I followed it, hurrying down the hallway, trying to find the source. The voice grew louder the farther I went, pulling me toward the end of the hall. Then I saw it. A door with a large metal sign that read, “ZERO.”
My stomach dropped.
I reached for the handle. It turned. The door creaked open with a slow, painful groan.
The room beyond was pitch black. I couldn't see a thing.
“Rowan,” someone whispered from the abyss.
“Hello? Is someone there?” my voice echoed back at me.
“Help me, Rowan,” a weak voice croaked.
I stepped inside, trying to peer into the endless darkness and find the person calling for me.
But the moment I crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut behind me.
I spun around, pounding on it with both fists. “Open the door! Help! I'm in here!” My voice cracked, but no one answered.
Unable to see, I ran my hands along the wall, feeling frantically for a light switch.
My fingers brushed against one. I flicked it on.
A blinding, harsh white light exploded across the room. I tried to raise my hands to shield my eyes, but I couldn’t. My arms were bound at the wrists, restrained with thick straps. Panic surged through me. I tried to flee, but more straps fastened my entire body to a medical table.
Searing light blazed overhead from a cluster of surgical lamps.
“Shhh. Calm down now. Just a few more samples,” Zolkos said, leaning over me. His eyes were flat and inhuman. He blinked, but instead of his eyelids closing top and bottom, they closed side-to-side.
He lifted a surgical tray, holding it above me. In the reflection of the sleek metal surface, I saw my face.
Only it wasn't mine.
It was hers.
Patient Zero.
The woman in the photograph.
I gasped and shot upright in bed, waking in a full-bodyjolt.
My hands flew to my face, tracing my features, needing the reassurance of my familiar angles. I needed to know it was me. Not her.
“It was a dream. A bad dream,” I whispered, breath shaking.
My nightmares had been absent ever since my first shift. Talon suspected their cause was our thoughts and bond bleeding together as my shift approached. He said he shared them too, though we never remembered the details clearly when waking.
But this was not the same.
This one was vivid.
Sharp.
Real.
I distinctly remembered the fear, the sterile hall, Zolkos’s empty eyes blinking inhumanly, the restraints biting into my skin, and the woman whose face I wore.
Patient Zero.
