Unique Sample Chapter

The clean, crisp scent of earth and stone fills the small room I’ve been living in for what I can only assume to be days. I haven’t felt the warmth of the sun or watched the stars for so long and I yearn for their comfort. Occasionally, I catch a whiff of rotten eggs, but the smell is so fleeting and rare I’m not certain if it’s real.

Where am I? This is a prison. Did we even escape Paragon? Maybe this is all part of the same simulation, giving us hope then isolating us to see how we react.

Since waking up here, I’ve only spoken to two people. A woman who told me through the door in a very reassuring tone that I would be released soon. They simply had to make sure that everyone was safe, and with so many people it could take a while. I asked her a million other questions, but she didn’t answer any of them. Instead, she offered the same assurances that all would be revealed soon.

The second person is the guy who delivers the meals. But he doesn’t say any more than, “It won’t be much longer.” Sometimes, I swear I can hear the sympathy in his voice. Am I imagining it?

The last thing I remember is that we escaped Paragon and I followed the address Mom gave me to Lettuce Eat, where for nearly two days Harvey gave us food and a place to rest while he arranged our escort to safety. Those of us who remained—forty-two of us out of more than one hundred—climbed into the back of a cold transport truck on the second day. Harvey reassured us that we were being taken to a safer location and that my mom would meet with me soon.

But then I woke up here, in this cell. Alone.

Did he sell us out to Paragon?

Or maybe none of it actually happened.

I lay on my single bed, atop worn flannel sheets, and run my fingers along the smooth gray stone walls of the cell, carved out with Powered hands. The bed and a toilet are the only furnishings. The door is made of reinforced steel with a small window revealing a brightly lit stone hallway and a panel in the center of the door where the food comes in. More than once, I’ve tried forcing it open by pushing on it, or digging at the cracks until my fingers ache. It never budges.

Projecting in a small square on the wall, the Elpis News is the only station—a station Bianca’s dad operates. The famous newscaster, Elpida Theus’s, smooth, sand-colored face and perfectly styled golden hair is my primary source of contact with any form of life. Paragon has already rebuilt the destroyed lower levels of the tower to operational status, and they have called the “released” subjects to return. Not that anyone will. We are either locked in this place or too scared to risk returning.

“Daily operations are returning to normal,” Elpida reports from the lobby of the building, which is still under construction.

Other reports, released by Directorate Chief Seaduss, remind the citizens that regression is a looming threat and that the eastern boroughs, particularly Pax, have seen a significant spike in crime and terrorist activity. Are the reports real? Can I trust that any of this is real?

It’s exhausting, and these questions often put me to sleep.

When I sleep, I have nightmares about Dad, Bianca, and Celeste dying all over again. The other test subjects who once counted on me to get them to safety now crowd around me en masse, calling me a failure, a fraud, a worthless traitor. Of all the wounds I’ve sustained since arriving at Paragon, I have learned that words are the most cutting of all—and they take so much longer to heal.

My waking hours are plagued with worry about those who escaped with me and made it to Harvey’s place. Where is everyone? Where am I? So many questions tumble through my head that I try making a list, but as the days blend together that list begins to muddle, and I have nothing on which to write my thoughts. I can’t decide what’s real anymore.

Why did my mom send me here? Where is here?

Not for the first time, I try to reach out with my mind and see if Madison is out there somewhere. Not that I can use Telepathy, but my hope is that, if she can sense me reaching out, she will find a way to connect.

And not for the first time, nothing comes back. All my life, I’d been isolated in a crowd of people and I couldn’t imagine anything worse.

Now I can.