The Host's Judgement

12. The Weight of Two Souls Part 1

The web of white cracks in Diana's acrylic expanded with a hissing sound, like thin ice about to break on a frozen lake. Her name, laser-engraved on the high-density plastic, was disintegrating under the pressure of her suspended body.

— Hayes, please! — Diana’s scream lost any remaining trace of pride. Without her glasses, her pupils were dilated, fixed on the blur of my silhouette. Her sweaty fingers scratched at the air, millimeters from mine.

I looked down at my own feet. The HAYES plaque remained firm, but the acrylic groaned softly as I shifted my center of gravity forward. The mental calculation was a death equation: if I pulled her, the combined impact of two bodies on the same piece of plastic could shatter my only guarantee of survival. If I pulled back, she would plummet four floors into the darkness, joining Hugo.

— Don’t do it, Hayes! — Marcus shouted from the end, his voice distorted by the vibration of the ropes. — That plaque won’t hold both of you! Let the doctor feel the weight of her own law!

The blue stopwatch flashed its final warning.

[ 00:01 ]

[ 00:00 ]

The pneumatic mechanism locked with a deafening metallic snap. Diana’s plaque stopped moving sideways, but the shock of the sudden stop was the death blow to the condemned structure. CRACK. A piece of the left corner of her acrylic broke off and plunged into the abyss.

Instinct or perhaps the fear of being completely isolated in the middle of that gap took over.

I released the left support cable with a quick movement and stretched my arm forward. My fingers, still sticky with blood from the cuts in the vacuum chamber, closed around Diana’s wrist in the exact millisecond her plaque completely disintegrated.

The DIANA acrylic exploded in a shower of sharp shards that ricocheted against my legs.

The dead weight of a falling person yanked my entire body forward. My boots slipped on the smooth surface of my acrylic. My chest slammed against the edge of my plaque, knocking the air from my lungs with the violence of a punch. I held her wrist with both hands, my forearms locked against the central hemp cable.

— Hold on! — I shouted, a hoarse and desperate sound that tore through my throat.

Diana hung over the void, supported only by my strength. Her body swung like a human pendulum above the dark pit. The impact shook the bridge so violently that the HAYES plaque gave a dull crack. I held my breath, waiting for the worst.

The plastic bent, but held.

— Pull… pull me up… — Diana gasped, the fingers of her other hand digging into the sleeve of my jacket with superhuman force, tearing the fabric. Sweat and tears washed the dust from her pale face.

Drawing on every last gram of energy left in my back and shoulders, I threw my body backward, hauling her up. Diana crawled as best she could, throwing one leg and then her hips over the edge of my plaque. She collapsed on top of me, trembling, sobbing quietly, her chest rising and falling erratically as she clung to my legs as if I were the only solid thing in a collapsing universe.

We were both squeezed onto a square of acrylic less than a meter wide.

— Th… thank you… — she stammered against my knee, her voice completely broken. The ruthless lawyer who had bribed judges and destroyed lives to cover up corporate crimes was now nothing more than a pile of barefoot, terrified flesh.

On the other side of the abyss, the digital panel above the crystal chandelier updated with a long electronic beep. The blue display changed again to warning red, and the number on the screen flashed:

[ REMAINING: 14 ]

Below, the next name lit up in cold, bright letters: **GABRIEL**.

I looked back toward the marble edge. Gabriel stood there, his hoodie pulled back, revealing a youthful face twisted in pure panic. The empty space in front of him left by Hugo’s fall and Diana’s exploding plaque was now a nearly four-meter crater of absolute darkness before reaching where Diana and I were perched.

— No… there’s no plaque for me… — Gabriel whispered, his thin, childlike voice failing as he took a step back, eyes fixed on the impossible distance. — Hayes… I won’t be able to jump that.

A mechanical sound began to echo beneath Gabriel’s feet. The polished marble of the foyer, where the remaining survivors waited, started to vibrate.