The machine let go of me and my head hit something hard as I fell.

Soft bodies broke my fall. Some with sharp edges I vaguely realized were bones sticking through skin.

Where was I?

I had no idea.

All I knew was that I should be dead…but I wasn’t.

For some reason, the universe was sparing me.

Or maybe I was being punished.

For what? I do not know.

That’s when I heard it.

Someone talking beside me…to me.

I heard the word “breeder,” but I had no idea what it meant.

My head was hurting now, but as the blood rushed to my skull and I lost consciousness, I heard the words again.

This time, they registered into my reality.

“It’s found another breeder.”

Chapter Three

ADIRA

Present day

? days since captured by the machine

I’ve become accustomed to the sway.

It lulls us as this thing moves.

One can almost forget where you are, in the belly of the machine.

There’s four of us…but…there’d been more.

When it had first put me inside itself, the small space had been full.

Now, not so much.

Every four weeks or so, one of us is taken away.

And I have been in here for more days than I can count.

There’s space to move, but nowhere to go.

It’s surprisingly bright inside the machine, like being behind a glass window.

This high up, we can see everything beneath.

We can see the world from its view.

And boy…are we little.

Insignificant.

“I think he’s going to die soon.” The voice of the woman beside me. Sam.

Maybe short for Samantha. I never asked.

“Who?” My voice sounds detached. Filled with apathy. Hearing it sounds like a stranger using my mouth and not me.

Sam jerks her chin to the other side of the orb. Through the barrier there.

For there are two compartments in this belly of the beast.

We are simply in one.

On the other side are people.

Humans.

Men.

And they are…

My throat moves as I pull my gaze away.

You’re a coward, Adira.

Maybe I am.

But I don’t need to look to see what’s going on in the second compartment. The image is already burned into my brain.

I’ve stared at it, even when I didn’t want to see.

The men are cocooned by…vines…

Only…

They aren’t vines at all.

They pulse, move…as if alive.

All across the wall…the floor…the vines are everywhere.

It is like a jungle in there, wrapping around the bodies…piercing them.

If I go close enough, I can see blood moving through the vines as the machine feeds.

“I think he’s trying to say something,” Sam whispers.

My eyes move to the male she’s referring to.

He is facing us. His face pressed against the transparent barrier that separates our compartments.

Everything but his face is covered with vines—veins—and as I stare at him, I realize that Sam is right.

His lips are moving, but we can hear no sound.

There’s a deathly pallor to his skin. He’s gone pale as the machine drains his blood. How long has it been feeding from him?

For some reason, I move closer, brushing past the three other women in the compartment with me.

My body feels weak as I move over and the man’s eyes lock on mine as I near.

Hope flares in his gaze a little as I draw close.

His lips move again and I can just about make out the words he is mouthing.

“Help…me…please.”

I stare at him. Maybe, before all this, I would have been able to cry. To grieve for what I’m witnessing before my eyes.

But no tears come now.

Instead, I press my hand against the barrier. I’d be touching his cheek if not for the separation between us.

“It will be over soon,” I whisper.

Maybe that’s all he needed.

Some kind of comfort.

I don’t know how long I sit there, watching him, until his eyes finally close.

And then, he is gone.

His body is ripped away as the last drop of blood leaves his veins.

I see what’s left of him fall as the vines release him and the orb expels him from itself.

Every bone in his body will be broken when he lands.

But he is already dead.

He’ll feel no more pain…

I pull away from the barrier and slide back to sit between Sam and one of the other women.

Mina her name is.

She hardly speaks.

Across from her is another female.

She rests away from us. Her belly is swollen and it presses against her torn dress.

It’s grown even more. It wasn’t that big yesterday.

I remember when the machine took her.

When she’d been bred.

That was about a month ago.

She groans, her eyes flicking open, and pain registers on her face.

I can’t imagine what it feels like, having something unknown growing within you.

But I’ll know soon.

Soon, it will be my turn.

“Do you want some?” Sam stretches the fluid-filled sac toward me and I shake my head.

“Eat it, Adira. You know the orb won’t feed us again for the rest of the day.”

And she is right.

The fluid-filled sacs appear through the wall on rotation.

Sustenance in the form of some kind of pulp that keeps us alive.

I shudder to think where it comes from.

I want to tell Sam no.

Maybe if I refuse to eat, starve myself, the machine won’t try to breed me.

Even as I think this, my gaze flicks to the woman resting on the floor across from my feet.

She is bone thin. So thin, her massive belly looks out of place.

Her belly moves as whatever is growing within her writhes underneath her skin and the little appetite I had is suddenly gone.

Sam jerks me with her elbow. Her arm shakes as she holds the thing out to me.

She is so thin too, I can see her bones. My gaze moves up her arm, knowing what I’m seeing is a mirror image of myself.

But there is one difference between us.

There is still hope in Sam’s eyes.

Her arm shakes again and I know even the mere act of holding out the sustenance sac to me is draining her energy.

Hating myself, I reach toward her and take the sac.

It’s an unappealing light-brown color, like dirty milky water.

Bringing it to my chapped lips, I nip a hole into it and force down the contents.

It’s more like gulping rather than drinking.

I throw it down my throat, the liquid only hitting the back of my tongue as I take it down.

It’s sickeningly sweet and once again I divert my mind from thinking of where it must have come from.

To my left, Mina watches us.

She says nothing, but her gaze speaks volumes.

Pure hatred.

The same that I feel toward this thing that is carrying us.

The gentle sway continues as the machine makes its way across the landscape below and for a moment, my gaze falls beneath us.

It’s funny how quickly things can change.

Down below doesn’t look like the Earth I knew anymore.

More like a world ravaged by war and natural disasters.

How long has it been since the machines arrived?

I don’t remember now.

Days meld into each other. I only know that time is passing because night comes and the sun rises.

Somehow, it feels like time is leaving me behind.

Below is a dry barren land.

Dust has settled over everything.

Buildings have been burned, crushed, destroyed.

Vehicles sit in what were once roads.

Vines and wild plants have started to reclaim what used to be a small town.

Whatever water, trees, vegetation that had dotted the landscape before are now all gone.

Earth has been captured.

It is their world now.

And we are mainly insects in their way.