Текст книги "The Wall"

Автор книги: Lauren Nicolle Taylor

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his tone belying his surety.

“I’m fine,” I said, changing the subject. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise. Now close your eyes. Deshi’s waiting outside so you can say goodbye to Orry.”

“No way!”

“Please?”

I closed my eyes, frowning with my arms folded across my chest. “How am I supposed to walk like this? I’ll walk into a wall.”

His strong arms scooped me up and pulled me close to his chest. “Never expected you to walk,” he said.

I relaxed. Even if this was all there was, it was plenty.

Joseph kicked open the doors and stepped quickly outside before they shut on him. The temperature dropped as soon as we were outside. The air was cool but the sun was out and it warmed my skin. I had lost track of time in the soundless, temperature-controlled hospital room. Was it afternoon? I could hear people moving and talking around us, footsteps on the asphalt, the metallic hum of the spinners as they coasted down the street. Deshi lifted Orry’s face to mine and I kissed him. He slobbered on my nose.

“I’ll just take him back to your house and wait for you there,” Deshi said.

Joseph thanked him and we continued on. I felt ridiculous but he made me promise to keep my eyes closed.

It was a curious feeling, heightening my other senses. I could eavesdrop on other conversations around me. I heard someone talking about mobilization of Woodland forces but then we moved out of earshot. I tried to follow the words but all I caught was ‘… weeks… late snow’.

Joseph started talking and I got lost in the vibration of his voice in his chest and his warm breath, which smelled like fresh bread and toothpaste, on my face.

He talked about plans, how spring was coming. He asked me what I was going to do with the garden. It was an odd conversation, too normal. I wasn’t sure we got to have normal. Vegetable gardens and furniture-making seemed further away from me now. It was something I had craved but now I focused on the present. Anything else was not manageable.

I sensed we were heading downhill.

He stopped suddenly and I thought we were at our destination but then he changed direction and kept walking.

It started to cool slightly, and the light against my eyelids was softer. Joseph’s footfalls were softer too, hitting dirt now instead of asphalt. I could smell damp, sodden earth and pine. And fire. I smiled, the plan coming together in my mind.

“We’re here. You can open your eyes,” Joseph said. He wasn’t out of breath in the slightest. His tone even, his breath steady. How did he manage it? I marveled at his strength.

I opened my eyes to a circle of pine trees.

Joseph leaned down and pressed his forehead to mine. “I hope this is all right. I wanted to bring you back, show you…” His voice was a rumble; it shook my chest, my heart, delightfully, like the words were in me.

I cut him off, “It’s perfect, thank you.” The light was filtering through the pine needles, creating sharp, crisscross shadows on the forest floor. The woods looked more like I remembered. The snow had indeed receded. There were a few icy patches but spring was slowly announcing itself.

Joseph lowered me to my feet gently but never took his hand off me. And unfortunately, I needed steadying. My head was still sore and my arm made everything awkward. I knelt down and held my palms to the small fire. It radiated warmth that seemed to reach out and engulf us both. I was glowing.

We sat together and I nudged him with my shoulder. Memories flooded through me and around me, some flying like open-mouthed ghosts swirling in a circle and some living in me, breathing with my every breath. He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me even closer. I looked up and watched the fire dance in his beautiful eyes. The trees leaned in to hear us, to hide us from the outside. We were part of this landscape.

“Rosa, I love you.” His earnest expression broke my heart but in a good way.

I nodded. My eyes wet. Love. The words were easy. What I felt was beyond that, and I didn’t know how to say so.

“Do you think we’ll make it?” I said casually.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes wide. “I think we have some challenges ahead of us. The Woodland soldiers are coming, but I think the Survivors have a plan. I don’t think we will be caught out like we were at the mounds.”

That’s not what I meant, but his words were heavy. I’d been so caught up in my own problems, I’d forgotten about the threats looming over the whole community. There were big issues we needed to face. The Woodland threat was like an infiltrative disease. It was creeping its deadly shadow slowly across the landscape and soon it would reach us. I imagined dark, pointed fingers impaling the fleeing people. Did they really understand what they were up against?

I took Joseph’s hand and traced over his knuckles one by one. I heard him sigh.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing. Nothing’s the matter. I’m just so glad this hasn’t changed. I was so scared that things would be different between us, after… but they’re not.”

