Noam stumbled across the room, bare feet sticking to whatever fluid had congealed on the tile. He swore—swore—he could feel the bones of the building, cameras overhead, little electrical signals sizzling down the wires.
Hallucinating, that was it. Identifying patterns in the world, seeing himself—but from the outside, all edges and too-long pants.
Madness.
The hall was a long white ribbon stretching toward a pair of steel doors.
And silence. The sort of silence that suffocated, pouring into Noam’s nose and mouth and ears like black water.
A camera gazed dispassionately down from the ceiling. Noam gazed back.
“Hello?”
His voice didn’t sound like his own.
A crash behind him. Noam spun around, half expecting to see the girl from his room with skeleton fingers reaching for his throat—but there was nothing. Just empty hallway, fluorescent lights flickering on tile.
He had to get out. Anywhere was better than being in this dead air.
Noam faltered toward the double doors. He had made it three feet before they crashed open, spilling a small army of aliens in strange white space suits, oxygen tanks strapped to their backs and gloved hands held aloft.
“Hey, there,” one of them said. His voice came out sounding odd, synthetic. “Hey, now. Take it easy. Stay where you are.”
“Who—” Noam’s throat was raw. It hurt to speak. He staggered against the wall and leaned there, cheek pressed against cold plaster. “Who are you?”
“We’re doctors,” the space suit said. “We’re here to help. You’ve been very sick.” He gestured at one of the others, who stepped toward Noam, dragging a stretcher. “Just relax. It’s all okay.”
I am relaxed, Noam wanted to say, but he could barely keep his eyes open. He slumped farther down the wall. It was almost a relief when the other doctor reached him, grabbing Noam’s arm to help hoist him onto the stretcher.
The doctor injected him with a clear fluid.
“Whassat?” Noam mumbled.
“Sedative. Just to keep you calm, honey. Can’t have you accidentally blowing this place to high heaven, now, can we?” The doctor patted him on the sternum with one huge gloved hand.
Noam tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He felt like he was spinning in place. Something buzzed between his ears like static.
He was distantly aware of the other space suits moving toward him, a low hubbub of untranslatable conversation. Someone plastered sticky sensors onto his chest.
“What’s happening?” he managed to get out.
“Shh, it’s all right. We’re gonna get you out of here.”
He gave up arguing.
They rolled him out those double doors, through an air lock that sprayed some acrid disinfectant all over him. Then out again, into a white-walled maze of corridors and too many machines, beeping, buzzing, the sound loud enough it shuddered down into his bones.
It was only after he’d been settled in a new bed that he managed to get his thick tongue working again. “Is this... hospital?”
“Yes it is, sweetheart,” someone said.
Noam opened his sluggish eyes. Not a space suit, this time—a regular woman wearing scrubs.Nurse, his mind provided helpfully, if a beat too late.
“How much do you remember?” the woman asked.
His thoughts slogged along like heavy boots trudging through mud. “Nothing.”
Only, that wasn’t true. He remembered the dead girl. He remembered how she smelled.
