What if it’s...”
He didn’t want to watch her die, which I understood. I squeezed his shoulder. “We have to see.”
He pressed play.
VIDEO EVIDENCE
Recorded by Abigail Ryder
JUNE 30, 2018, TIME UNKNOWN*
Abby pants, watching the space beyond the camera. Her lip is split and bloodied.
ABBY: I got away—no. No, it let me go, but I can’t figure out why. It told me to run. So I did. I ran. But there’s nowhere to run to. There’s no way out of here. Sophia was right. There’s never just one echo. It’s one after the other, and I think I’ve gone pretty deep.
She shuts her eyes for a moment. Her lips roll under, pressing together until they turn white. A thin whine starts in the back of her throat, and then she takes a gulping, gasping breath.
ABBY: Okay, that’s enough. I’m going to keep looking for a way out of here. And in the meantime—in the meantime,I’m going to talk to you, little camera of mine, because otherwise I’m just going to start screaming.
She pushes herself to her feet. She turns the camera around, revealing Belaya Skala—or a version of Belaya Skala. The basic landmarks seem to be the same; she is standing near the entrance to the bunker, and at the very edge of the frame, in the distance, are the rough rocks of the isthmus. But in the place of a sky, a second sea seethes overhead, and massive, ropy creatures writhe within it.
ABBY: I should call Sara* when I get out of here. I bet she never saw sea monsters in the sky. Okay. Okay. Keep it together. I— Oh, shit.
She steps around a small boulder, revealing a gruesome scene. Dozens of terns lie on the ground in various states of destruction and distress, mangled or half-dissolved into black liquid. Wings flap weakly; claws grasp at the grass; heads flop and glassy eyes stare at the sky. In the center, splayed on his back, is a young man. One leg is bent the wrong way at the knee. His hands curl against his chest, his fingers misshapen. Half his face caved in, reduced to that viscous tar, and more of it oozes from where his skin splits.
Even so, he is recognizable as Liam Kapoor.
ABBY: That is not Liam. That is not Liam, it’s an echo.
She draws a step closer. Some of the birds are not just beneath the young man but growing from him, their feathers giving way to flesh, the places where human and bird meet weeping blue-black liquid.
LIAM: Abby.
It’s not the boy that speaks, but the birds, a wheezing mockery of Liam’s voice.
LIAM: Abby, you left me. You left me alone.
His head jerks toward her. One hand splays and grasps, but he can’t extend his arms.
ABBY: What’s wrong with you?
Liam coughs. His body shakes.
LIAM: We can’t—can’t—can’t—she got inside us. They won’t come out right anymore. Abby, it’s me. It’s Liam. Don’t you know me?
His voice is a scream from three dozen throats.
LIAM: Get away from her!
Abby swings around. Sophia—no, Sophie, the echo-girl—stands a few feet away.
SOPHIE: Don’t touch him.
