The heat continued to intensify past all wild possibilities, radiating from my core to my extremities until I could no longer distinguish where my body ended and the inferno began. I was becoming the agony, dissolving molecule by molecule. The gleaming white walls of the treatment room began to waver, melting like candle wax in slow-motion rivulets that defied physics and sanity.
“The walls are melting,” I mumbled, “like ice cream in summer.”
"Visual hallucinations onset," noted a voice from very far away. "Expected at this stage."
Expected.
There was that word again.
Nothing about this felt expected. The ceiling tiles were breathing now, expanding and contracting like the chest of some great beast. I closed my eyes to escape the sight, but the darkness behind my eyelids pulsed with flashes of light. Red. Purple. Green. Blue. As if I could see the geography of my insides. Veins filled with dark red blood waiting to oxygenate. Arterial blood already a brighter crimson. The illusion of blue-green blood as my skin filtered light. My body was a roadmap full of vital twists and turns.
"Temperature spiking—one hundred and three point four."
"Apply cooling protocol."
Something frigid touched my forehead, my wrists, the hollow of my throat. This wasn’t like the ice inside my body. This one was comfortable, cooling the fire, giving me temporary relief. I tried to focus on the cold, to use it as an anchor, but it slipped away like everything else, consumed by the never-ending internal burning.
A scream built and I clamped my mouth down hard, accidentally catching my tongue between teeth. A new gush of blood filled my mouth. The need to scream continued to insistently press against my lips. I swallowed it back, unwilling to appear weak. Seven years in isolation had taught me to endure, to hide pain behind sarcasm and defiance. Butthis? This was testing my limits. This, unlike anything before, might truly break me.
"Blood pressure dropping," someone called, the words echoing strangely as if spoken in a cathedral rather than aconfined operating room. “Administering fluids and prepping Vasopressin.”
“If she dies, I’ll shut the entire Institute down!” Doc Emerson’s voice was a growl, intense enough to push through the fog muddling my brain.
I forced my eyes open, determined to remain present, to fight. The room tilted and spun, faces behind visors stretching and warping like reflections in funhouse mirrors. Doctor Emerson leaned over me, his mouth moving, but the words were garbled and meaningless.
A high-pitched alert joined the symphony of beeping monitors, this one deeper, more urgent. Then that telltale continuous alarm that meant something was goingverywrong weaved into the existing din. This one didn’t stop quickly. The line didn’t recover into peaks and valleys. It kept going until the only thing my brain could process was that trill sound.
Through vision that refused to focus, I saw Doctor Emerson reach above my head, silencing the sound with a quick movement. He turned to the Institute doctor. Mouths were moving, but I could hear no words.
Just that sound.
That terrifying sound.
The melting walls began to close in, white giving way to gray then deepening toward black at the edges. I fought against the encroaching darkness, clinging to consciousness with the same stubborn determination that had kept me alive long past my expiration date.
Not like this, I thought fiercely. Not when I've come this far.
But my body had other ideas. The fire finally reached my brain, and my thoughts scattered. I was still vaguely aware of movement around me—urgent voices, gloved hands adjusting equipment, the cold sting of another push into the IV—and then nothing as consciousness slipped away.
The last thing I registered was Doctor Emerson's voice.
"Stay with us, Lucy. Don't you dare give up now."
Every beeping monitor began emitting sharp, continuous notes now. Flat and unending. In the periphery of my awareness, I heard someone shout “Starting CPR!” and another voice cry out “We're losing her!"
They weren’t losing me. I wasn't there anymore. Already gone. Nothing to lose.
Then darkness claimed me completely, and even the fire faded to nothing.
I came into awareness in an odd otherworldly way. Not awake. Not alive.
I floated somewhere above the chaos, strangely detached from the body strapped to the treatment chair. Was this what flying felt like? The pain had vanished completely, replaced by a profound calm I'd never experienced before. From this vantage point, I watched the medical team's frantic efforts with mild curiosity.
Doctor Mercer had his hands on my chest, performing compressions that made my lifeless body jerk rhythmically. A nurse held a mask over my face, squeezing a bag that forced air into unresponsive lungs. A technician prepared defibrillator paddles while another adjusted medication levels with desperate speed. Doctor Emerson had moved to the outskirts, looking like he might be sick.
I should have been terrified, watching my own death unfold beneath me. Instead, I felt only peace and a strange sense of relief. No more treatments. No more isolation. No more pain. Dying wasn’t so scary after all.
It was gentle.
