The Sound of Wind
Page 91
**
Hugo stood on the roof of the Phoenix Foundation. The wind was whistling around him, the sky a bright blue, the sun shining down, warm and comforting. The rooftop was filled with Forget-me-nots. His eyes closed. They opened again in the dark of a cold, unfamiliar room. A scratchy, thick blanket was pulled up to his neck. He was still wearing his sneakers. Hugo blinked a few times; the inside of his mouth was sour and bitter. He’d been puking. He remembered Clem telling him to sleep, but not the actual processes itself.
They’d gone to Seattle, and it had immediately started raining, coating their biohazard suits in wet ash. He knew it was his fault, but he couldn’t seem to stop it; his stomach was a giant, fluttering knot that twisted and lurched. There was no tall, elegant building, just a couple jutting spikes of slag that had once been the supports for Gideon Enterprises. There was nothing…no one…but he was digging through the misshapen lumps, brushing through the piles of ash that could have been…
Clem told him he would tear his suit, pulled him up and away from the building, “We’re not going to find anything. They’re gone.”
That had made him so angry. He’d started shouting. They weren’t real sentences, just gibberish and the impossible, but the lightning heard them and the tang of ozone was in the air, followed by the flash of white light. The ground near Clem was scorched, bits of chard dirt misting back to the ground. Hugo backpedaled a few steps. He hadn’t meant to do that. He was having trouble breathing, and Clem was trying to say something, but the wind was howling, ash flying around them like a snowstorm, muffling the already dampened sound from the helmets.
More lightning poured up out of the ground, coming to rest in a bobbing, mildly humanoid form. CJ. CJ was here. And she was alright. Clem was gesturing towards her. He was going to try and make them leave soon. But that wasn’t ok. They hadn’t found anyone yet. He still had to check his parents’ house. Maybe…maybe…it wasn’t possible…but maybe….
Hugo started to back away from his friends. It was hard to see everything, it was blurry and he felt sick. He opened a portal to get to his parents' house, CJ reached for him, he saw bright spots and then he was in decontamination back in Antarctica. How had he gotten there? Could CJ transport people now as lightning? Everyone was dead.
He rolled to the side of the bed he was lying on and puked into the trashcan conveniently placed there. Somewhere, beneath the noise, he heard the door open. When he could finally sit up, Clem handed him a glass of water, easing himself onto the edge of the bed so that they were eye to eye.
“CJ zapped me,” Hugo croaked out after taking a swig of the water to wash out the awful taste in his mouth.
“You almost killed me,” Clem returned mildly.
Hugo glanced away, folding his legs on top of the blanket, “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know," Clem assured him sympathetically, "but I couldn’t get you to stop, so that seemed like the safest option.”
Hugo hunched over, eyes focused on the bed. Without thinking, he reached out, grabbing the sleeve of Clem’s shirt, “I’m sorry,” his voice was subdued and distant. Hugo watched himself get up at the sound of a knock at the lab door. He brushed his hand along the back of Crysta’s neck as he passed her. There was a clock on the wall with the time. But Hugo was still in Antarctica. Crysta was dead. He almost started puking again.
Clem was watching him, “Go to sleep.”
And he’d dreamed of flowers.
Under the heavy weight of the blankets, Hugo curled into a ball on his side, covering his head with his arms, his hiccupped sobs reverberating in the room. It snowed all night.