Текст книги "The Star Dwellers"

Автор книги: David Estes

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Chapter Four

Tristan

Elsey is about to follow her father into the water, but I grab her arm. “Elsey—no!” I shout.

She looks at me blankly. “But Father told us to follow him,” she says. I have a feeling she would jump into the lava flow if he did first.

“I don’t think he’s thinking clearly,” I say. “I’ll go pull him out.”

My head jerks up as I hear a splash. Ben is bobbing in the center of the reservoir, staring at us. “What are you waiting for? There’s a tunnel here.” Without further explanation, he ducks under and kicks downwards, sending tiny ripples chasing each other to the shore.

Elsey manages to squirm away from me and dives in, making almost no splash. Roc looks at me and shrugs. “After what we just did, I wouldn’t mind a quick dip.” I can always tell when Roc is lying—like now. His lips are pursed, his eyebrows raised slightly. He wants to look brave, but I can tell he’s scared. Like I said, water’s not his thing.

“You first,” I say. I want to make sure no one follows us. I still have no clue where Ben is taking us, but I have to trust him.

This time I don’t kick Roc in the butt. He’s scared enough as it is, so I let him dabble a toe in the water and then wade in slowly. Once he’s waist deep, he pauses and I can tell he’s trying to gather his nerve. Plugging his nose, he plunges into the inky stream.

Before following, I turn and scan the area up to the buildings. There’s no sign of movement. The shadowy silhouettes of the downed troops blot the edge of the city. I catch a whiff of burning when I breathe in. Whether it is a lingering reminder of the bombing from three days ago or a new fire, I don’t know.

I turn back to the water and slip in, pushing off of the rocky embankment to propel myself forward. Expecting complete darkness, I don’t bother to open my eyes, sweeping my hands to each side to dive deeper, while churning my feet like a propeller.

Ten seconds pass and still I go deeper. I push forward with my hands, reaching out, trying to touch something, an arm or a leg, anything to tell me I’ve caught up to Roc, but I feel nothing. Nothing. And then…

Crunch!

Sharp pain lances through my fingers as my knuckles glance off hard rock. I pull them back sharply, tucking them to my chest for a moment. I’ve reached the reservoir floor without finding anyone. Finally, I open my eyes and feel the cold water swarm around my eyeballs.

As expected, blackness surrounds.

I swivel my head to the right, seeing nothing but oil. Twisting back to the left, I see it. A light. A beacon. A surprise. Off in the distance, something bright is bobbing through the pool, moving away from me.

I’m not sure how long I’ve been underwater, but my breath is becoming short. My instincts are urging me to kick to the surface and breathe, but I know I can’t. I try to push all thoughts of air out of my head as I kick hard, chasing the light.

As I swim, more lights appear on either side of the first one, except these are stationary, like the sentry lights that guard the tunnels of the many inter-Realm trains. I am gaining on the light.

When I reach the stationary lights, I find they are embedded in the wall, illuminating the entrance to a tunnel. An underwater tunnel! Ben isn’t crazy, after all. He knew exactly what he was doing.

The moving light is in the tunnel and I can barely make out shadowy figures flitting about it. I’m not sure how long has passed since I entered the water, but my lungs are aching for air. From its entrance, the tunnel appears endless, a never ending chute to nowhere, or somewhere—it’s definitely one or the other.

I grit my teeth and kick harder, shoveling the water to either side with my hands. Thankfully, the tunnel is wide enough to use my whole body to move me forward, and I feel a surge of water around my ribs as I move faster through the abyss. Chasing. Chasing. Chasing a damn light that seems to move ceaselessly away from me.

My movements grow frantic as my body, my blood, my brain demand air. I push harder and harder, straining against my own limitations. The light moves upwards and disappears, and I fear it’s gone out, plunging us all into darkness and death.

I push on.

My vision gets blurry and I feel lightheaded.

I push on.

One kick. Two kicks. Three kicks. I have nothing left.