I kissed his hand and stared into the fire. It was simple in there, in the flames. All or nothing. Consume or be consumed. Was I changed? Not in that way at least. I loved him the same. No, I loved him more. Always more. The rest? I didn’t know what it had done to me yet.

“Tell me more about what’s happening in the Woodlands,” I said.

Joseph rested his head on the top of mine and paused. Then he pulled the backpack towards him. From it, he produced some food and spread it out on a blanket. He filled a pan with water and set it on the coals. “You should eat,” he said in his doctorly tone.

I took some bread and smeared jam on it. Finding his eyes, I urged him to tell me more but he seemed hesitant.

“What is it?”

“Don’t jump at this,” he said carefully, “but they’re going to the Woodlands in a couple of weeks.”

“What, why?” I said, barely able to keep the desperate tone from my voice.

“They’re retrieving the Spiders,” he said.

We ate in silence for a while. I knew he was watching me, trying to peer into my brain and see what I was thinking. And what was I thinking? Exactly what he feared… If they were going back, then this was my chance. My toes were tapping in agitation.

But before I could form a plan in my head, Joseph swept it away. He didn’t ask me what I was planning to do. He didn’t make me promise not to go. He just put his hands on both my shoulders and squared them so I was facing him directly. He stood and I stood with him, his arms directing me like a wooden puppet. His mouth was flat but his eyes were dancing, the green flourishing, the gold flecks sparkling like fireworks and drawing me in. He moved me gently but deliberately so that my back was against a tree and then he sunk his mouth into my neck and crept his lips up to my ear.

I found myself fighting him, because he was making it take too long. I wanted his mouth, the taste of it on my own. He finally found me and I was awash in him, in the golden bands that bound us and held us to each other. Wherever my train of thought was heading, I missed it. It was gone and, in that moment, I couldn’t have cared less.

We stayed by the fire until it became too dark too see the forest around us, enveloped in each other’s arms and company. This was exactly right and I didn’t want to leave, even if it was a false feeling. But, reminded of the great, striped creatures that stalked the night, we poured our cups of tea onto the fire and headed back to the hospital.

Matthew wasn’t there but the nurse told us he said I could go home.

She handed me a bottle of pills and a bag containing the clothes I’d worn that night. She told me I would have to come back to have the cast removed in two weeks.

I nodded and Joseph and I walked home hand in hand.

Home. I craved it and dreaded it at the same time. But when we got there, it looked the same as always. Its cracked and weathered shingles creaked in the cold. Its open shutters blinked at me and welcomed me in. It was just a building, and the violence and chaos it had housed were gone. I treaded lightly over the stone path and took the steps two at a time. Standing at the doorway, I watched the house sigh and expel the menace. It whirred out the opening and soared into the sky. Gone.

Orry cried out. The warmth of the woodstove poured over me like a wave. I heard Deshi creaking over the floorboards and calming Orry with his smooth voice. And I knew it was still home. My home.

I slipped comfortably back into my home like a familiar, worn shoe. Deshi showed me how to make up a bottle for Orry, a process that was clumsy and time consuming. But I had to shake off the things I couldn’t control. Like dry leaves clinging to a coat, they floated to the ground and I stepped on them with a satisfying crunch.

I caught up with Deshi at the door while Joseph was changing Orry’s nappy.

I grabbed his arm and, for once, he didn’t shrink away. “Deshi, thank you. You’ve been a better friend than I deserve. I… I hope this hasn’t been too hard on you.” I knew my words were a bit incomplete but what could I say? I’m sorry if Joseph and I playing house is difficult for you?

He put his hand on my shoulder and patted it. “You know what? If you had died, that would have been hard. Watching what happened to him when he saw you lying there in front of the door… Rosa, I’ll never forget that face. I know things haven’t been easy between us but I am glad you’re ok. I want him to be happy.” Deshi eyes moved to Joseph struggling with Orry’s kicking legs as he tried to fasten the gurgling baby’s nappy.

It was rather inadequate but I said, “I really want you to be happy too.”

Surprisingly, he smiled at me, leaned down, and kissed my cheek. “I am.”

And with that, I released him. He waved through the door. “See you tomorrow, Joe.”

Joseph grabbed Orry’s legs with one hand to still them and managed a muffled “See ya” through his gritted teeth, a nappy pin hanging out the side of his mouth.

