the government has been forced to issue a nation-wide curfew. Please, for your own safety, stay indoors after sunset.”
The comments shifted quickly to abuse, calling it conspiracy and refusing to comply. Many people vowed to break the ordinance, or boycott businesses who enforced it. A whole folder was full of images of people out drinking and organizing parties using the terms #curfewcrew and #mylifemychoice.
When I looked up again, it was nearly dark and I was alone. Had I spent all day watching old videos? I started setting the table for dinner once I smelled all the food Rebecca had magically whipped up in the kitchen.
I was almost finished when I glanced out the window and saw April standing outside in the fading light and swirling ash. I grabbed my mask and hood and went out to stand next to her.
“Dinner time,” I said, reaching for her arm.
My fingers came away thick with blood.
She was standing over a rusted grate below the curb of the sidewalk, dripping blood from a deep incision in her forearm.
I shouted at her but she looked at me blankly. I applied pressure with my palms until I could get her inside and wrap the wound tightly with a piece of cloth.
“What the hell were you doing?” I asked.
“I… I don’t know,” April said in confusion. “I was dreaming, and then—”
“Sleepwalking?” I asked, “but why this?”
The blood. The drain.
I looked out the window. The drain wasn’t far from the house. Maybe it led to downstairs. Was there something hiding under this house that needed to be chained up and fed blood? What secrets was Mrs. Hartmann really keeping in her private room?
Dinner was a quiet affair. Luke was right, we couldn’t stay. Trevor was the only one who tried to engage our guest in conversation, asking what Rebecca remembered about her life in the Before. She was lively when talking about her childhood, riding horses at summer camp, but whenever the subject got back to the elite or the race wars, she’d get flustered.
“It was a long time ago,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember. I think I probably locked myself away and shut down for awhile. When I looked up again, the world was burning.”
I looked around the table at the others. If I concentrated, they seemed to shrink before me; becoming thin and wane, their skin blue and pale, despite all the rest and food. Something was really off. But I had a plan to find out what.
At night, I snuck downstairs again, clutching the vial of elixir I’d gotten from Augustine in Crollust. There were only a few drops left, and I knew I should save it for an emergency, but somehow this felt more important. I hesitated, wondering if the thirst was making me imagine things. But if my friends were in danger, we should leave immediately.
And there was only one way to find out. I tipped back my head and drank the elixir, letting it roll down my tongue and coat the back of my throat. Energy flooded into my veins and my thoughts felt clear for the first time in days, but something was wrong with my vision. Everything looked gray and droopy, like my vision was fuzzy. But I blinked and things cleared. That’s when I realized the world was fuzzy.
The immaculate house and cozy furnishings melted around me, leaving behind jagged scraps of burnt wood, shattered dishes, torn wallpaper and broken furniture—all covered in an inch of mold, fungus or fallen ash from the holes in the ceiling. On the remains of the dining table, rotten fruit and weeks-old bread was being consumed by writhing worms and cockroaches.
I gagged in disgust, vomiting into a hole in the floorboards near the corner and disturbing a nest of spiders. They crawled out from under the thick ferns growing up through the floorboards.
I tripped over someone’s foot, and that’s when I found the others. Laid out in a pile behind the furniture, staring at the ceiling, their eyelids fluttering gently.
Compelled. But what kind of elite was this powerful? Even Tobias told me he couldn’t control people for more than a few hours. We’d been here days. I didn’t have enough elixir for all of them, and even if I did, I wasn’t sure it would help. I needed to find the source.
With power rushing through my blood, I ran back to the blank door under the stairs. The illusion was mostly revealed; I could still see it, draped over reality