The System Can’t See Me

Kai could not fill his lungs.

The lunch box was not crushing him all at once. That would have been easier to understand. It lay diagonally from his left shoulder toward the center of his chest, its cracked bottom held by the narrowing above him. Each shallow breath met the lower edge and stopped there.

He took another.

It stopped sooner.

Nia heard it. Her knees tightened against the back of his legs.

"Kai."

"I'm here."

The words came out thin. He hated that she could hear the difference.

Water passed the crawlspace mouth in a steady, low sheet. The hooked limb rested beneath the box. Beyond it, the creature's red points moved once behind the black plates of its head, then disappeared as it shifted in the dark.

Nia kept still. The sealed Archive copy was pinned under her chin and forearms, inside the torn front of her jacket. Her right calf lay along the wall beside Kai's thighs. The cut there had bled through the ripped denim. Her left ankle, the one that had been scraped earlier, was tucked over his calves and clear of the water.

"Can you move it?" she asked.

Kai looked at the box above his shoulder.

"No."

He could not put his left hand on it. The palm was open and slick with blood. His right wrist was trapped beneath his side, the blue band cold against his skin somewhere below his ribs. He could feel the arm only in pieces: pressure at the elbow, numbness along the outside of his hand, a dull pull he could not follow.

The box creaked.

Kai's chest caught beneath it.

Nia's free hand came up, then stopped halfway. She was too far behind him to reach the box without climbing over his back. There was no room for that. The red pipe held her shoulder in place. Her hips were already wedged between the wall and Kai's bent legs.

"Don't pull on it," he said.

"I know."

Her voice had gone flat with effort, the way it did when there was no good choice left.

Kai let his forehead rest against the concrete. Cold water had soaked into the grit there, but the wall itself was dry against his skin. He listened to Nia's breathing behind him and the water outside and tried to decide whether the tightness in his chest was the box or panic.

It did not matter. His body could not tell the difference.

"If I turn lower," he said, "the edge might catch my arm instead."

Nia was quiet for a beat.

"Instead of your chest."

"Maybe."

She made a small sound through her teeth. "And if it doesn't?"

"Then it stays where it is."

The answer was worse spoken aloud.

The monster shifted at the mouth. The hook dragged through the water, then tapped the underside of the box. Plastic gave a dry, strained tick. Kai felt the vibration run from his collarbone to his jaw.

Nia pressed the Archive copy higher beneath her chin. "Tell me what to do."

He looked back as far as he could. Her face was mostly hidden by his shoulder and the pipe. One side of her hair was stuck to her cheek. Her free hand rested against the concrete near his hip, fingers curled but not touching him.

"Get the copy inside your jacket," he said. "All the way."

"It is inside."

"Not like that. I need your hand."

Her eyes moved to the sleeve. The plastic edge was visible between her forearm and collarbone. If she let it fall, it would land in the grit between their bodies. The water had not reached that far, but there was no way to know how long that would stay true.

She did not argue.

Nia bent her chin harder against the packet and worked one thumb under the torn jacket front. The motion was small enough that Kai barely saw it. The sleeve slid an inch beneath the inner fabric, then caught against her ribs.

"Wait," she said.

Her right hand disappeared under the jacket. Her elbow pressed into Kai's hip as she forced the sealed copy farther around her side. The plastic made a faint crackle. Kai's stomach turned.

"Easy," he said.

"I am."

The words were sharp, but her fingers did slow. She shifted the sleeve until it lay flat against her stomach under the jacket and the un-torn panel of her shirt. When she brought her hand back out, the copy was no longer visible.

"Dry?" Kai asked.

Nia put two fingers against the jacket near her ribs. "Dry."

Her hand stayed there for a second longer than it needed to. Then she placed it against the back of Kai's torn jacket, just above his hip.

"Here?"

"Lower. On the seam."

She found it by feel. Her palm flattened against him. There was not enough room to pull him far. That was not what he needed.

Kai drew his good knee toward his stomach. The damaged ankle protested before it moved. His bare foot had swollen around the joint, hot and unstable. He let the heel drag over the grit anyway.

