8
THE THROBBING IN MY SKULL returns, beating behind my forehead like there’s a monster trying to break free. I pinch the bridge of my nose, hoping to ease the pain, but nothing changes.
It gets worse every time I think about my family, and what being in Infinity means.
This is the future my sister will one day find when she grows old and dies.
Annika says the Residents separate humans based on how they respond to death during Orientation. Humans who die peacefully and without a fight are usually the easiest to rob of their minds. Most take the pill willingly, because they’ve already accepted their deaths. They’re then forced into the shadows of Victory, forever in servitude to the Residents.
Those who die in pain with suffering still webbed around their souls usually need more coaxing—either because they’re in denial about their death or because they don’t believe they deserve peace. They refuse the pill, not because they see through the lie, but because they aren’t ready for an afterlife. They’re sent to Famine, where they waste away, tormented by the pain of their human lives until they surrender themselves to the Residents.
And those who turn down the pill because they sense deceit? Who fight back and remain aware, but aren’t lucky enough to escape with the Colony? They’re sent to War, where they’re quite literally beaten into submission. It’s where I’d be now if the Colony hadn’t come to rescue me.
And Death—the last of the Four Courts—is a mystery.
Annika says the only whisper of proof Death even exists is the prince who wears its colors. But there are rumors that plague the Colony, about how Death is more of a testing facility than a princedom. And since Queen Ophelia’s greatest desire is to rid Infinity of human consciousness for good, it doesn’t take much of an imagination to guess what it is Death hopes to accomplish.
They’re searching for a way to eradicate us.
I sit on the edge of a thin mattress, staring at the crooked floorboards like I’m half expecting the earth to open up and swallow me whole. I don’t want this for Mei. For my parents.
I don’t want this for me.
All we want you to do is survive.
I take a deep breath and scrape my fingers through my hair. I died when I was eighteen years old. I was murdered.
I’m not sure “surviving” falls within my skill set.
“Feeling sorry for yourself will only make the headaches worse,” Gil says suddenly.
I leap up in alarm, pressing a hand over my heart. “Oh my God,” I say, motioning toward the door. “Do people not knock in the afterlife?”
Gil lifts a condescending brow. “There are no gods here. Just the Four Courts of hell.”
“Weird coincidence,” I say dryly, “but those are exactly the words of comfort I’ve been hoping for.”
He stares back, unmoving.
I break the silence with the first question that pops into my head. “What’s the deal with the beds? I didn’t think sleep would be necessary after you died.”
He pulls his mouth into a thin line. “It’s not. But just because you no longer have a true physical body doesn’t mean your consciousness doesn’t believe it’s still there. You’ll grow tired for the same reason you get the headaches—because your mind is still reacting to what was once familiar.”
“So it’s normal? To feel tired?”
His face doesn’t change. “It’s a weakness most of us outgrow.”
A weakness. I chew the edge of my lip. “I take it you don’t sleep?”
He moves across the room, eyes trailing the leather-bound books on a nearby shelf. “I haven’t needed to sleep for many lifetimes.” Studying the titles etched in gold on each spine, he inhales sharply before sweeping a hand through his tousled brown hair. And then he drops his arm, squares his shoulders, and turns to face me. “Annika wants to know if there’s anything you need. Anything to make you feel more at home.”
I hesitate before releasing my words like a sigh. “If she’s feeling guilty about earlier, you can tell her I don’t need an apology gift. She was looking out for her family. I might not agree with it, but I get it.”
“And yet you’re still angry.” He paces like someone who’s been cooped up for too long, glaring distastefully at the lack of decor. “You wouldn’t do the same to protect someone you care about?”
I shrug. “I’d like to think I could protect them without hurting someone else in the process.”
“Surviving isn’t always noble.” Gil stops moving and tilts his face, the shadows beneath his eyes darkening. “Sometimes it’s about doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.”
“Well, I don’t like those rules,” I say.
“Maybe not,” he replies, “but you should like the odds.”
I flinch at his words. Is that really the cost of surviving Infinity? We have to sacrifice pieces of our humanity if we want to continue existing?
It doesn’t seem right. Heroes are supposed to be selfless. They don’t hurt innocent people in the name of survival. In all the stories I’ve ever read, being good is how heroes win.
But I guess everything is different here.
I sit back down on the bed and try to imagine the quilted blanket is anything like the one I used to have when I was alive. But trying to remember those little feelings—the mundane details nobody ever really bothers to pay attention to—it’s like trying to hold on to water.
The memories are already fading.
How long before I forget my family, too?
I wipe a tear from my cheek, but not before Gil notices. He doesn’t look at me like I’m still a stranger. He looks at me like he’s certain he already knows me but wishes very much that he didn’t.
“Things will get easier once you accept that you’re really dead,” he offers curtly.
“I know I’m dead,” I reply, a little too sharply. A side effect of being defensive. “But that doesn’t mean I have to be okay with it.”
There are so many questions I’ll never have the answers to—about my old life and all the people I left behind. I don’t get to watch Mei grow up and discover the kind of person she wants to be. I’ll never see my parents grow old, with graying hair, freckled hands, and laughter lines hidden in their wrinkles. I hope I didn’t take that away from them—the laughter, and the light. I hope they remember to live even though I can’t.
And Finn. What’s waiting in his future? College? A new best friend? A family I’ll never get to meet?
I’m going to miss out on all of it. All because of a stranger with a gun, whose face I’ve never seen.
“Who was he?” Gil asks, breaking into my thoughts.
A flutter of embarrassment rushes through me. He saw my dreams; he knows about Finn. And maybe this isn’t the right audience, but I feel so desperate to set my thoughts free. I need to release these feelings. These words.
I need to grieve my own death.
“He was—” I start, but I don’t know what to say. “Friend” doesn’t seem to get across just how specifically important Finn was to me, and calling him “boyfriend” isn’t the truth.