Chapter One
Amara
I’ve been hurting for a long time in this darkness. The pain buzzes across my skin and sizzles in my veins. It pulses—zzzZZZ zzzZZZ—in time with my heartbeat.
I don’t know if my eyes are open or closed. I can’t even use my hands to check if my eyes are still there.
I wonder if I’m in pieces, connected by the barest strings of sinew, viscera clumped over there, lungs flayed and spread over there.
Sometimes, between wishing I could die and raging at the rest of the world for living, I can remember things. Quick gasps of memory. Voices. Faces. Well, just one voice, really.
Just one face.
At first, I tried to distract myself. I imagined that I had a book, a real book with tangible, tactile pages. Delicate and thin, raspy when you coast a finger over them. The words still and so beautifully permanent on their paper. I pictured the pages full of all the facts I’d spent almost all of my twenty-eight years collecting, the fantastic histories, the miraculous evolutions across galaxies in response to salvation efforts and biological advancements.
I was so naive. I had believed we were doing amazing work in the name of science and the survival of our species. Of so many other species. The Directorate called the Meridian Consortium’s purpose such beautiful things.
They never said “domination.”
My wide-eyed excitement had carried me far. After my studies, I was quickly ushered into a highly sought-after apprenticeship. And I had done it all on my own. Without anyone the wiser about who I was.
Stupid, daydreaming child.
I was always too curious, diving in without looking back.
And here I am. Reaping my punishment.
When the rumbling starts, I think it’s my heart finally rupturing. For so long, the only thing I could hear was my pulse and internal whisper of air forced in and out of my lungs.
But then the world around me shudders and my skin, sizzling before, starts to boil in agitation. I can’t scream past the tube lodged in my throat, but that doesn't stop me from trying.
I feel gravity shift my insides as I’m suddenly falling, my little world assaulted on all sides as I plummet.
Yes, I think even as my brain starts to white out from the pain. I’ll die on impact.
But as with so many things in my useless life, I couldn’t be more wrong.
