long night, I start to shiver. And soon after, I feel a pressure against my temples. Like a creature living inside is fighting, begging, scraping to get out.
Then I hear the voice again. This time, I know it’s not just the wind. This time, it’s clear and crisp and urgent. This time, I recognize the source.
It’s coming from inside me.
Like a thought.
No.
Like a memory.
“Find me.”
I still have no idea whose voice it is. Or why it’s coming to me now. I decide to take a chance. I sit up, draw in a deep breath, and speak back. Aloud.
“How?”
I’m not convinced an answer will come. In fact, I’m highly doubtful. I wait in the dark expecting nothing.
But nothing is not what comes.
The pressure in my head builds. My brain feels like it’s going to explode. Like I’m going to faint. The pain is unbearable.
But eventually images flood to the surface. As though they’ve been long buried in the back of my mind—concealed, locked, hidden—and somehow only now I’ve managed to set them free.
And then suddenly I’m no longer in my cell.
I’m standing on a crowded street. People push into me from every direction. A sea of bodies trying to crush me. Drown me. Suck me under.
I fight to move through them. Shoulders bumping mine. Elbows jabbing into my rib cage. My hair is caught and my head lashes back.
Then the noise starts. A faint rolling thunder. A swelling rumble of deep booming sounds.
It gets louder, louder, louder. Faster, faster, faster. Like a parade of gigantic horses galloping through the air. Stomping on the clouds.
Until everything around me is vibrating. Pulsating with sound. Swelling. Heaving. Bursting.
I recognize this sensation. The influx of imagery. The formation of a scene.
It’s a memory. I’m certain of it.
But of what? I don’t recognize that street. I don’t recognize that sound. Or any of the faces around me. Is it something that happened when I was living with my foster family in Wells Creek? But then why am I only remembering it now? Why don’t I recognize what I’m seeing?
It can’t possibly have happened before that. On the compound. When I was at Diotech. Those memories are supposed to be gone. Erased forever.
Perplexed, I push myself back in, trying to grasp the swirling misty images and hold them steady in my mind.
Color starts to rain from above.
Blue. Red. Yellow. Green. White.
Tiny curling tufts of a material I can’t identify float down like crisp autumn leaves.
Everyone around me turns at once. Their gazes high. Their fingers stretched upward.
I turn and lift my eyes.
High in the sky, a series of strange markings begins to appear. Scribbled among the clouds. Symbols from another world.
And then … a hideous red beast with black-and-gold eyes emerges into the air. Swims effortlessly over the heads of the crowd. His features are distorted in rage. His jagged white teeth are bared.
I choke down a scream and start to back away, shoving through the swarm of people. Knocking down bodies. Until I finally break free from the mob.
I stumble down a deserted street, the raucous rumbling mercifully getting farther and farther away with each step.
I scan the empty avenue. Every door is closed. Boarded up. Every storefront bears the same unfamiliar markings. The same foreign symbols that I saw in the sky.
I come to a stop in front of a rusted metal stairwell, leading down, under the street.
An old man stands at the bottom of the steps. In front of a dirty blue door.
His skin is deeply creased. His eyes are dark and narrow—nothing more than slender slits cut into his face. His hair is white and thin, trailing from his head down his cheeks and into a long, colorless wispy beard that drips from his chin.
For reasons I don’t understand, I’m pulled to him. Forced to look. To meet his gaze.
He beckons me downward. Into his hole.
“I help you,” he says slowly.
My body wants to run. Keep running. Never stop running. But my mind tells me no. Stay.
Then I hear the voice again. This time, I know it’s not just the wind. This time, it’s clear and crisp and urgent. This time, I recognize the source.
It’s coming from inside me.
Like a thought.
No.
Like a memory.
“Find me.”
I still have no idea whose voice it is. Or why it’s coming to me now. I decide to take a chance. I sit up, draw in a deep breath, and speak back. Aloud.
“How?”
I’m not convinced an answer will come. In fact, I’m highly doubtful. I wait in the dark expecting nothing.
But nothing is not what comes.
The pressure in my head builds. My brain feels like it’s going to explode. Like I’m going to faint. The pain is unbearable.
But eventually images flood to the surface. As though they’ve been long buried in the back of my mind—concealed, locked, hidden—and somehow only now I’ve managed to set them free.
And then suddenly I’m no longer in my cell.
I’m standing on a crowded street. People push into me from every direction. A sea of bodies trying to crush me. Drown me. Suck me under.
I fight to move through them. Shoulders bumping mine. Elbows jabbing into my rib cage. My hair is caught and my head lashes back.
Then the noise starts. A faint rolling thunder. A swelling rumble of deep booming sounds.
It gets louder, louder, louder. Faster, faster, faster. Like a parade of gigantic horses galloping through the air. Stomping on the clouds.
Until everything around me is vibrating. Pulsating with sound. Swelling. Heaving. Bursting.
I recognize this sensation. The influx of imagery. The formation of a scene.
It’s a memory. I’m certain of it.
But of what? I don’t recognize that street. I don’t recognize that sound. Or any of the faces around me. Is it something that happened when I was living with my foster family in Wells Creek? But then why am I only remembering it now? Why don’t I recognize what I’m seeing?
It can’t possibly have happened before that. On the compound. When I was at Diotech. Those memories are supposed to be gone. Erased forever.
Perplexed, I push myself back in, trying to grasp the swirling misty images and hold them steady in my mind.
Color starts to rain from above.
Blue. Red. Yellow. Green. White.
Tiny curling tufts of a material I can’t identify float down like crisp autumn leaves.
Everyone around me turns at once. Their gazes high. Their fingers stretched upward.
I turn and lift my eyes.
High in the sky, a series of strange markings begins to appear. Scribbled among the clouds. Symbols from another world.
And then … a hideous red beast with black-and-gold eyes emerges into the air. Swims effortlessly over the heads of the crowd. His features are distorted in rage. His jagged white teeth are bared.
I choke down a scream and start to back away, shoving through the swarm of people. Knocking down bodies. Until I finally break free from the mob.
I stumble down a deserted street, the raucous rumbling mercifully getting farther and farther away with each step.
I scan the empty avenue. Every door is closed. Boarded up. Every storefront bears the same unfamiliar markings. The same foreign symbols that I saw in the sky.
I come to a stop in front of a rusted metal stairwell, leading down, under the street.
An old man stands at the bottom of the steps. In front of a dirty blue door.
His skin is deeply creased. His eyes are dark and narrow—nothing more than slender slits cut into his face. His hair is white and thin, trailing from his head down his cheeks and into a long, colorless wispy beard that drips from his chin.
For reasons I don’t understand, I’m pulled to him. Forced to look. To meet his gaze.
He beckons me downward. Into his hole.
“I help you,” he says slowly.
My body wants to run. Keep running. Never stop running. But my mind tells me no. Stay.
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