But I find something more. I push on.

I feel strong hands grab my tunic and pull me up. I gasp, splutter, take deep breaths that are half-air, half-water. Choking, I cough, trying to expel the intruding liquid.

“Slowly, Tristan. Breathe slowly,” Ben says, rolling me over onto my back.

I obey, deepening my breaths—in between each gulp I’m still coughing—and trying to relax my heaving chest. Gradually, I open my eyes to see Roc, Elsey, and Ben hovering over me. They all appear to be perfectly fine—while I’m a mess.

“Who hates the water now?” Roc says, smirking.

I’m too tired for a comeback. Plus Roc does appear to have handled the long swim better than me. I take three heavy breaths and start to feel better.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“See for yourself,” Ben says with a wave of his arm. I roll over and look past him, at where he’s gesturing. Everything’s blurry at first, so I blink a few times to clear my eyes. Something comes into focus. It’s a…a…

“Train?” I say, not really believing my own description.

“Traaaiiinnn,” Roc repeats slowly, sounding out the word for me like I’m stupid. “T-R-A-I-N. Spell it with me, Tristan.”

I ignore him and push up to my feet. Indeed, it’s a train, gleaming silvery and metallic, even under the dim glow of the lights inset into the brownish-gray rock walls. We are in a small bunker, accessible only via the train that stands before us, or the watery tunnel from where we arrived.

“Does it run?” I ask stupidly.

“Of course,” Ben says. “All of the secret trains have been maintained by the Resistance for many years.”

“The Resistance…” I murmur, remembering my history lessons. From what I can remember, the Resistance was formed and destroyed in the same year, in 475 Post-Meteor, before I was born. My father and his armies crushed the Resistance like a bug before it could ever really do any real damage to the government. “But the Resistance was destroyed,” I say.

“You’ve been reading sun dweller history books, I see,” Ben says. “The real story is much darker and more complicated than your father wants anyone to believe.”

My mind whirls. But if there are still secret trains maintained by the Resistance, then that means the organization still exists. That there are still people out there fighting. “Tell me,” I say, my throat aching from swallowing too much water.

“Maybe later—we’ve got a train to catch.”

I have so many questions, but Ben hasn’t led us astray yet, so I follow him to the train doors, which open automatically as he approaches. Elsey is clinging to his side.

“Will the train whisk us away to a better place?” she asks innocently.

“I can’t see how it could take us to a worse place,” Roc grumbles.

“We’ll see, Elsey, we don’t know whether subchapter 1 has been hit yet,” Ben says, not sugarcoating the situation, even for his youngest daughter. I can see how Adele got so tough. Her father probably always gave it to her straight—the real story, not some children’s fairy tale. A harsh truth perhaps, but the truth nonetheless.

We step onto the train, which is spotless, in better condition than even the sun dweller trains. The seats are gray and hard, lined up efficiently along the edges like a military convoy, with plenty of room in the middle for satchels of weapons and ammunition. At least that is how I guess the space was being used by the Resistance. Correction: is being used by the Resistance. I’m still trying to get my head around what Ben said.

While Roc and I take a seat with Elsey between us, Ben presses a black button on the wall and speaks into an intercom. “It’s Ben, requesting immediate train transport from subchapter 26.” His leg is covered in blood, and I start ripping shreds off my tunic so he can bind his wound.

There’s a bit of static, and then a female voice comes through loud and clear. “Ben? Is it really you? We thought…we thought you were dead.”

“It’ll take more than a traitor prison camp to kill me.”

“And Anna?”

“Anna is below. My daughter is going after her.”

“Do you think she’s—”

“Yes,” Ben says firmly, glancing at us. “She’s alive, I know it.”

“Adele has been all over the news,” the voice says.

“Look, Jinny, I’d love to catch up, but…”

“Right, sorry. I’ll get you moving right away. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later…but Ben?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure glad you’re alive—and we’ll be pulling for Anna, too.”

