Crater Lake

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Jak Lauren's eyes, pale pink, snapped open.

A fearsome stab of pain jerked through his narrow skull, making him moan and close his eyes again. His fingers curled, nails digging into the palms of his hands. As he moved, leaning against the thick glass walls of the chamber, the tiny shards of razored steel sewn into his clothes sparkled brightly.

"Was blind, but now I see." Why did the words of the old hymn come floating back into his mind at that moment?

He cautiously opened his eyes again, screwing them up against the bright light. There was a pattern of raised disks of polished metal that glowed faintly, the image fading even as he looked at it. The smoked glass walls were deep crimson. That wasn't right. They'd been blue. Blue. He held on to that fact. His head felt awful. Worse than the time — it had been his tenth birthing day just over four years back — when his father had been burrowing. Digging into the cellars of some of the derelict houses on the edges of West Lowellton, near Lafayette, in what had once been Louisiana, his father had found a bottle of something called Southern Comfort — a ribbed bottle of clear glass with a golden cap. He'd given it to Jak. The warm liquor had tasted of peaches and summer, and it had burned his throat. He'd drunk nearly the whole bottle and then been monstrously sick.

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