And I let them take her. My only friend.
“Get out,” I bark at Michael without looking at him, whipping open the door and squeezing my eyes shut against the barrage of images before I drown in them. Images borne not only of the horrors of my imagination, but from personal experience.
Suddenly, I can’t see my apartment at all; only the paneled ceiling of an Amelioration camp.No, no, no. I’m free now.I repeat the words in my mind, but they’re feeble against the frantic beat of my heart, and the haze of panic beginning to squeeze my ribs like a vise.
Whatever Michael sees on my face has him quickly gathering his things and sliding out of my apartment without another word. Maybe it’s because he finally understands how deep my self-preservation runs. I’m not capable of being selfless or kind. I’m only capable of survival—even when it means sacrificing an innocent child to keep myself out of the camps. Even if it means hating myself so fully, I can hardly breathe.
When the door closes behind Michael, I finally open my eyes. My apartment is no emptier without him, as he’s never been vibrant enough to leave behind an imprint. A transient visitor in an insignificant life.
I collapse onto my bed feeling like someone’s taken a chisel to the inside of my ribs. Hollowed them out and left them too frail to hold anything inside. When I finally fall asleep, it’s to the imagined rhythm of Zenni’s words, the cadence of her rare laughter. Her clever brown eyes swim through my mind, before blurring so fully into my sister’s, I can no longer distinguish them. Their pain, their shadows. Where the plague has stained them in shades of both.
And when I wake again, hours later, on the edge of the building, this time, it’s too late to catch myself.
Chapter two
Wind rushes past my ears and my heart flies up into my throat. My stomach drops against my spine as fear slices through me in alternating waves of scorching heat and ice. Not fear of death—but of pain. I’ve avoided it for so long, sacrificed so much to keep myself out of its grasp. And now, it’s finally ensnared me from the depths of sleep. Inescapable, inevitable.
My muscles tense painfully as the night sky tunnels above me. Horns blare, and I resist the urge to squeeze my eyes shut, if only to block out the rush of concrete on either side of me. Instead, I raise my eyes to the sky above. Smog smears the night, and though murky clouds streak across the heavens, one star still shines bright enough for me to latch my panicked gaze onto it.
Its ethereal light shimmers, a wild prism of color spilling into the chilled air. I hold my breath and weave the star’s ray through my mind like luminescent thread. I let it flow through my thoughts, illuminating each space with celestial beauty until there’s no room to imagine the pain to come. The loomingconcrete beneath me, the buildings racing around me, they all evaporate as my imagination races up to the sky.
It wraps around the star, stealing the explosion of light and using it to color my thoughts so purely, the world itself turns upside down. I paint my imaginings in crisp lines and lush colors, the beauty easing the burning tension in my muscles. The star becomes vibrant enough in my mind I’m no longer falling to the ground, but into the sky. It isn’t hard concrete or unending pain awaiting me, but a glistening pool of silk and light.
I cling to the image so fiercely, I’m able to take one deep breath before the moment of impact. A breath that calms me; that fills my lungs and heart and veins with starlight.
And then I give myself over to the fall.
Endless dark presses in, slippery and ice cold. There’s no air, no light, nothing but one word rising up through the void—fight.
A voice I’ve never heard, one that somehow feels colder than even the emptiness around me. So cold it burns; just like the light of the cosmos, the star I held in my thoughts before I hit the ground.
Fight,the voice echoes, louder now.Fight.It reverberates in the marrow of my bones, rattling me awake.
My eyes snap open like the voice has commanded it, and I blink rapidly against the slithering darkness. I’m not dead. I’m fucking underwater.
Reacting on pure instinct, my limbs begin to move despite their numbness. My lungs burn and my nightgown logs with seawater, as I swim hard toward what I hope is the surface. The water is so dark, I can see nothing, not even shadows of theworld above. But that voice—I swim in its direction and hope I’m not swimming even deeper.
My gamble pays off when I finally break the surface a few moments later. I kick my legs and gulp down oxygen in greedy wheezes, searching for the source of the voice. There is nothing but endless water, still and freezing cold. The sky above is just as dark as the sea below, a boundless reflection of swirling violets and iridescent blues. At the height of the infinitely sprawling heavens, shines the same star I held onto during my fall.
My legs begin to burn as I tread in place, staring upward at the familiar star. The thought is insane—how would I know it were the same or not—but just like I instinctively knew the way to the surface, Iknowthe star’s light as intimately as if it were made for me.
The smooth surface of the surrounding water begins to roll and crest, dragging me from my reverie. As if an invisible storm has suddenly blown in, the waves crash against me and the current threatens to pull me beneath it. I will my panic to ebb, scanning the dark expanse of water for a sign of land. I nearly yelp in relief when I make out faint, jagged outlines in the distance. Rock formations nearly as black as the night itself, their sharp spires reaching to the sky like the teeth of a giant beast.
And settled in the center, a soft beach.
I heave a deep breath and swim toward it.
The icy temperature of the water has sapped the feeling from my limbs, and even the brutal swim against the current isn’t enough to restore it. The beach is further than it appeared on first glance, the distance made even more treacherous by the ever-increasing ferocity of the waves.
I try not to think of what could lurk beneath the shadowed depths, nor what will happen if the waves overtake me before I reach the shore. I only let myself imagine the shape of theshoreline lingering on the horizon, and how good the warm sand will feel between my toes.
Acid courses through the muscles of my arms and legs as I force them to work faster. Swell after icy swell crash over me, and though my lungs burn with each desperate breath, I don’t dare stop. Being still is death, and I need no voice to tell me to fight now. I’ve been surviving for so long, it’s ingrained into my muscle memory, carved into my very bones. No longer a conscious decision, but a habit—keep going. Always. No matter the cost.
So I do. I swim and I swim, slowly drawing the shoreline closer with each desperate stroke.
I’ve nearly made it halfway when something silky wraps around my ankle. I barely have time to take a short breath before I’m yanked beneath the icy surface once again. My scream is drowned by frothing waves, and water fills my mouth before I can master my panic enough to seal my lips. I kick frantically as the foreign hold on my ankle tightens, slimy and scaled and impossibly strong.
Bubbles surge around me as I thrash wildly, but the grip doesn't relent. My lungs threaten to expand as I’m dragged so far beneath the surface the light of the star winks out entirely, and I’m surrounded once more in utter darkness.