“Thanks. Over.”

Before Ben can sit down, the train starts moving, beginning slowly and picking up speed as the lights flash off and we’re thrust into absolute darkness.

I feel a scrape against my arm as Ben sits next to me, grunting slightly. “Mr. Rose—I mean Ben—are you okay?” I ask, handing him the strips of my tunic.

“Thanks,” he says, taking the fabric. “I think so. I’m not sure, but I think the bullet missed the bone and lodged in the muscle. At least that’s what I’m hoping.”

“What happened to your ear?” I ask in the dark.

“That horrible soldier with the sword sliced it off,” Elsey interrupts from my other side. I turn, half-expecting to see that face that reminds me so much of Adele, but see only a black void.

I turn back and say, “He cut your ear off?”

Ben chuckles, which seems odd given we’re talking about his missing ear, which is likely being examined by the star dweller soldiers as we speak. “Nah. Just the tip, I reckon.”

“Oh, just the tip. No big deal then,” Roc says. “Sorry, guys, I’m not used to all this violence. I think I might just catch a transfer back to the Sun Realm at the next stop.”

I laugh and it hurts my throat, but still feels good somehow. “Oh, I think you fit right in, buddy. I’m not sure what won you the battle—your clunky sword work, or the deranged look on your face while you swung that pointy hunk of metal like a madman.”

“You taught me everything I know.”

“I don’t remember the day I taught you Fearsome Expressions 101.”

“Yeah, you were absent that day, so I had to do self-study,” Roc retorts. Elsey giggles. I can sense Roc grinning in the dark. Somehow we are always able to joke. Somehow it makes things easier.

“Ben, can I ask you something?” I say.

“I’ll tell you all about things later,” he says.

“No, not that,” I say. “Something else. About Adele.”

“Sure.”

“Why’d you teach Adele to fight?”

“Because she wanted to,” he replies simply. It’s not the answer I expected at all. I thought he might say So she could defend herself, or Because it’s all I know, or even Because it’s a dangerous world out there, son. I don’t know, something like that.

“How’d you know that she wanted to learn?”

“Because one morning I took Adele out back, behind our house, and showed her a few things. You know, how to kick, how to punch, that sort of thing. I was mostly just messing around, having fun with her. Roughhousing. The next morning when I went out back to train, Adele was already there, practicing her kicking. She always loved to kick. Every day after that she showed up, without being told. When Elsey was born, she never seemed interested, so I didn’t push her. We did other things together, but with Adele it was all about the training.”

“I liked cooking with Mom,” Elsey interrupts.

“And your doll.”

“Molly!” Elsey exclaims. “Oh, dearest Molly, my only doll. She and I used to go on the most incredible adventures together. To defeat evil witches and dark wizards and meet fantastically handsome knights.”

I can’t help but to laugh. Roc’s cracking up, too, and Ben’s deep chortle rises above us all. A proud father.

“How’d you learn to talk like that, El?” Roc asks.

“Like what?” Elsey says innocently.

Ben chuckles. “She loved reading old throwback books with my wife, about princes and princesses and kings and queens. Something about the formal way they spoke just stuck with her.”

“Well, I think it’s pretty silly,” Roc says, tickling Elsey on her stomach, which earns another squeal of laughter from her.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, each lost in our own thoughts. I think back to what Ben said. Because she wanted to. He’s the opposite of my own father, who always encouraged us to do certain activities with the back of his hand or his belt. It was never a choice. Learn to fight or face his wrath. Ben is a good man. The best kind of man. A role model. I’ve barely just met him, but already I want to be like him. I’ll follow him to the molten core of the earth if he asks me to.

I’m in the game.

* * *

A few hours later the lights come back on and the train slows, pulling to a stop next to a dimly lit stone platform. A half-dozen people are gathered to meet us. They remind me of Ben: strong and capable, heads held high, tight lips that are quick to smile and then spring back to serious again. They are each wearing various shades of brown tunics that have seen better days, littered with patches and ragged edges.

