Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Taking deep breaths, I rest the back of my head on the door and focus on my breathing. Saliva floods my mouth, and my stomach cramps.
“No.” I grit my teeth. I can’t vomit right now. Not when I’m already so weak. Fuck, I shouldn’t have eaten so fast.
I keep breathing, but my stomach gives another warning lurch. Crawling to the bathroom, my body aching and gut twisting, I don’t make it to the toilet before everything I’d eaten comes pouring back out. I crawl the rest of the way to the bowl and heave.
It burns, acid in my throat and my mouth, as I purge until there’s nothing left. I rest my clammy forehead on the toilet seat for a long while.
When my stomach finally stops cramping, I crawl back to the door. The remaining food is still there, mocking me. I sip the water. Slowly. So fucking slowly it’s like I’m being tortured all over again. But this time I take small bites. It takes almost an hour of painstaking control, but I eat a small meal. For the first time in a long time, I feel almost full.
Still weak, I return to the bed and curl up again. Sleep takes me with ease, like a falling curtain across a dark stage.
I lose time. I don’t know how much. Over the course of what has to be a few days, I wake at intervals and often find food waiting for me outside my door. I eat. I sleep. I even bathe.
I get stronger, my body less achy each time I wake. New clothes have appeared in the closet, and the mess from the bathroom is gone. I try not to worry about whoever is coming into my room as I sleep. There’s nothing I can do about it, and I haven’t been harmed … yet.
Finding a way out is imperative, but I stick to my room. The thought of running into Valen again is enough to keep me inside—at least for now. But being alone in here is slowly driving me mad. All I do is think. And thinking about the past—the parts of it I can remember—causes nothing but a special sort of anguish. I don’t want to relive the horror of it, but I have to.
It’s all I have left.
6
Recovered Journal of Dr. Georgia Clark
February 23, Year 1, Emergence Era
The lab has everything I could possibly need to find a way to fight the virus. What I’m missing is what I was promised—Juno’s Miracle. All I have are unusable samples. If Aang gives me one more dirty look, I might snap. I don’t know what the hell Juno is thinking, and it’s not like I can ask her. I screamed ‘bullshit’ at the top of my lungs in the shower this morning like a lunatic. Something’s got to give. And soon.
The hallway is even longer than I first thought. I stand outside my room and take deep breaths. I catch more details now—the lights along the stone ceiling, the smooth walls, the paintings and art. Everything is meticulous and clean, not even a mote of dust floating through the air. Despite being underground, it isn’t dank here. It’s simply still. As if hermetically sealed. The thought isn’t comforting.
My body is stronger. My aches remain, but they’ve faded to the background. No one has bothered me, and I haven’t heard a sound during my time in my room. If it weren’t for the food and clothes, I might have fooled myself into thinking I was alone. I’m not, so I have to be careful. I don’t know if I’m even supposed to be out here.
Sitting and wallowing are no longer options. Not when there’s a war being waged somewhere over my head. People are dying. If I can help them, then that’s what I have to do. Even if that means I forfeit my own life. I can’t let these monsters win, but I don’t know what to do to stop them. Nothing is clear. Nothing is easy.
I wish Juno were here so I could lean on her, or maybe Candice. I blink hard, Candice’s face flashing through my mind. No, not her face, the gaping wound in her throat. Candice is dead. That’s right. She’s gone. It’s like I’ve come across a grave of an old friend, someone I always loved but put away in the recesses of my mind. Discovering her death is a fresh wound, and the bridge of my nose stings with tears. Who else is gone? Who else’s grave will I stumble across?
I stop for a long while to gather myself, my thoughts disjointed as fragments of memory wash over me in sharp, stabbing waves. Then the sea is gone and I’m left alone, the water receding, leaving me gasping on the shore.
There’s so much I don’t know, but one thing I do: I can’t stop. Not now. Not until I draw my last breath. Keeping to the wall, I ease along the corridor in the opposite direction of where I went last time. I listen at the first door I come to. Nothing.