We settled Orry and placed him in his crib. I stroked his head and watched his eyes flutter and close. I felt safe here. What was I thinking giving this up to chase down a mother who probably didn’t even want me? But I felt like I had no choice—I had to go. Mother was beaten down, and even if I only knew that feeling for one night, it was enough, enough to know no one deserves to feel that way.

When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed a swirl of images that didn’t fit. I was dancing around my living room with Orry to the music Gwen had given me, laughing and throwing my head back, singing out of tune. Then I was running through the forest, a wolf’s snapping jaws at my heels. Then I was lying in bed with Joseph but thrashing around like the sheets were trying to strangle me. I fought my way free of them and landed with a thud on the floor but instead of the ground, I found myself pressed up against a Ring gate.

Staring through the bars, I could see Paulo pushing a pram with a crying baby in it, rocking it back and forth violently. I yelled out at him to stop, he was frightening the child, and when he turned to face me, I was staring into the face of a man I could barely remember, except for those eyes, my eyes.

I woke up tied in a knot of sheets, Joseph nursing a welt across his eye.

“What happened?” I asked, though I knew.

“You had another nightmare.” Another? He looked at me through half-open eyes, his hair sticking up on one side from being squished into the pillow. I stared at his impossible face for a moment before pain shot through me.

“Ugh! My head.” I fumbled around on the nightstand, searching for the painkillers. As I swallowed them, I thought of my dream and shuddered.

Joseph collapsed back into bed and mumbled, “C’mere,” opening his strong arms and folding me into them. He was soon asleep but my eyes were wide open. How was I going to get through this?

Joseph didn’t want to leave but I pushed him out of the bed.

“Go. I’ll be fine,” I said as convincingly as I could. “I want things to go back to normal. You go to the hospital and I will look after Orry at home.”

He left grudgingly but promised to come home early. I made sure I knew exactly what time.

I’d barely slept last night. I pulled Orry close, sleep wrapping its warm arms around me. It was dreamless. The lull of Orry’s snoring brought to me an uneasy peace, until I heard an impatient rapping at the door. The sharps taps felt like they were rattling inside my head. Would my brain ever return to normal and not feel like everything was inside out?

Unwelcome noises intruded on my space. Glancing at the clock, it was nearly midday. I slid out of bed carefully and placed pillows on either side of Orry so he wouldn’t roll off the bed.

The rapping continued.

“Coming,” I yelled to the closed door.

As I slipped on my jeans and buttoned my shirt, I could hear more than one voice on the other side, two men complaining to each other. I ran to the door and put my hand on the doorknob. Gripping it tightly, I took a deep breath and threatened myself to relax.

Gus stood right up against the screen door, his small gut pushing through the wires, with Careen and a young man I didn’t recognize flanking him. But they faded into nothing as I looked at Gus and he frowned back at me.

I’d always remarked they were similar but now I could really see it. I could see the truth of what Matthew had told me standing, disgruntled and awkward, at my front door. They were the same person, separated only by age. They had the same hair, although Gus’s was cropped close and he had a short, greying beard. It was the eyes that had my feet pushing me to turn and run. They had the same amber hue, the same long, black lashes framing such cruelty in Cal’s case. I kept telling myself over and over, He’s not Cal. He’s not Cal. But my body was shuddering and trying to hold me in. And keep him out.

Gus tried to pull the screen open but I was gripping it tightly and it sprang back to the frame.

Careen stepped forward and smiled. “Are you going to let us in?”

I nodded and stood back from the door, feeling like I was edging away from a wild animal.

They marched in and the younger man gave me a sideways glance, a mixture of surprise and disdain in his eyes.

Gus’s face had been worried down to a weary point. He looked tired and impatient. His sat in my chair with a thump without asking and looked up at me, plumes of dust motes swirling in the afternoon sun. A sharp pain ran through me again and I found myself strategically moving behind the armchair, putting a physical barrier between the two of us.

It was silent. The words that no one wanted to say hung in the air like small balls of lightning, sizzling and spitting little twirls of electric tendrils to the floor. I decided to strike first.

I opened my mouth to speak, but sound petered out into vapor and Gus cut me off.

“Matthew informed me of your request and it is out of the question. I am very sorry for what my son has done but you are not trained for this kind of mission. I won’t allow it,” Gus said bluntly.