To my left, Elsey is asleep on Roc’s shoulder, and he on her head. To my right, Ben is wide-eyed and alert, as if he hasn’t slept at all. I couldn’t sleep either, but chose to pass the time in silence.

As the train doors ease open I feel my stomach lurch with hunger. The greeters push their way inside. “Ben!” the woman in front shouts as she sees us. Ben is on his feet in an instant as the woman charges him, hugging him fiercely. She looks to be in her early forties, with the beginning of wrinkles under her amber eyes and creasing her broad forehead. She wears a long, brown ponytail with just a touch of gray around the edges. Her jaw is firm, her lips full. I stand up next to them and wait in uncomfortable silence as they embrace. I feel somewhat embarrassed at the emotion they display, especially given Ben is a married man.

My confusion is erased when Ben releases the woman and says, “Tristan—meet my sister, Jinny.”

I break into a smile and extend a hand. Smack Instead of shaking my hand, she slaps me across the face, stunning me. “That’s for being the son of the President,” she says. Then she hugs me tightly, pulling her head into my chest. I don’t hug back—my arms flail helplessly past her back—because I’m too shocked.

When she releases me, she says, “And that’s for joining the Resistance.”

“I, um, I, well…” I blubber.

“What he’s trying to say is that he’s pleased to meet you,” Roc says, extending his hand. When Jinny takes it, he says, “Can you show me how to do that slap you just laid on Tristy here? It could definitely come in handy.”

Jinny laughs while I continue to try to figure out what the hell is going on.

“My sister can be rather opinionated,” Ben says.

“Father?” Elsey says, rubbing her eyes groggily.

Ben’s head whips around, as if he’s forgotten about his youngest daughter. With a single large step, he moves to her side, puts a tender arm around her shoulder, and says, “Elsey—there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Jinny steps forward, reaching her hand out slowly, as if she’s afraid she might frighten her. “Hi, Elsey, I’m your Aunt Jinny.”

For a second I think Elsey might be angry as her eyes narrow, but then she rushes forward past Jinny’s outstretched arm and throws her petite hands around her back. When she pushes back to look up at her aunt’s face, she says, “But why didn’t you ever visit?”—her head swivels to face her dad—“And why didn’t you ever tell me you had a sister, Father?”

Ben’s eyebrows arch and he smiles lightly. “I’m so sorry, El. I had to keep Jinny’s existence a secret for everyone’s safety. There are bad people that wanted to take her.”

“Like they took you and Mother?”

“Exactly like that.”

As she pulls away from Jinny, Elsey’s hands move to her hips and a scowl appears on her face. The expression reminds me so much of Adele. “Are there any other relatives I should know about?”

Ben laughs. “I’m afraid not,” he says. “Your mom is an only child and it is just Jinny and me.”

“Then I suppose I can forgive you…this time,” Elsey says, once more smiling.

“Ahem.” Someone clears their throat at the train door. I turn to see a towering, dark-skinned guy with a day’s worth of stubble. He’s wearing a dark brown tunic cut off at the shoulders. Powerful, muscular arms hang loosely at each side, like rock-crushing sledgehammers. “We should really move inside,” he says.

“Ram,” Ben says, “it’s good to see you again.”

“I’m glad you’re alive.”

“Thank you.”

“Ramseys—meet Tristan Nailin.”

“I know who he is,” Ram says, his eyes dark and glaring. “Follow me.” Without another word he leaves the train, clearly expecting us to follow. He doesn’t like me—that much is obvious.

“Sorry about him,” Ben says.

“No problem,” I say. “I’m used to all kinds of reactions to me. I think I prefer Ram’s to most.”

Ben’s head cocks to the side, as if he’s surprised by my statement. “I have a feeling you’re just like an onion,” he says, taking Elsey’s hand and pulling her off the train before I can ask what he means.

