“Move,” she shouted. “Don’t look back.”
But I did.
Just for one second.
I saw him catch fire. Flames climbed his clothes, wrapped around his body. He screamed, but not once did he ask for help.
I once heard that a captain always sinks with his ship. Father burned with his sins.
The nurse dragged me outside without saying a word, pulling me away from the fire. When we reached the yard, there were only two of us standing there. She held an iron bottle in her hand while I had the box. Behind us, the fire swallowed everything.
That wasallwe had left.
Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance. When she noticed they were getting closer, she grabbed me again and pulled me toward the car.
I felt nothing. No tears came to my eyes.
The only person and the only place I had ever known was burning behind me, and I felt empty.
Instead of getting into the car, I let the box fall to the ground. Papers spilled out. Tapes rolled across the ground. And as she dropped to her knees to gather them, I turned and ran.
I didn’t look back.
My feet moved faster than they ever had. I ran toward the road, away from the Halden Institute, straight into the dark. The nurse stood still for a moment, watching me disappear. Then she got into the car and drove away.
My breathing grew ragged. My ears rang. The wind burned my eyes. The gray tracksuit I had slept in did nothing to stop the cold. Snow crunched under my feet as I entered the woods.
At the start of the path, a sign stood half-buried in white.
OZARK.
I entered the Ozark woods, and everything felt familiar.
My feet knew the path, and I didn’t question it. It was as if I had walked this way before, as if my body remembered something my mind had forgotten. After some time, I stopped.
My knees hit the ground.
I stared at the earth beneath me. It looked solid, frozen even, but it was not. I lifted my head and looked around. It felt like this place belonged to a dream. Like I was inside something I could control now.
I leaned forward.
The ground cracked.
I dropped through it.
“What the…”
My head buzzed as I hit hard, pain exploding on the left side of my skull. Darkness pressed in. My eyes tried to close, but I forced them open.
I was underground.
Wooden stairs rose beside me, already dark and rotten with time. The space around me looked like a cottage buried beneath the earth.
The air smelled damp and old.
Shelves lined the walls, jars filled with liquid, shapes floating inside. Tools lay scattered across a table. Heavy and rustedchains hung from hooks. A small bed sat against the wall with chains fixed to its sides.
The longer I looked, the more my chest tightened.