I was flattened, but anger pulled at my restraint, lifting the pancaked edges of my confidence away from the floor. All my carefully selected arguments flew out my head. He wasn’t going to listen to them anyway. Who was he to tell me what I could and couldn’t do?

I razed my eyes across the room. Careen was smiling absently. The other man was watching, interested, like a spectator. “You’re sorry?” I moved around the armchair and placed myself directly in front of him. “I’m sorry too. You will take me. Or I will bring this matter to the leaders. If you want me trained, I’ll train. I have a couple of weeks. You owe me this.” I looked up at the sky, as if pleading to the heavens. “At least this. I’m going. You saying ‘no’ means absolutely nothing to me.”

I turned my back to him and waited. One, two, three. Don’t punch him. Let him think.

I heard a resigned sigh and the creaking of an old man easing himself out of the chair, all cracks and grunts.

“Fine. You have your wish. You will start training today,” Gus conceded, rubbing his bearded chin distractedly.

I thought of Cal tucking his hair behind his ears and tried to stop my eyes from widening and my breath quickening.

“Are you serious?” The young man argued, snapping his head back and forth between Gus and me. “She’s a child. She’ll only get in the way.”

Gus eyed the protestor. “Pietre, you’ve just volunteered to be her instructor.” His face held a self-satisfied look that at least he could punish someone for this inconvenience.

“I’ll help!” Careen was jumping up and down like she was being asked to hand out candy to children.

“Oh, and she will need to be healed before you start.” Gus threw the words over his disappearing shoulder.

He left us standing there.

A triangle of very different people, eyeing each other with varying levels of suspicion and excitement.

I woke Orry and put him inside the capsule. Lifting it with his weight proved difficult, as I was still weak and my broken arm made everything awkward. After a few attempts, Pietre’s patience ran short. He snatched the child from me and slung the capsule over his shoulder.

“Um, thanks,” I said.

“Don’t thank me yet. You have no idea what you’re in for,” he sneered.

I spoke over his shoulder to Orry’s plump, little face, “Guess what, bub? I’m getting healed today; you’ll get to see what happened to your father when he was fixed.”

Pietre shook his head. “Oh no. We’re not adding another child to the situation; find somewhere to drop it on the way to the labs.”

I snarled at him. “My child is not an ‘it’.”

“Whatever,” he said with an infuriating shrug.

After leaving Orry begrudgingly with Odval, I was escorted to the science labs like a criminal. Pietre and Careen walked next to me shoulder to shoulder. I wanted to clip them both. Well, actually I wanted to elbow him in the groin and throw a stick for Careen to fetch. She was so much like a bounding puppy. I swear I heard her panting with her tongue hanging out. I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she had barked. But I kept my cool. I needed their help. So I breathed deeply and imagined I did those things, which gave me some level of comfort. Eyes front, we traipsed towards the town, hopped on a spinner, and rode in silence until we reached the labs.

The science labs were connected to the hospital by a rickety, covered walkway, encapsulated with bent pieces of corrugated tin shaped into a crude arch. We had to walk through the hospital and up some stairs to get to it because the original entrance to the labs themselves was sealed from an old explosion. The door was folded in on itself and rubble reached the ceiling. It looked as if someone had thrown a bomb directly at the entrance.

Looking around anxiously, I worried I would bump in to Joseph, but thankfully he was not near the entrance at that time. As we walked through the doors to the hospital, I looked down the long corridor and wondered if Cal lay there still. I trembled and shut my mind to it, following my minders up the stairs.

As we climbed, Careen separated from me and jumped up the stairs, turning to look at us while she talked. Her excitement was not at all infectious—it was unfitting.

“Rosa, this is Pietre. I told you about him before,” she said, none too subtly. I was surprised she didn’t wink. He didn’t even flinch at the mention of is name.

“Uh huh,” I managed to mutter.

Pietre observed her bounding, his eyes stalking her breasts bouncing up and down, tracking her long legs with a sly gaze. I felt sick to my stomach.

When we got to the walkway, we took it one at a time. It couldn’t take much weight, though Pietre commented that I could probably jump up and down on it and it wouldn’t make any difference. I ignored him but he was trying my patience.

I stepped on; it creaked and swayed like a spring breeze would send it flying out into the atmosphere. The Survivors were a strange people. Why not fix it? They seemed to have the attitude of waste not, want not. If it was broken, they would fix it but they were unlikely to tear it down and build a new one. It brought my thoughts to my mother and her similar attitude, a shiver of nervousness shooting up my spine.