Chapter Five

Adele

The fourth hour passes and we don’t stop. Neither of us speaks. The only sounds are from our heavy breathing and the scuff of our shoes on the rock tunnel. The fifth hour passes and my headache escalates into a fever. I feel cold and shivery and empty, but my head is boiling. Sweat drips in my eyes, and when I blink it stings.

I sneak a look at Tawni. Her face is so gaunt and pale that she looks like a ghost. A thin sheen of sweat coats her skin.

Somehow we manage to maintain a steady pace to the sixth hour. My muscles are on fire, but not because of our long, strenuous hike. The virus is attacking my body, and from the feel of things, my body’s not putting up much of a fight.

Next to me, Tawni stumbles. She manages to stay on her feet, but then a minute later, she stumbles again.

“You okay?” I ask.

She opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out. She points to her legs. Her muscles are failing her. Mine will do the same soon. We have to hurry.

“Here.” I reach out and grasp her hand. We’re going to have to support each other the rest of the way.

We keep walking. Tawni stumbles every few minutes, but I keep her up. Her right leg is doing this weird dragging thing with each step. Left foot up, step, right foot drag, repeat. It makes for slow going.

I stumble for the first time, but Tawni holds me up this time, which I acknowledge with a nod. Speaking will waste precious energy. It is weird, losing control of your body. It almost feels like I’ve been sucked into the past, when I was a toddler, unable to fully control my arms and legs. It’s like I know they’re there, and capable of doing cool things, but I just can’t quite get them to do what I want. My left arm is no longer swinging while I walk, like it should; rather it hangs lifeless at my side. Dead. Like it’s not part of my body anymore, just a strange growth. My other arm is only held up because I’m holding Tawni’s hand.

I know my headache is bad, but I can’t really feel it anymore. My muscles are aching more.

Seven hours pass, but I know we aren’t moving fast enough to make it to subchapter 30 in only eight hours. Even if Tawni’s guess as to the distance was correct, we might be four hours away still. We won’t last that long. Not without water. Not without medicine.

“Ahhhhh!” Tawni screams next to me and I practically jump out of my skin. Instinctively I release her hand and pull away, moving flush with the tunnel wall. She is clawing at her face, tearing light scratches down her cheeks with her fingernails. A thin layer of blood rises to the surface. “Get them the hell off!” she screams.

I know she’s hallucinating, but I don’t know what she’s seeing. It doesn’t really matter—just that she’s scared and needs my help. Without hesitation, I grab her hands and pull them away from her damaged face. She’s lucky. Somehow she missed poking herself in the eye.

She struggles against me, tries to lift her hands back to her face, tries to claw at herself. Having no other choice, I release one of her hands and slap her hard across the face before she can raise it to her cheek. She stops struggling and collapses into my arms. Gently, gently, gently I lower her to the unforgiving rock bed. Her eyes are wide open, watery and red. She makes a weird gurgling, squealing sound from the back of her throat. “Shhh,” I say. “You’re okay, Tawni. They’re not real.” Whatever they are.

Tawni’s chest is heaving but as I talk her breathing seems to slow, so I keep doing it, speaking softly, like I’m talking to a child. “Hush, hush, hush, my friend, danger’s far away…Hush, hush, hush, my friend, the monsters go away.” It’s part of a poem my mom used to sing to me when I had nightmares, although my mom used to say my princess instead of my friend.

Not knowing what else to say, I cradle Tawni’s head in the crook of my arm and hum to her, finishing the rest of the poem without words. Partway through, her eyes close and her body relaxes, going limp in my arms. The worst of the hallucination is over. When I finish I think she might be asleep, but when I move, her eyes open, blue and misty, but snaked with red veins, brought to the surface by the virus.

“Thanks,” she says.

“It’s okay.”

“They were eating my flesh.”

“What?”

“Maggots, insects, things. They freaked me out. I could see them on me, feel them chewing on my skin. It was so real.”

I nod. “We’re both going to have to try to ignore them, try to remember it’s all part of the Flu.

