I don’t buy it. Then again, she’s left herself completely at my disposal.
Maybe she’s like me and there’s a draw in her to stay near the university: clinging to the hope of learning again someday. My fellow Draftsman students and I all had such big dreams when we entered college. Is that how every college student is? We think we’re going to change the world until we actually start living in it and realize that if it had been possible to change the world, someone would have done it a long time ago.
Forget that—I can’t even change myself, can’t even control myself in a dreamscape.
I spot a backpack on the couch next to Stranna. The top zipper is open, and for some reason I know it’ll hold the answer. It’s like my subconscious has suspicions that my active mind refuses to acknowledge.
I move aside rolled articles of clothing and a few water bottles, crinkling some snack bags. Even though I’m famished, I don’t pull them out. I don’t want to see what food she has and tempt myself. But then I encounter a plastic grocery bag filled with a variety of soft things and clinking glass bottles. I open the mouth and peer inside.
My cure serum.
My heart drops in my chest, and I recoil as though scalded. She’s one of my customers. That’s why she was in the neighborhood. She was picking up her cure from the designated mailbox.
This girl can’t afford more than a bag of chips and drained her bank account to buy my failed cure. And here she is, trapped in the Nightmare right in front of my eyes. On my couch. Experiencing the failed cure for herself. Writing me a note not to kill her or dump her body in a river.
Is that why she saved me? Because she recognized me as the cure maker? Does she think she’ll get a free cure or that I’ll be able to fix the problems?
She didn’t say anything in her note about who I am. But if she literally restarted my heart, how could she not recognize me?
I flop onto the other side of the couch. “What a day.” My voice doesn’t sound like it belongs to me. “Murder someone at night, burn to death in the morning, rescued in the evening.”
I shouldn’t make light of it, but I have to, otherwise I’ll go insane. Well, more insane than I already am. The two lives are starting to blur together. When in Tenebra I hardly remember life in the Real World. And here in the Real World I recall everything from the Nightmare with creepy clarity. They’re at war with each other. I need to stop trying to separate the two. They are both my life, and if I don’t let them work together, I’ll end up wasting both.
I’ve been given a second chance in both worlds.
Luc wants me to save his father. Since my cure failed, it looks like I’ll need a LifeSuPod after all. And with this girl, Stranna, having rescued me while I ruined her life . . . I feel obligated to take her body with me and care for it the best I can. Maybe I can bargain for a second LifeSuPod.
Better than that, I can save Luc’s father, get the cure, and free humanity—Stranna included. Her note implies she doesn’t have a place to go. For now, The Fire Swamp is her new home as far as I’m concerned.
After killing the Spore woman, I have no reason not to work for Luc. He is the most powerful man in Tenebra with a tempting offer and the only key to salvation I can see. And I seem to be the only one who can help him. If I succeed in saving Galilei, we can distribute the cure together.
If I fail and I’m trapped in Tenebra forever, maybe I can set up a new life for myself. The citizens of Tenebra idolize me. I’m a celebrity in that world. If I can get myself to swallow my guilt and self-disgust, maybe I can have a decent life.
Besides, the Spores killed Nole. If I join forces with Luc and his knowledge maybe we can find more answers about the Spores and, subsequently, how they control the Nightmare. We could end them. Free the kids.
I run a hand down my face. My hand comes away covered in thick soot. I wipe it off on my pants, then push myself off the couch. I need to clean up and make myself busy to get some relief from my thoughts.
I take in the mess of The Fire Swamp. The stove looks like someone hurled ABE powder all over it and the meager kitchen. Black potatoes sit in a half-melted pot. The ceiling above the stove is blackened. Part of the wall is charred rafters, stripped of insulation and paneling. Ash rests over everything else.
Fire Swamp, indeed. Nole would get a kick out of how it’s living up to its name.
Structurally, The Fire Swamp seems salvageable. Maybe movable. Even livable. This girl, Stranna, saved me. Whether or not she had ulterior motives, I can’t deny that she saved my life.
Not Luc. Not me. This girl—a stranger. Maybe it really comes down to simple humanity: she saw me dying and chose to save me. Somehow I sense that if she faced a Spore in the Nightmare she wouldn’t have killed them.
Burn blisters cover both her hands and some exposed hair curls up in singed strands.
Good people still exist in this sick and dying world.
I won’t let that go to waste.
I gingerly make my way to my bathroom, brushing against the soot around the left side of the door frame. The first thing I do is run the tap and chug water, even though I typically save that water for emergencies. It temporarily soothes my throat but doesn’t eliminate the cough. That will take time.
I wipe soot from the mirror. It mostly smears but gives me a wide enough clean streak to see my face. For a startled second, I think someone else is in the squished bathroom. I don’t look like myself—a coating of ash adds a hardened tone to my eyes.
There’s no way Stranna recognized me as the guy on Nole’s video channel.
I turn to the shelving above the toilet where I keep toiletries and first aid. The box that held my standard first aid kit has melted into a blob of plastic. I crack it open in pieces only to find burned or disintegrated gauze pads and a burst tube of antibiotic ointment. I locate a single cough drop in the narrow cabinet above the sink, the wrapper is covered in dust and the bottom part of the drop melted to the paper. I peel it away and tuck it into my cheek.
There’s nothing to help with Stranna’s or my blisters.
I change my shirt and use the inside of my burned one to wipe the soot off my face. My stomach churns, so I head back into the kitchen area. I eat a raw potato and try to tell myself it’s just dirt-covered celery. Because obviously that’s better. I read in a book once that someone can live solely off potatoes. That doesn’t make it taste better, but my stomach appreciates it all the same.
Then I film my last live video to Nole’s channel.
“Sorry I disappeared.” I give them a scan of the burned part of The Fire Swamp. “Almost died, but I suppose I deserve that after what’s happened with the serum.” I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not enough but I’m really sorry. I tested it on myself, and it worked . . . once. I didn’t want to wait. I wanted you all to have a chance at life. It was only after I sold and delivered it to you all that it didn’t work for me the second time. I don’t know why it failed. I-I’m so sorry.”
Sure you are. A commenter says.
Give us our money back.
There’s no grace to be found in the chat. No understanding. I can’t blame them.
I close the computer and whisper, “I’m sorry,” one last time. Then I get to work.
I chuck anything ruined out the window and into the street. I check on the chickens in the back—the majority of the fire was toward the front of The Fire Swamp, so they and their coop are fine, except they’re very hungry. I should clean their pen, but my time is getting shorter, so I dump the last of their feed inside and grab the two eggs to cook if I get the stove working again. I’m lucky the whole thing didn’t explode.
I’d leave an egg for Stranna, but I don’t know if or when she’ll wake again.
