Chapter 948 - 948: Ruvan Gives The White Hand An Empty Yard

The white floor covered the C on Clinic Five's rope tag.

Ruvan cut the tag away before the blank could reach the knot. The clinic rope stayed red in his hand. Its loose label landed white side up beneath the crossing table.

"Every occupied rope leaves before the white reaches it."

Three crossing workers pulled the clinic line toward a wall cleat. Ruvan kept one hand around it until the new iron took the weight from his palm. Only then did he cut the table loop.

The white floor stopped at the empty groove.

Jade held Ty's skull against her coat and watched two lines remain on his chain. One entered west sleeping. The other passed through the ration brace and ended inside Sennik's left shoulder.

Jori's thinner line stayed around the red stake beside his rail.

Ruvan pointed his knife toward the kitchen rope.

"Harven's kitchen transfers first because his wife already moved the stove, then nursery waits for Kipra's count, and north sleeping follows."

"West sleeping stays until Todd returns every name."

The white hand around Ty's third chain link turned its wrist. A fifth finger joint pressed against the opening without fitting through. White spread beneath the west rope and followed the fibers for the width of Jade's thumb.

Ruvan drove his knife through the painted table loop before the blank reached the first wall ring. The rope kicked free. Two workers caught it and tied it beside the clinic line.

Somewhere above them, Harven's wife shouted about a pot leaving the stove wall. Harven shouted back that her kitchen remained attached and his left boot had not.

Ruvan moved the kitchen counter under its new cleat.

"His wife receives her floor first, and then she may decide what his remaining boot deserves."

The nursery line took longer. Meya insisted on hearing Kipra's post roll count through the blue tube before she let anyone touch the loop. Her right forearm pulled against the corridor rope while the rest of her leaned over the table.

"Kipra, count children, workers, furniture, and loose rope."

Kipra's voice arrived with two younger children arguing behind her.

"Three children and two workers are upright, the cabinet still leans, and no borrowed bones remain trapped under anything."

Ty's green eye shifted inside Jade's hands.

"Counting me separately from furniture feels like real progress."

"You broke our roof during the busiest sleep shift, so the furniture keeps seniority until repairs pass inspection."

Meya transferred the nursery rope after Kipra struck the blue tube three times. The white floor touched its abandoned tag and stopped at the severed table loop.

North sleeping followed with twenty one names, two ceiling nets, and one worker who had tied a knee brace around the public line. Ruvan made the worker cut the brace cloth before his crew moved the rope. The brace stayed on the man's leg under a new knot.

Only west sleeping and Sennik remained.

Todd struck the west tube with the brass end of his staff.

"Eighteen names crossed to east wash, and number nineteen tied both boots beneath the old fall board."

"Does number nineteen still have feet inside those boots?"

Cava answered while wood scraped behind her.

"Both feet remain, and he refuses to leave without the boots because they cost six roof shifts."

Ruvan pressed the tube closer.

"Cut below the board and carry both boots."

"He says cut laces ruin the value, the fit, and apparently his entire reason for surviving this morning."

Todd's voice moved away from the mouthpiece.

"Then he personally owes me six rescue shifts."

A man objected loudly enough to carry through the tube without help. Cava told him where he could place the bill after everyone reached east wash.

The west rope jerked once. Something heavy slid across a board, followed by Havel and Sima arguing about which recovery jaw could lift a bed without classifying it as freight.

Marn settled the question with his ruined pay card under both handles.

Todd returned to the tube.

"Nineteen names reached east wash, with thirty eight feet and every overpriced boot accounted for."

Ruvan made Todd repeat the names from the sleeping slate. Nineteen answers came back through Cava, Marn, Havel, Sima, and three local workers. The last man answered while replacing his cut laces.

Ruvan moved the west counter beneath the east wash cleat.

"West sleeping cleared, so cut its table loop."

The crossing workers cut the loop. The white line slid from Ty's chain and wrapped around the east wash stake, leaving Sennik's shoulder as the only occupied route still attached to him.

The White Reaper hand flexed inside the third link.

Ty's right index finger lifted from the table.

It pointed toward the scrape leading to Jade.

His other fingers clamped around the bone before it could separate. Two cracked ribs dragged across the red groove as Ty pulled the rest of his body inward. His spine caught beneath the table edge. The white hand used the delay to force a wrist through the chain.

"Jade, put my skull beside that hand before it follows my old path into your coat."

She carried him to the table without stepping onto the white floor.

"You finally found me and immediately requested different seating."

"This seat offers fewer roads into your soul, better leverage, and no opportunity for you to hide me in another terrible coat pocket."

Jade set his skull beside the third link. His jaw caught the chain while his right hand pulled the loose ribs around the white wrist. Vertebrae climbed the table leg one at a time. Ty built a crooked chest over the hand, using his own fractures as gaps for the long white fingers.

Every bone kept the table's down.

The White Reaper closed its hand inside his ribs.

"Every bone you divided across other worlds remembers a separate door, and I require only one of them to reach what you promised."

Ty tightened the chain around the wrist.

"Then wait outside while I close every door."

Jade kept one free link around her hand. Ty's skull remained on the table, a full arm length away from her damaged eye, and the distance hurt in a stupid place beneath her ribs. Pulling his chain tighter gave the feeling work.

At the loose black band, Nessa braced her cutter. Her right arm rose inside its harness as the white floor crossed the table's center. One shoulder pin bent and came out through the leather.

She caught the pin with her left hand.

"My cage wants that floor, the hand wearing it, and probably every bad decision attached to both."

"Keep your cutter outside both until Ruvan clears the last load."

"One pin left the harness, and its opinion remains terrible."

Ruvan crawled beneath the table. He removed the last public counter rail and left Sennik's line running through a separate red ring held by Talli at the ration brace. The line still crossed Ty's chain, but its room load no longer sat on the table.

Meya opened a square maintenance hatch behind the seventh well. Dry dirt lay on the other side. Rows of empty iron sockets crossed a yard stripped of roofs, ropes, and sleeping walls.

"Nobody has slept or worked in that yard since Jori's crew vanished."

Ruvan looked through the opening.

"The west roll groove should reach this table beneath the dirt, unless the same people who stole our stake found a use for old rails."

Meya struck the hidden groove with her hammer. Iron answered beneath the dirt.

"The empty yard receives your table, while my people keep their rooms."

The crossing workers folded the table legs onto its red rollers. White covered the old floor where each foot had stood. Jade pulled Ty's free chain link toward the hatch while Ruvan and Meya took the front bar.

The first rollers entered the yard under a different down. The table tried to turn through the hatch. Ty's ribs crushed around the White Reaper wrist as his body took the angle without splitting.

Jade wrapped her link around the maintenance ring.

"Ty Hockenson, keep your skull above Ruvan's hands while the table takes the yard's down, and leave every loose bone inside your chest."

"My skull follows Ruvan, and every loose bone stays inside."

Ruvan and Meya hauled. Nessa pushed with her left shoulder, her right arm hanging crooked inside the damaged harness. The rear rollers crossed the hatch and struck dry ground.

White followed beneath the table.

None entered the severed public loops.

Across the yard, empty anchor sockets filled with the color of clean bone. The White Reaper's wrist lengthened through Ty's ribs. An elbow formed above the table, followed by the first curve of a shoulder too large for the chain opening.

Sennik's line stretched from the ration brace, through the hatch, and around Ty's sternum.

The shoulder on the table turned toward it.