Paradox Read Online Free Page B

moving!
    Make a plan, then follow it through. In some deep core of herself, Ana knows that’s how she works best. She can even see the quick flash of a ballpoint pen scribbling
Things to Do
on a fresh sheet of lined paper, another non-memory gusting around in her sinkhole of a mind. So, planning. And recharging.
    Then she hears it.
    The sound is faint at first, like something on the edge of her imagination, but that
MRRROOOOAR
is not something that can be mistaken for anything else. In a second Ana is on her feet, hand over her eyes to block the glare.
    If the sound is real, then the mouth was real, and the whole brown monster-body-creature along with it.
    This time, the noise doesn’t dissipate when she stops to listen. It gets louder. At first she can’t tell where it’s coming from, but then she sees a cloud of dust in the distance, puffing and rolling along the ground.
    It’s headed in her direction.
    Reassembling her pack and hoisting it onto her back, Ana spins around to face the crater wall. There’s a crack in the rock face just out of reach, and farther up she can see a few workable handholds. It will have to be good enough.
    A quick glance over her shoulder shows that the thing isnearer already, like a storm cloud closing in, loud and growing louder. How does it cover ground so fast? At this rate, it’ll be on her in fifteen or twenty minutes. Maybe less.
    Ana turns back to the wall. With some kind of practiced motion she gives a little jump and just reaches the crack, jamming her fingers into place and bracing her toes against the rock face. She pulls up hard, stretches her right leg up to reach the next crevice, shifts, and climbs again. The rock is solid for the most part, but little cascades of pebbles skitter down in her wake, and the higher she goes, the more precarious her position feels. Any exhilaration she might have felt at the climb is canceled out by the beast behind her. The minutes slip away to the pounding beat of her heart as she scales the sheer rock face, another leg up, another too-small hole to stuff her fingers into. Just barely making it. Just barely is enough. Until finally, she’s nearly to the top.
    Behind her, the roar is now deafening. How close is that thing? How long since she started her climb? She doesn’t want to look, but she can’t help it. Just a quick glance over her shoulder—
    Long white teeth raging out of a cloud of reddish-brown dust.
    Swallowing a shriek, Ana turns back to the wall and sees a root hanging over the top of the cliff face. With no time to test its strength, she grabs hold of it, shifting all her weight onto the growth in one desperate tug.
    In a shower of dirt and pebbles, the root slowly loosens,pulling away from the rock wall.
No!
The dust cloud gusts behind her, buffeting her and coating her like sea spray—like a giant’s breath.
    Her feet are still jammed into the wall, but both hands are around the unstable root and she’s tilting backward, rapidly losing her balance.
    Ana feels herself begin to slip.

Then a sharp sound cuts through the roar: “Here! Grab this!”
    What?
Ana looks up, squinting straight into the overhead sun. There’s something right above her head. A hand?
    “Come on!”
    With a desperate lunge, Ana grabs the outstretched hand—and is pulled over the lip of the crater.
    She scrambles to her feet to find a boy standing in front of her. She’s so shocked to find herself facing another person that at first, all she can do is stare. He’s tall, with light shaggy hair, maybe in his late teens or a little older.
Around my age
, she thinks, then wonders how old she
is
.
    “Thank you,” she gasps, almost a reflex, and yet it feels like a vast understatement.
    The boy nods, but all his attention is down in the crater. The ground shakes as the creature pounds itself against the cliff wall. Standing well back from the edge and leaning forward, Ana gets her first good look. It appears to be some kind of giant monstrous worm.