PARADISE PARADOX (#1 PARADISE ISLAND duology)

-- two --

The stale stuffiness in the staircase was made worse by the growing heat. It was stifling; Kera was tempted to remove her jacket as she loitered at the top of the steps, still deciding whether to descend into the depths to the unknown.

Who knew what awaited below—aside from the raging party she'd come to crash—and what would happen were she caught. Her imagination was, to her pleasure and detriment, an insane web of pictures and possibilities. What with all the movies she'd watched in her youth, the books she'd read, the real-life situations she'd learned about; she had a plethora of thoughts roaming through her to the point of rendering her nauseous.

She set a hand to the wall by her, and sensed the music vibrating in it. As if its veins were pulsating with every bass drop, its blood rushing with every boom, boom, with every thump, thump. It was like a heart encapsulated under the layers of paint and wood and stone—and it lulled Kera into a brief sense of calm. Each pulse matched her pulse, numbing her fears, temporarily muffling her concerns

The world outside was chaos; this little party couldn't be as scary, right? What could these security guards do to her that would compare with out there, beyond the Valence University gates?

Inside Valence, she'd been sheltered from the ongoing insanity the planet still suffered from, as a result of the pandemic. Political tensions had risen to a degree that had split the country in two—the sane, and the conspiracy theorists. Folks were depressed and diagnosing themselves before seeing doctors, who were overbooked, overworked, underpaid. Violence was common; no matter who you were and what you believed in, you were a target. Theft, destruction of property, rape, forced suicide, riots—all were atrocious acts Kera had seen, and that had become normal after the pandemic was declared over in twenty-twenty-five. Poor planet Earth had endured so much, and its suffering had no end in sight.

All the years of lock-downs, protests, deaths, absence of information had made the population restless. Once COVID-19 was officially announced as a minor illness, comparable to the yearly flu, the people broke loose. They'd gone stir-crazy, some said; others called it post-pandemic depression. Whatever it was, those suffering from it indulged in all they hadn't been able to—partying, excessive drinking, smoking, drugs, unprotected sex, and general lewdness. They'd go on outrageous shopping sprees, have giant gatherings in small spaces, and overcrowd restaurants that had recently reopened.

And there were those who wanted revenge on the government's handling of the pandemic, and went rampant. Some organized peaceful protests, but others were more savage. The angrier of the bunch attacked anyone in the "opposing" camp—those who'd listened to doctors and the CDC's warnings—and burned flags, masks, and protective equipment. They mocked those permanently disabled by the illness, discrediting their long-term effects as something else, and spat out insults at anyone daring to question their motives.

And when the response wasn't good enough for them, when their cruelty hadn't affected enough people, they fixed their sights on bigger things; blowing up hospitals, for instance, because they'd spread the word about life-saving vaccines. And burning schools—the Ivies, among them—for promoting science. These enraged folk even took over churches, for disobeying God's wishes.

Kera, the only daughter of Christian, black parents, had been used to insults and racism since her birth in two-thousand-and-nine. But those attacks had gotten worse during the epidemic. She shuddered now, recalling some of the brutality she'd heard about, growing up. She'd been lucky to escape most of it, living in a middle-class neighborhood where not much happened, and where her parents mostly kept to themselves. But to recall the instances of friends being discriminated against, she shuddered again, pressing her hand harder against the vibrating wall, desperate for its soothing waves of comfort.