Tawni sighs. “I’ll try.”

“We have to keep moving.”

“I know.”

Standing up again is torture. In the few minutes we’ve been on the ground, it seems every muscle in my body has frozen. My right arm is better off, so I use it to straighten my left arm, flex it, massage it. I feel a spurt of warmth as some blood rushes back into my arms. Next I work on my legs. Tawni is doing the same thing. Then we use the wall and each other to pull ourselves up. It probably takes us ten minutes to get to our feet.

Ten precious minutes.

I am dreading my first hallucination.

We continue walking, Tawni dragging a foot while I manage to lift both feet off the ground far enough to take real steps. At some point we switch from holding hands to huddling against each other, arms around each other’s shoulders. She is my crutch and I am hers.

My fever is out of control. When the sweat isn’t pouring down my face, I am shivering uncontrollably, shaking from head to toe. We are a mess. First Tawni shakes for a few minutes and then stops just in time for me to start convulsing. Soon our shaking begins starting and stopping at the same time. It’s weird, almost like how they say girls who spend a lot of time with each other somehow synchronize their periods—we’ve synchronized our shaking.

I hear a sound. A thunder, of sorts. It sounds like a train is heading our way, moving down the tunnel. But there is no train station, no tracks. It’s no train, of that I am certain.

I see what is making the noise, but it’s too late. The water is moving too fast, charging toward us, a deluge of power, bubbling and raging and bursting. I scream, loud and long, and try to pull Tawni in the other direction, back the way we came.

She resists my pull and I don’t know why. Perhaps she has given up; perhaps it is all too much for her; perhaps she just doesn’t have the strength. Whatever the case, my hand pulls free from hers and I run alone, but not fast enough. The torrent sweeps me off my feet with the power of a mining machine, lifting me up and slamming me on the rocky floor. I roll and bounce, battered by the white bubbly rapids.

My only hope is that the force of the water will sweep me all the way back to the contaminated lake, where it will exit the tunnel, washing me up on dry land before I drown.

Tawni is already lost.

But the flood doesn’t push me along. Instead, it encompasses me, leaving me churning on the tunnel floor, desperately straining to hold my breath for another second, another ten, another minute. It’s like all my childhood nightmares about drowning—brought on by my near-drowning when I fell down a well as a young girl—are muddled into one horrible reality. My lungs are on fire, setting my chest ablaze with pain. Agony. Somehow I’m crying underwater, blubbering and sputtering, my lips parted and my eyes closed. The water should enter my mouth, suffocate me as I take one last breath.

It doesn’t.

Tawni is by my side, holding me. The water swirls over and around her. It’s as if she’s in an air bubble, protected from the current. Not even her hair is wet. Her eyes are soft. Still red, but soft. Her lips move.

“Not real, honey,” she says softly. “Hush—not real.”

I realize I’m yelling something amidst my blubbering. I’m not sure what I’m saying, but I stop. The water looks strange. Almost too blue to be real. Too perfect.

Before it begins to ebb away, I know it’s a hallucination. The waters subside and I’m left in Tawni’s arms, much like she was in mine not that long ago. I’m soaking wet and shivering.

“So cold,” I murmur between blue lips.

“No,” Tawni says, shaking her head. “Not cold. Not real.”

“But I’m all wet,” I say, hugging myself, trying to get warm.

“Not wet. Completely dry.”

Even as her words sink in, warmth returns to my body and I watch as my clothes stop sticking to me, the slickness on my skin vanishes, and the soggy, dripping locks of my black hair are replaced by soft, loose locks around my face.

I take a deep breath, trying to fight off the surreal memories of the life-taking water. “I’m okay,” I say, wiping the unwanted tears from my face. I’m embarrassed, even though I know the hallucination was so real. I knew it was coming, but couldn’t combat it. I need to do better with the next one. “We need to go.”

