“You said it was my choice, right? To ‘transition’? So why are you looking at me like I’ve done something wrong?” I demand, stalling for a moment, a second, a millisecond.
“We only want to help,” she says with that same vacant stare that’s making me feel like I need to run.
The lights blink near the woman’s feet. If she notices them, she’s certainly not giving any indication. Again they increase in speed, flashing frantically like they’re signaling a warning.
A chill sweeps over me. Something is very, very wrong. “What is this place really?”
That strange, too-wide smile reappears. “Your salvation.”
Both sides of the floor light up red—on and off, on and off—like I might already be too late.
I shove the woman as hard as I can and tear down the hallway like I’m at risk of a second death. I hear her voice before I turn another corner, but it doesn’t sound like she’s calling to me. It sounds like she’s giving someone else an order.
“The human is aware. Send the guards from War.”
My blood runs cold. I’m not in paradise—I’m in some kind of prison.
The lights continue to flash, guiding me left, then right, and straight through another hall. My breathing is rapid, my skin is on fire, and my head still feels like it’s bruised from the inside out, but I don’t stop running.
And then the lights still near one of the wall panels. I force myself to stop, even though everything in me is screaming that you should never stop running in a horror film, and I look farther down the corridor, unsure of where to go.
I open my mouth like I want to shout What do I do? when I hear the sound of the building breaking apart. Smoke and metal explodes in front of me, and a powerful blast wave knocks me to the ground.
Ears ringing and a cloud of dust smothering my entire body, I cough into the floor and try to find the strength to stand.
Something pierces my right thigh. It’s sharp and thin, and the change is instant. A foreign sensation moves through my bloodstream, taking control of my body like a thousand microscopic creatures breaking down whatever system keeps me alert.
I feel… weak.
My eyelids get heavy. My chest tightens. I feel the weight of the universe dragging me toward slumber, and I’m powerless to fight back.
I sink to the floor, and when I look up, I see the woman moving toward me, a silver gun aimed at my leg. All of the strength in my body vanishes like a cloud of smoke, and I feel my cheek press against the cold tiles.
I’m so…
… very tired.
The world starts to go dark.
Somehow, even in the haze, I see the woman’s eyes widen just before she’s thrown away from me by a supernatural force I can’t explain. Her body collides against the far wall, and the crack of bone against metal sounds like a faraway echo. And then someone kneels down, their eyes a deep, urgent green, and they tell me everything is going to be okay.
I fall asleep draped in their arms.
* * *
I’m swaying like I’m on the sea in my mother’s boat.
She named it after me—Nami. A wave. Always moving, always at their own pace.
Mom liked to set crab traps in the spring, and I always begged her to take me with her, despite how much I hated seeing them in their cages. It made me think of what it must feel like to be taken from your home, knowing the strange, unfamiliar creature in front of you was going to do something horrible.
Maybe the crabs don’t know they’re going to be eaten, but they must sense the danger. They must know they’re being taken from their families and friends and homes.
Mom always insisted crustaceans don’t have families like we do, but how does she know that? Has anyone ever asked a crab how it feels?
Still, I wanted to be there. I needed to be there. It made me feel like I had some kind of control—that if I’d manage to talk her into putting just one of those crabs back, then I’d be saving a life. That my being there would have helped the universe in some way.
I was silly back then, to think the universe ever needed my help.
My eyelids peel apart, and I feel the rumble of an engine nearby. The young man with green eyes is staring at me from the front passenger’s seat, the driver next to him focused on the road.
“We’ll get you patched up as soon as we get back to base,” says the green-eyed stranger. He has curly, toffee-colored hair, big ears, and a wide nose. There’s a pink flush to his cheeks, and he looks distracted by something behind me.
My senses hit me like a sucker punch, and my fingers press against the seat instinctively. Soft black leather. The smell of a new car. Windows blurring with streaks of color that move too fast to make out. And three strangers with all the imperfect telltale signs of being human.
It’s hard to know what’s real anymore.
I force myself up with a stifled groan and turn my head so I can see out the back window.
A trail of sand kicks up behind us like salt spray in an ocean. Except there’s no body of water in sight. The landscape is barren, rocky, and red. I’ve never seen anything so lifeless before. Even the sky is an unnatural shade of gray—like bone against a burnt-crimson horizon.
This is… not what I saw. Where’s the forest? The waterfall?
What happened to the paradise outside those windows?
A girl who looks about fifteen is sitting next to me, smiling with all of her teeth and gums. Her hair is cotton-candy pink and braided at each side. “It’s a shock, isn’t it? They make everything look so pretty from the windows in Orientation, with their clever illusions.”
“Orientation?” I repeat.
She nods. “That’s what we call it. It’s where the Residents trick you into giving your consciousness to them and they decide which court to send you to.” She pulls her face back curiously. “Did they offer you the pill or the fountain?”
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out.
The young man in front of me laughs. “Don’t feel bad. They let me think I was wandering around freely too. I didn’t even get the courtesy of a bedside nurse when I woke up. I just roamed around until I found the fountain, and then a Resident turned up and told me it would make me immortal. Honestly, if I could go back in time and call them on their bullshit right then and there, I’d be a very happy dead man.”
I press my fingers against my head and move them in small circles, trying to massage the confusion away. “I don’t understand. Who are they? And where are you taking me? And why does my leg feel like it has a piece of shrapnel in it?”
The girl tilts her head to look at my wound, which I haven’t had the energy or courage to inspect. She makes a face. “Looks like a suppressor. Yeong will be able to take care of it.” Her smile returns. “I’m Shura, by the way. That’s Theo, and Ahmet’s the one in the driver’s seat.”
The driver turns his chin slightly to the right and gives a curt nod. He has short hair and dark stubble peppered with gray. His brown skin is leathered with age, and a surgical scar sits above his right ear where the hair hasn’t grown back. “Let’s not overwhelm her. I need all of you alert when we cross landscapes. Last time it shifted into some kind of half-dead forest, and I almost crashed us into a swamp.”