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What was it, she wonders when she hiccups against the hair blown over her face as she rides into the city.
What was it, she wonders when her stomach grumbles unhappily a little while later.
What is this, she wonders half an hour later, spread eagle in a field across the city, feet away from the fence blocking passage to the dome's edge, stars dancing up above her and the taste of green on her tongue. She feels like she's hearing every petal of every stray flower, every blade of grass. She feels like the scent of saltwater is coming from somewhere besides her memory. Mars looks like it's wobbling, and when she holds her hands in front of her face they look like they're outlined in neon.
What was that, she wonders twenty minutes later, spooked and running to her bike. She's never seen black smoke that billows like a cloud and sounds like a rattlesnake anywhere but the island, but she swears she heard it. She swears she did, and she's getting away the fastest way she knows how. Maybe she's crazy, maybe this place is just driving her nuts slower than the island did, maybe in a second the smoke will appear in front of her as she rides and ask why did you kill me, maybe she's died.
Maybe she's dead.
(But she went back to the island! Maybe she died when she started feeling like this.
If there's a hell she's likely to go to it, and that thought has probably never scared her once church-going good-girl heart as much as it probably should.
She blew Wayne up, sent him up in flames. Burned his cheap-booze-and-cigarettes breath. Burned his bruising hands. Burned his creaking house. Burned every memory in it. If hell is where she's going and it's fire, she's okay with it. But this isn't hell and she wouldn't call it heaven.)
She rides back across the city, rides all the way back to hotel, and by the time she parks it below the hotel again she doesn't hear anything suspicious. There's just the usual too-still silence of the underground garage, and instead of waiting for the elevator she takes the stairs, wanting the movement, needing the thunder of her feet against the steps, and she takes the stairs right up to Sawyer's floor -- it would've been her floor -- and finds herself pointed at his -- her -- door and knockknockknocks, probably louder than she needs to.
What was it, she wonders when her stomach grumbles unhappily a little while later.
What is this, she wonders half an hour later, spread eagle in a field across the city, feet away from the fence blocking passage to the dome's edge, stars dancing up above her and the taste of green on her tongue. She feels like she's hearing every petal of every stray flower, every blade of grass. She feels like the scent of saltwater is coming from somewhere besides her memory. Mars looks like it's wobbling, and when she holds her hands in front of her face they look like they're outlined in neon.
What was that, she wonders twenty minutes later, spooked and running to her bike. She's never seen black smoke that billows like a cloud and sounds like a rattlesnake anywhere but the island, but she swears she heard it. She swears she did, and she's getting away the fastest way she knows how. Maybe she's crazy, maybe this place is just driving her nuts slower than the island did, maybe in a second the smoke will appear in front of her as she rides and ask why did you kill me, maybe she's died.
Maybe she's dead.
(But she went back to the island! Maybe she died when she started feeling like this.
If there's a hell she's likely to go to it, and that thought has probably never scared her once church-going good-girl heart as much as it probably should.
She blew Wayne up, sent him up in flames. Burned his cheap-booze-and-cigarettes breath. Burned his bruising hands. Burned his creaking house. Burned every memory in it. If hell is where she's going and it's fire, she's okay with it. But this isn't hell and she wouldn't call it heaven.)
She rides back across the city, rides all the way back to hotel, and by the time she parks it below the hotel again she doesn't hear anything suspicious. There's just the usual too-still silence of the underground garage, and instead of waiting for the elevator she takes the stairs, wanting the movement, needing the thunder of her feet against the steps, and she takes the stairs right up to Sawyer's floor -- it would've been her floor -- and finds herself pointed at his -- her -- door and knockknockknocks, probably louder than she needs to.