The latch lifts.
The door rolls slowly, bouncing slightly back against the corner of the wall as it comes to a stop, fully open.
The corridor beyond is inexplicably empty.
I hesitate, just for a breath, knowing that the next few steps, the next few hours, maybe even the next few days, are going to test me, hurt me. I don’t get the reprieve of death this time. I don’t get to be reset. And no matter how difficult that always is, I know this will be worse.
I’ve pissed off the universe. I’ve fucked with futures — definitely Presh’s and possibly Bellamy’s, Reck’s, and DeVille’s. I wasn’t supposed to touch any of their threads so thoroughly.
But I’ve apparently canceled out enough of the runes to get on my feet, to get the door open, so it’s past time to step into my now.
So I do … I step into the corridor.
Essence sears through me, starting at my left foot as it clears the doorway, streaking up my leg, exploding through my torso, choking my throat, and ricocheting through my head.
My eyes blaze so painfully that it’s possible they’re bleeding again. I can see violet light reflecting off the bare concrete wall across from me.
I keep walking. I keep dragging the dress with me. The corridor dead-ends to my right. I turn left. The ceilings are high. The hall is wide, likely to accommodate the shifters’ general bulk.
I try to breathe, steadily and evenly, as the vastness of the power of the Conduit settles within me. Not that it’s ever been truly, fully settled.
Inhale, exhale, and repeat.
The wound on my neck burns, radiating agony through me with each step. My amulet remains an inert hunk of metal and gemstone slung around my neck. Its unusual weight is a visceral reminder that all is not well. Not with me, and not with my connection to the universe.
I keep walking, passing other open doors, other much smaller holding cells, completely bare.
I climb the stairs at the end of the corridor, ignoring how all my joints ache and how I have to press a hand against the wall to stay mostly upright. There is no railing.
I make it to a landing, pausing to reach out for essence that would alert me to the presence of any shifters. None are near. Or perhaps my reach is truncated or compromised?
But there’s something through the next door off the stairwell. Something I don’t want to see.
Something I don’t want to know.
If I continue upward, I’ll breathe fresh air. I’ll find a vehicle. I’ll twist some luck. And I can go home. Well, I can head in that direction at least.
A terrible sob rips through me.
I nearly stumble. I nearly falter.
But I don’t take the stairs.
Ignoring the electronic locking mechanism, I reach for the door latch with tears already streaming down my face. I know … I know what lies beyond this door.
Essence shifts under my hand. The panel next to the door sparks.
The locks clunk open. The door unseals with a hiss of compressed air and swings outward with a mere tug of my hand, revealing a medical bay of some sort.
Machines beep and pump. Screens flicker and buzz. Medical equipment is arrayed across metal tables on locked wheels.
The glass-fronted fridges to my left are filled with bags of blood.
A dark-blond male, skin waxy in death, is strapped to a hospital bed with faded preservation spells etched in blood across his forehead, chest, and legs. His hand has fallen off the bed, his wrist still bruised and bloody from when he wrenched it from his restraints.
Trying to reach for the woman in the bed next to him.
To reach for her as he watched her die, moments before following her into the after.
