Gravity - By Abigail Boyd Page 0,86

throwing the covers off and yanking them back on me. I hated being cold when I had the flu; it made my skin prickle.

In the morning, I stayed parked on the couch. My head was so stuffy I felt like I was in another world, and my skin burned all over. I couldn't stop sneezing and my throat hurt like crazy. I watched morning cartoons and then an onslaught of infomercials. I never realized just how many gadgets were created for the sole purpose of cutting up vegetables. Chopping carrots didn't seem that hard.

Claire came in every once in a while to monitor my fever. Between this and my nose, I had given them too much to worry about lately.

"Am I dead yet?" I asked, coughing. My lungs felt as though they were full of nettles.

"Don't say that," she said sternly.

"What's wrong? At least no one tried to take off any of my body parts this time." I made hacking motions with the side of my hand. I had a tendency to get juvenile when I was sick.

Claire rolled her eyes, dropping emerald green flu pills into my palm and closing my fingers around them. Then she whisked used tissues off of the table and the ones that had overflowed the grocery sack propped up on the floor.

I took the pills with a swing of ginger ale. I couldn't focus, feeling the drowsy effect taking over, and closed my heavy eyelids.

I noticed the tick-tocking of the grandfather clock in the dining room. Slight at first, so I barely noticed a difference, then louder still. The sound warped, and distorted, into the sound of thumping on the wall behind me.

I was in a white corridor of doors. It was pristine, like something in a fancy hotel. For a moment, it flashed to a dank replica, with detritus and old leaves on the broken wood floor. But only for a moment. Then the elegant hallway was back. This time it stayed in place.

As I walked past each door, it disappeared into the wall. I ran my hands along either side, and felt nothing but smoothness beneath my fingertips. It was a sort of numb, detached sensation, like I was just borrowing the body I was in.

Where the corridor ended was a black door. A strange, coppery metal symbol sat in the center. It looked so familiar, but at the moment I couldn't place it. It looked like a bunch of sticks.

I opened the door, and the world shifted so that I lost my balance. I fell on the ground, with the door above me. I stepped up and through the door, and found myself in the caretaker's shed by the Dexter Orphanage. I walked out of the shed and across the sprawling lawn, crossing to the gate without looking behind me.

The thick air was hot. I walked through town, but I didn't recognize where I was. Everything seemed just a little off from what I knew. The world was wrong, angles tilting precipitously, the street was black and undulating like snakeskin. The swirling sky was violet, full of angry clouds. I heard girls screaming, not one, but many frightened, hopeless voices. Then the street burst into flames around me and I was sucked back into my body.

I woke up on the couch, sucking in my breath, sitting up. I was drenched in cold sweat, my shirt sticking to my chest and back. But I felt like my fever had broken. I put my hand to my forehead and my skin was clammy.

"What the hell is this, the haunted couch?" I mumbled to myself.

I was miraculously better in time for school, due to my religious use of flu medicine. The sides of my abused nostrils were red from tissues.

Being sick, I had all but forgotten about the fire incident on Friday. But everyone in the commons was talking about it when I walked in on Monday. Basement Access was no longer locked, but was symbolically blocked off by traffic cones. I wondered if that would actually keep people away. There were scorch marks under the door, as if something had been trying to reach out.

The most prevalent theory surrounded an antisocial group at school that always wore black and pretended to be anarchists. That it was some kind of political statement against forced education. There were lots of whispers involving my and Henry's name.

When I arrived in the locker room, Theo was waiting expectantly for me.

"Seems like I chose the wrong day to