Is she talking to me or the sword? “Can you call off your pet crowbar please?”
“No can do.” She lets out a long sigh. “You’re at a crossroad, Cain. I don’t like you. And while I don’t really want to do this, it’s going to feel kind of good. For me, anyway.” She takes the hilt of the sword in her hand, touching it for the first time.
I lean back, but my roots keep me in place. “What are you . . .”
She advances, her eyes shuttering. Detaching. Not quite looking at me.
Dread fills me. “Wait.” I picture James. Erik. Nole.
She takes a deep breath, then rears back with the sword. I throw my arms up as a guard, but she’s faster.
She thrusts the blade straight through my skull.
My vision and brain explode in white pain. The world spins. I’m blind. I’m dead.
Wham.
Two worlds collide in my mind: Tenebra and New York. I live through both, in synchronization, and they spin past my eyes and memory like an old VHS on fast forward. Threads tie the two lives together. Everything is clear. Nothing is veiled in smoke or mist.
The emotions that come with that integration almost cripple me—Nole’s death, the cure failing, stabbing the Spore, the desperation to live, selling my soul to the dark world of Tenebra, the guilt of being resuscitated by Stranna in the Real World and being stabbed by the Spore girl in the Nightmare . . .
I wrench myself out of the drowning flood of thought.
My vision flickers, eyes flutter.
I’m awake. Stone arches above me. I’m still in Tenebra. There’s no sword in my skull and no Spore Girl. But something’s different.
I sit up gingerly, a headache pulsing behind my eyes. But there’s no more fog. I think of life in the Real World, in The Fire Swamp, and it’s clear. A regular memory not dimmed or dulled by confusion. I can see both my lives with clarity.
Did the Spore girl do that with her sword?
I touch my forehead, still feeling the piercing heat of pain, but my fingers encounter no blood, wound, or even a scratch. I thought she was taking her revenge, but her weird sword seems to have sliced through the barrier between these two realities. It feels like a good thing, but that can’t be right. Why would she do that?
Luc said the Spores mess with the mind. Twist truths. Deceive people into believing Spores are the good guys.
They got me. I’ve been Spored.
Yet I still believe she’s an enemy. So maybe her Spore infection didn’t fully work. Or maybe it’s going to take time to chip away at my will. Either way, I push myself to my feet with care and look around. No one is here except my tiger. There were no witnesses to her attack on me. Not much time seems to have passed, though the Spore girl is gone.
I tuck away this new clarity. I can’t tell Luc about this. He’ll think I’ve been infected. But whatever she did to me, I can fight it. I am fighting it. I’m still me. But somehow I feel compromised.
What did she sneak into my head?
It was one thing to be suspicious of Tenebra and the Emperor, but it’s a whole other thing to be suspicious of my own mind.
The gas tanks are gone from the bed of my truck. The tank siphoned down to less than a quarter full.
Someone looted us while I slept.
Thankfully they left The Fire Swamp alone. Maybe it’s the scorch marks on the outside, or maybe they didn’t want to risk encountering someone who might wake from the Nightmare. No matter the reason, I’m thankful to be alive with at least a half-hour’s worth of fuel.
It’s nighttime, like always. I absentmindedly update my time card so it reads:
Infected: 22
Remaining Sleeps: 1
I don’t know why I do this. It serves only to remind me of how little control I have over my own fate.
Stranna is where I left her. Unmoved. My letter is untouched. It’s been 24 hours since I found her in The Fire Swamp, and if she hasn’t moved in all that time, that means only one thing.
She’s trapped in the Nightmare.
Her time awake is spent. She is now at the mercy of . . . me. It’s up to me to keep her body fed, watered, and taken care of. Perhaps that’s why she saved me from the fire: in the hope that I’d be a decent soul who would keep her from dying now that she’s stuck in Tenebra.
Why am I always thinking someone has an ulterior motive?
Perhaps because they do.
I sigh. I failed Nole. I failed myself.
I won’t fail this girl. I may not have a LifeSuPod, but I have an extra bed and enough food to see us through for a few more days. At the very least I can keep her alive that long.
I assess the gas situation again. Whoever robbed me did it fast, not even sticking around to empty the whole tank—a small win. But it’s not enough to get me to the high-rise. I go to tend the chickens, but they’re gone, eggs and all. My gut twists. I don’t blame the thieves, it’s hard to say no to fresh meat. But those hens served me and Nole very faithfully in the worst housing conditions. I hope they’re given swift deaths.
