Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sunlight dapples across the dirt in front of me, and I stare at it blankly. It feels like I’ve been wrapped in a fog of…nothing.
Yesterday, I didn’t stop running until I collapsed.
I’m not sure where I was, just that I didn’t have it in me to keep going.
I crawled under a dense group of bushes and passed out.
I woke sometime in the night, shivering and starving, with bugs crawling all over me.
For a blissful second, I didn’t realize where I was.
Then, all the feelings from what happened to Elijah came rushing back in a horrifying wave that gripped my chest. I lay there, paralyzed with the pain in my chest.
Then, slowly, blissfully, I started to shut down. My breathing slowed, the feelings became distant, and finally, peace. I didn’t know who that girl was who would always be alone. She didn’t feel like me. I was numb.
I lay there until someone passed by about fifty feet from where I was. I barely glanced at them, staring up into the sky. If it were my time to go, then at least I wouldn’t feel anything.
But the person passed. And as the sun came up in the sky, the birds started singing, bugs started biting me, and that horrible, awful feeling started coming back.
Not safe. You aren’t safe.
My chest tightens, and I stare at the sunlight. It moves like water, dancing with the leaves and the wind. Frowning, I try to keep the fear building in my lungs down.
Just breathe.
My thighs start to tingle with warmth.
Run.
No! I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to go back to the nothing. I want my brain to make me feel like I’m somewhere else. I want to be gone. Why am I even here? I shouldn’t be here.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot movement. It’s something big and black crawling along the forest floor.
A centipede. It’s huge, double the size of my hand, with a big red head.
My heart races.
No! No, I won’t feel. I don’t care. I don’t care about the bugs, I don’t care about the people, and I absolutely don’t care about… My throat starts to close. Seven. Connor.
It happens so fast I can barely open my eyes in time. There’s a harsh, burning pain in my thigh, and I look down. The centipede is there, biting me through my pants. Fire shoots into my muscle, and I leap up, swiping at the creature and crashing into the bushes overhead.
The pain is piercing, stinging like multiple hornets got me in the same spot. I stumble back, swiping at my leg over and over. The bug drops to the ground, then scurries right at me, pinchers opening and closing.
I let out a tiny scream, struggling to keep my footing, pain lacing through my leg. The centipede keeps coming. I stomp on it. It’s bigger than my foot, and as soon as I lift my leg, it keeps coming.
Panic lights in every muscle of my body. It’s still alive.
Scrambling, I search for a rock. Seeing one the size of my fist, I grab it, smashing the rock down on the bug.
The centipede crunches, just an inch away from my foot. Miraculously, it keeps twitching.
Adrenaline washes over me with a hot wave. I hit the bug again, fingers coming dangerously close to its legs. It crunches, but stays one piece, flopping onto my shoe.
Screaming, I flick it off. Then I hit it again and again and again. Strike, strike, strike. White-hot anger floods my veins.
I lose track of everything else, I just hit the bug until it splits in half.
Then I hit it more. All the emotions from yesterday are back in a horrendous wave.
Elijah’s face split open. His panic. Once, twice, three times.
I count until I hit seven times. Hot, burning tears well in my eyes, and I keep hitting. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.
I stop, panting, staring down at the mess of crushed legs and black shiny shell. Tears drip down my face, and I hiss, “I didn’t even do anything to you. Why did you do that?”
Then, I’m screaming at the sky. “Seven didn’t do anything to you!
He didn’t, and you just…killed him! Connor didn’t…
” I choke up, unable to keep going. But I’m not sad.
I’m angry. I’m so fucking angry. I want to smash my rock into the people who brought us here.
Into the man who killed Seven. Into the man who tried to rape me.
Into whoever the stupid fucking game master is. I’ll take my time with him.
I’m angry because this is so wrong, and I’m angry because deep down I know it’s real. If I were in psychosis, someone would have taken me to the ER by now, and some version of that would have shown up in this reality. No one has come to save me. And no one will.
Because this is real.
Slowly, rageful clarity settles over me as my leg throbs.
Maybe I can. Maybe I can smash my rock into the skull of whoever runs across me next. If I survive that, I’ll get the next person. And then the next. Until they’re all dead.
Or I am.
Straightening, I look around. I no longer feel that blissful numbness. Those raw emotions are back, but this time, they’re tempered under a wave of simmering rage. The anger makes them palatable.
I probably won’t survive this. But maybe, just maybe, I’ll damn well make sure no one else does either.