Someone had grabbed my hand. I could not have been any older than seven or eight.
I recall pulling the pillowcase from the bottom of my bed before I was whisked away. First the elevator, and then a car. We were running, surrounded by the chaos of people all around us all trying to escape, but with nowhere to go. I was shoved forward into the back seat of a darkened car. I recognize the driver as one of the attendants from the laboratory.
Voices talking fast.
“Get her to safety. Follow the plan!”
“I'll meet you at the rendezvous.”
“Go, just go!”
We drive fast, trees moving past the windows faster than I had ever seen. Had I been in a car before then? What had my life been like? I had no memory beyond that.
Just the flash.
The sun streams through the wide glass window, locked forever now that the security system had been shut down. Finally, I see the hallway where I would find the place I seek. Room 639 crosses my vision. Not far now. I keep down the hall counting the doors until I see the number I need. 642.
The door stands ajar, and I push against it, keeping my ears alert to any sounds. I tap carefully on the wood, trying to revive anything that might be lurking within. At first, it looks just like any other office on the floor. I pull the door open as wide as it will go. Across the room, a large desk fills the other half.
That is her desk, I realize, the woman in white.
I walk forward, oddly mesmerized by the unexplained feeling of vertigo washing over me. The whole office looks like it had been turned upside down. Papers, the contents of her filing cabinet strewn about, covering the floor. Beneath the papers, I see a flash of the red oriental carpet, which solidifies the idea that I had been here before.
On the surface of her desk, I see a framed photograph turned away from me, the only thing left standing. Her computer is overturned and lay to the side, the monitor screen staring up at me like a dead gray eye.
I pick up the picture frame and turn it over, rubbing my hand across the glass, smearing the dusty surface. I see the face of the woman staring back at me with a smattering of freckles over her nose, blond hair coiffed into a low bun. Her teeth matched her white lab coat.
The woman's left hand was wrapped around the hand of a small child, a girl with her gap-toothed grin shone just as ferocious as the woman's. She had been laughing when the picture snapped, taken just days before the fall. I crack the glass against the edge of the desk, pulling the photograph out and quickly tucking it into my shirt before I scramble out of the room.
It does not take long for me to get out of the building, knowing the stairs are still clear. I have what I need, but I keep my knife out and ready as I make my way back down the stairs. I sprint across the lobby and push my way into the street, squinting against the brightness of the sun.
I remember that little girl in the picture. I remember the way she had laughed when the photographer held up the funny bird puppet. I know that she had laughed that day, for the last time in a long time. I know that is what happened that day because that girl is me.
End
Continue the
adventure in
Blaze
Book Two
in the Rising Ash Saga
by R. G. Westerman
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Ash: Book One in the Rising Ash Saga Page 4