We descended a dark stairwell lined with small squares of light. Pushing open the doors at the bottom, we found ourselves in a shiny, silver room. There were bits of machinery laying on every available work surface. Robots whirred and lasers shone in blues and purples. Everything was new and foreign. Except for a dark face focused intently on a computer screen. Deshi.

I snuck up quietly behind him and shouted, “Hi Desh!” He jumped in his chair. When he recovered, he glared at me and chastised me like a child.

“You know, you really are so immature sometimes. I’m working on something very important,” he said.

“I bet you are,” I said sincerely. “What exactly?”

“I’m working on a computer bug that will open all the Ring gates simultaneously and then latch them again.”

“Ooh!” I said mockingly.

He looked at me with tired impatience. A look I was so familiar with, I barely noticed it anymore.

“What are you doing here anyway?” he asked, raising his dark brows.

“I’m getting fixed up,” I said, overly chirpy, swinging my elbows.

Deshi looked unimpressed. If he was interested or curious, he didn’t show it. He waved us around his table without looking up from his screen. “Healing room is in there,” he said, pointing to a worn, wooden door in the far corner of the room.

When I was nine, my mother broke her wrist. She said she tripped, braced herself awkwardly, and fell on it. I never believed her. She had a ringed bruise around it, which looked far too much like someone had grasped her strongly and wouldn’t let go. Someone like my stepfather Paulo. Mother had always been steady on her feet. She walked with purpose but never hurried. I’d always suspected there may have been a physical side to her abuse but if she didn’t report it herself, there wasn’t much I could do.

Luckily, because she was a seamstress, her hands were considered her livelihood and the Superiors granted her treatment. We were sent to the hospital for an x-ray. I sat on a chair inside the room but behind a low screen and glass window while they did it. The noises were loud and cracked like lightning. I pulled her handbag up to my chin and peeked over the edge, scared she was going to be electrocuted. It was one of the only times I ever heard her use an annoyed tone. The man stretched her arm out over a table and she snapped at him for being too rough.

This room was very similar.

There was a metal table in the center and plastic chairs lined one wall behind a glass screening window that rose to the ceiling. Hovering above the table was a glass cabinet with at least twenty pipes coming out of it in different positions. Surrounding the table were six long-armed metal contraptions connected to the pipes.

I was too scared to ask.

A woman with short, blonde hair came in behind us. Her glasses were attached to a chain around her neck. She held a clipboard and was studying it intently. Without looking up, she said, “Pietre, what are you doing here? You’ve used your quota for the month.”

For the first time, he seemed ruffled. He ran a hand through his light brown hair and spoke to his feet. “Er… umm, sorry, Doctor Yashin. It’s not for me, it’s for her.” He pointed in my direction with a surly look on his face. Suddenly he seemed younger, closer to our age than he pretended to be. The woman peered up from her clipboard and assessed me critically. She held up my arm in the cast and asked me to remove my hat, making ahs and hms as she wrote things down in a sharp, break-the-pencil kind of way.

“Very well,” she said curtly. “On whose directive?”

“Vereshchagin.”

Vereshi… what? I smothered a giggle at Gus’s mouthful of a last name, receiving a nasty look from Pietre.

“Right, I’ll confirm. Get her undressed and on the table for me for when I return.”

I gave them both an incredulous look. There was no way I was undressing in front of either of them. As if reading my mind, Pietre smiled darkly and said, “I have no interest in seeing you naked but if you want to train, we have to do this first.”

“No,” I said plainly.

“Well, you’ll need help getting into position on the table. You don’t know which hoses go where or which way to lie. And with the cast…”

I thought about it. Careen would stand there and point out all my imperfections. Pietre seeing me was a horror I couldn’t envisage.

“Get Deshi. Does he know what to do?”

They both paused and exchanged glances. Pietre nodded and left the room, returning with a disgruntled Deshi dangling off his flexed arm. And when it was explained what he needed to do, his dark face went a funny shade of green.

“No. No way. Get Careen to do it,” he said, shaking his head.

“I’m not that disgusting. Please Desh. This is embarrassing enough as it is.”

Deshi’s shoulders slumped and I knew I’d gotten my way. “Man, Joseph will kill me if he finds out about this.”

Careen smiled at me innocently and flicked my shoulder. “We’ll leave you two alone.”

