Ripped Apart: Quantum Twins – Adventures On Two Worlds by Geoffrey Arnold Read Free Book Online Page A

Qwelby.
    ‘Nutter,’ she responded, with a shake of her head.
    ‘About to be,’ he said as he started to crawl to one end of the beam.
    In position at opposite ends of the beam they looked at one another, licked lips and grimaced.
    ‘Don’t look down,’ was Tullia’s attempt at breaking the tension as they started to crawl towards each other.
    They stared into each other’s twirling eyes, disturbed by the sight yet comforted that each was feeling the same. Reaching the two end bells, they stopped.
    ‘Do it in two. Go for the bar. Land on your stomach. As the bar tilts, slide down…’ Qwelby started.
    ‘And grab the rope,’ Tullia finished.
    ‘Don’t look up,’ Qwelby quipped.
    ‘I’m scared,’ Tullia called out.
    ‘Me two,’ Qwelby called back, sending a picture with the spelling.
    Tullia managed a faint smile.
    
    *
    They leapt and hit the bars. Two massive ‘CLANGS’ shook the tower as they slid off the ends of the bars, fell, and grabbed at the thick ropes. Swinging, they were jerked up and down as the bells swung back and forth.
    Hundreds of squeaking bats launched themselves into the air. They swarmed around, seeking the windows. Too many had awoken at the same time to make their way through those above the bells. A lot of them flew down below the bells, heading for the windows further down. Qwelby was sliding down the rope to get away from them, swinging as several battered into him.
    Hanging on to the wildly swinging rope he heard Tullia’s scream above the deafening sound of the bells. A bat was entangled in her long hair. Another joined it. Trying to free its companion or attacking Tullia made no difference to her. She screamed again. Waved an arm at them, slipped, yelled, her gyrating form swinging the rope around.
    Qwelby was sliding down fast as he batted at the bats with one hand.
    A piecing scream of pure, unalloyed panic cut through his annoyance. Looking up, he saw Tullia had used both hands to free her hair of the bats and the rope was swinging out of her reach.
    She seemed to hang in mid air.
    Ignoring the bats, he gripped his rope with both hands and swung his legs.
    Gravity pressed down on Tullia.
    Qwelby swung his legs again, desperately trying to make the rope work like a pendulum.
    Seeing his twin swooping down on him with her arms reaching out, took him back to a HWAdventure. He had been flying through the air to be caught by the other trapeze artiste. But now he had to catch Tullia. He had to take one hand off the rope. This was real life and there was no safety net.
    ‘ALWAYS TOGETHER!’
he thoughtscreamed as he swung his legs once more and stretched out his hand.
    She grabbed him and crashed into his body. He felt her hand slipping, saw her eyes twirling faster than he’d ever seen, brilliant purple shot through with crimson and ochre. His fingers were straightening, he could not stop them slowly uncurling, watching helplessly as she slid down.
    The rope was running through his left hand. Panic was rising in his stomach as he feared he could not keep his grip. Millimetre by millimetre, in seeming slow motion he watched Tullia slide out of his grip. His mind was frozen, his throat so choked he was unable to cry out.
    He watched her long black hair flying out and up above her head as she fell. Felt her arms wrap around his leg, watched as she slid down, gasped as his body jerked as she stopped to hang, swinging from his foot. He reached up with his right hand and grasped the rope. As hard as he gripped, he could not slow their descent.
    Running through both hands, the rope was burning, burning. He wanted to use his imagination to ease the pain but dared not. He focussed his mind on sending his twin the image-into-action of her holding onto his foot.
    With both hands on the rope he could not look down. Trying to measure how far they had to fall he looked up and saw the bells rushing away from him at a frightening speed. There was a crash and a cry of pain from