Nia's fingers tightened in his jacket.

"When you pull," he said, "pull my hip toward the wall. Not up."

"Toward me."

"Yes."

The box moved again before either of them started.

The monster had put some part of itself against it. Kai did not see what. The plastic pressed down across his shoulder. His breath left in a short, helpless sound.

"Now," he managed.

Nia pulled.

Kai pushed with the heel of his split left palm and drew his hip back toward her hand. The movement was barely a turn. His lower body shifted first. His good knee scraped the wall. His bad ankle folded inward, and pain climbed his leg hard enough to blur the pipe and the red points at the mouth.

The box held for half a second.

Then its lower edge slid.

Kai felt it cross the top of his chest.

He stopped breathing.

Nia pulled harder, her hand bunching his jacket at the hip. Her torn right calf dragged along the concrete. She did not make a sound, but Kai felt her body jerk against his legs.

The edge of the lunch box caught beneath his left upper arm.

Pain lit his shoulder from the inside out. His left arm folded tight against his ribs, elbow bent under the plastic. For a moment he thought the box had caught his throat instead. Then air reached him, thin at first and then enough to hurt.

He inhaled too fast.

The breath tore through his chest. He coughed once into the wall and tasted dust.

"Kai?"

He raised his left hand. Or tried to. The palm dragged across the grit, but the arm would not come away from his side. The box had pinned it between plastic and concrete, high near the shoulder. His fingers twitched once and stopped.

"It got my arm," he said.

Nia did not let go of his jacket. "Can you breathe?"

He took another breath. It reached lower than the last few had.

"Yes."

The word was rough, but it was a word.

The creature's hook came forward beneath the box.

Nia froze. Her grip on Kai's jacket held. The hook passed over the wet floor near his knees and scraped along the side of the crawlspace. It stopped beside the torn edge of Nia's right jeans, close enough for the point to lift a loose thread.

Kai could not kick at it. His bad ankle was folded under the rest of his leg. His left arm was trapped. His right arm lay somewhere beneath him, useless weight and cold pain.

Nia drew her knees in tighter. The motion pulled at the fresh cut in her right calf. Her face tightened, but she kept the Archive copy pinned under her jacket with one forearm while her other hand stayed in Kai's shirt.

The hook withdrew without taking the denim.

It left a wet line across the concrete.

Neither of them moved for several seconds.

Kai listened to his own breathing. It was still shallow, but it no longer stopped under the box. His left shoulder had begun to pulse under the box, a deep hard throb that spread down the trapped arm. Every beat of it reminded him that he had traded one problem for another.

Nia's hand loosened from his jacket.

"Don't let go," he said.

"I'm not. My hand slipped."

She reset her grip lower, fingers catching in the seam near his waist. Her nails were dark with grit. A tremor went through her wrist and stopped when she pressed it against him.

The lunch box did not move again.

It remained cracked and shut, wedged across Kai's shoulder with his left arm underneath it. The monster was still at the mouth, close enough that water moved around the hook whenever it shifted its weight outside.

Nia turned her head toward the dark behind the pipe. "Do you think it knows we're here?"

Kai looked at the red points beneath the box's edge. They were there, then gone behind a plate of black shell.

"I don't know."

It was the only answer he had.

He tried his left fingers again. The tips pressed against the floor. Nothing else followed.

Nia felt the attempt through his back. "Leave it."

"I need to know if it's numb."

"You'll know in a minute."

There was no kindness in her tone, only an order made because he was about to waste the little strength he had left.

Kai stopped.

The sealed copy stayed hidden beneath Nia's jacket. Her right calf bled slowly into the torn denim. His left arm lay pinned beneath the cracked lunch box. His bad ankle was tucked under his own leg, waiting for the next time he had to move it.

Outside the crawlspace, the hook slid beneath the lower edge of the lunch box and stopped against Kai's trapped upper arm.

Nia's grip tightened in his jacket.

The creature did not pull. It only held on.

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