“Maybe we should just stay here and ride it out,” Tawni says. Her face is shining with sweat, her white hair tight and knotted, twisted together from the sweat on her neck and cheeks. Her words are a temptation. I can feel my face flushed with the fever and my muscles are battered and bruised. I couldn’t handle the hallucination, but I can handle a little pain.

“No,” I say, pushing myself up, biting back a groan as my muscles and bones scream at me. “That would be suicide.”

Tawni knows I’m right so she lets me help her up without complaining. “I’m scared, Adele.”

“We will make it,” I say. Won’t we?

With the Flu, things just keep getting worse. Thirty minutes later, Tawni is a ghost, pale and gaunt. She looks like she’s sweated off ten pounds that she can’t afford to lose. Her bony hands are clutching me at the elbow, depending on me to stay on her feet. I’m not much better off, but am coping with the achy muscles better than she is. I’ve been grinding my teeth in determination for so long I can feel the enamel flaking off on my tongue, gritty and dry.

Thankfully, neither of us has hallucinated for a while, and, despite the pain we’re in, we are making steady progress, although I don’t know if we’re minutes, hours, or days from our destination. Nor do I know what to expect when we arrive. For all I know, the star dwellers might kill us on the spot. They are not the friendliest of people at the moment.

My mind is becoming a problem. One minute it is sharp and clear, and then the next it’s hazy and groggy, like I’m sleepwalking through a deep fog. The foggy times are fast becoming the majority. I want to slap myself, but I can’t get my hand up to my face; nor can I move it with the speed required to hurt enough to snap me out of my numbed state.

Tawni’s fingernails dig into my arm and I know something is wrong. I slowly turn my head toward her to see what’s going on, but it’s too late. My face swivels right into her punch, and I feel a dull impact when her clenched knuckles collide with my cheekbone. It doesn’t hurt exactly, but does force me off balance, and my legs are in no position to correct my momentum.

I tumble hard to the earth and try to roll away from my friend, who is now my attacker. My body disobeys me once more and I remain pinned to the ground. All I can do is hope that whatever hallucination is clutching Tawni will release her.

It doesn’t.

Tawni leaps on top of me, grapples with my outstretched arms, tries to get the tips of her fingers into my eyes. She is screaming at me, shouting horrible things, obscenities, things I’ve never heard come from her mouth. Disgusting, vile things.

I try to remember that she’s hallucinating, but she’s trying to hurt me, and I have to defend myself. When she tries to hit me again, I grab one of her hands and get it under control. “You’re hallucinating, Tawni, get off me!” I cry, but she doesn’t listen, just keeps fighting with me.

A knife flashes, shiny and deadly. I can barely make it out in the dim light provided by our flashlights, which we have cast aside haphazardly during our fight. Where did she get a knife from? Why would she even have a knife? Tawni is the least violent person I know—more prone to run or hide than fight back. And yet she has a knife—and is trying to cut me open.

I grab the wrist of the hand with the knife and try to force it away from me. But Tawni has somehow become stronger from the Flu, gaining superhuman strength. The knife moves closer to my chest. She’s going to kill me. I have no choice.

I close my other hand around her neck. The Flu has weakened me beyond recognition, but I use every last ounce of energy to squeeze my fingers shut, hoping to get her to drop the knife. The feeling is sickening. Horrifying. Knowing that you are literally squeezing the life out of someone. But I don’t stop, because Tawni doesn’t stop. It’s weird. Although she’s being choked to death—that much I can tell by the wretched gurgling sounds she’s making—she won’t drop the knife. It’s like killing me is more important than her own life.

So this is how it ends for us? With friends killing each other?

Her lips are moving, trying to tell me something, but I can’t understand her. Is it a trick or should I relax my grip? I’m afraid if I do she’ll cut me to ribbons. “Ha…” she chokes out.

Her face is turning blue. I loosen my grip slightly. “What?” I ask. The knife is so close to my skin, inching closer, but I have to know what Tawni is trying to say.