God, she was clueless. I think she actually thought I wanted Deshi in there for a romantic reason. I snorted at the idea.

Deshi helped me undress and kindly wrapped me in a sheet, saying he would remove it when the doctor returned. He showed me how to put my arms into the metal cradles on either side of the table and my feet in similar ones at the base of the table. Lying on the icy metal with a glass coffin hanging over me, I was completely exposed. I stared up at it wondering what was going to happen, when Deshi’s face appeared above me.

“Are you going to tell me what this is all about or is it better I don’t know?” I gave him a look. “Right, better I don’t know,” he said sullenly.

The door clanged and a gust of air threatened to blow the sheet off my bony body. Deshi looked at me one last time. “It will hurt,” he whispered as he shuffled behind the low wall and sat down on a plastic chair, his legs crossed elegantly.

The doctor shouted out, “Right, Rosa. Try and relax, I’m going to restrain you properly now.” I heard a long beep and then the metal cradles clamped shut with a loud snap, around my wrists and ankles. I tried not to struggle but I could feel my heart thumping loudly in my chest and my breathing increasing as I started to panic. Deshi called out, “It’s all right, Rosa, try to breathe normally.”

I tried to think of something else, “So, what’s with the glass coffin?” I asked. “Is an enchanted poison apple part of the treatment?” It reminded me of one of the ‘fairy tales’ I had read, Snow White. I grimaced at the thought of Deshi as Prince Charming, leaning to kiss me awake.

Deshi grunted and muttered, “Truly woeful, Rosa.” I felt a pang of missing for Rash, my friend from the Classes whose bad humor and constant pranking made him the male version of myself. He would understand the need to make light of this frightening situation.

Dr. Yashin answered in a measured tone but I sensed she was amused by my attempt at humor. “We don’t know exactly why they use the glass box, only that when we tried without it, two staff members were badly burned and the recipient died.”

“Oh,” I sighed. Humor evaporated and fear returned.

I sucked in a long breath but it hurt. Distraction was inadequate when a glass box was descending on you. I didn’t want to do this. Out. I wanted to get out. My eyes were dancing crazily in my head, darting around the room, looking for the door. I felt a cool hand on arm.

Her eyes were calm, a green-hazel color. “I’m going to attach you to the machine. Just remember, we are doing this to help you. It will speed up your healing. You will feel much better when we’re done.” Stop trying to convince me, I thought, it only makes it harder to believe you.

She paused and looked at me with those mixed eyes, “Have you eaten breakfast?”

I didn’t speak, just nodded. I knew if I opened my mouth the words ‘let me go’ would fly out and I would be back to square one. She pursed her lips at my response and then continued.

Painfully and methodically, Doctor Yashin reached up and drew down two of the hoses that were attached to the glass coffin. She pulled them through the glass and attached them to a catheter needle. She pushed one needle into my arm, which was not too bad. But the other one, she inserted under my scalp and it hurt like hell. I scrunched up my eyes and dug my fingernails into my palms until she was done. I felt like a pincushion science experiment, a potato battery.

“Ok. I’m going to step back now and the box will be lowered. Don’t worry. In your case, it should only take five minutes. I warn you, it will hurt a great deal.” She moved my chin so I was facing the ceiling. “Keep your head straight.” She patted my arm gently, and pulled away the sheet, disappearing from view.

I thought the being naked part would be awful but I was completely distracted by the fact that a giant glass box was being lowered over my body. It dangled and swayed until the mechanical arms took over and straightened it into place. I heard the sound of air sucking and knew I was sealed in. I was a spider under a drinking glass, my mind scuttling and straining to find purchase on the straight edges. Breathe, I kept telling myself. But I was holding it and then gasping for short bursts.

“Relax!” I heard the doctor shout again. “It will start in ten seconds.”

I thought, Is she joking? How could anyone relax in here?

I counted.

One, I watched all but four hoses retract from the box and the mechanical arms seal the holes with rubber stoppers.

Two, a cycling, whirring noise began, like someone was spinning an enormous, metal wheel.

Three, something clicked into place.

Four, the whirring stopped and a humming began.

Five, the whirring started again and sounded faster.

Six, I couldn’t breathe. I needed to get out.

Seven, I could see blue liquid tracking down the tubes, entering my glass sarcophagus, and a blue gas filling the box.