Prologue
When the clouds roll in I can’t see at all. I’m blinded as I’m surrounded by the smoke, stinging my nose and eyes. I shriek as the smoke claws down my throat into my lungs and I feel as though I’m going to burst.
I was put in the smoke tank.
I stopped wondering why this happened a long time ago.
That doesn’t mean I’m desensitized, though. The Smoke never numbs.
Smoke fills me all inside myself and pours out my mouth as a ragged scream that sounds as though it isn’t mine tears through the air. It was a sound not meant to be made by human vocal chords.
Stop fighting it, they say.
No. I can’t.
I’m the last one. I refuse to succumb to the Smoke Trance. I began to pray. “Someone help me. I’m the last one left. Baldr’s people must be freed. Isis must be stopped. Please. Help.”
