The Woodlands (#1 THE WOODLANDS SERIES) (COMPLETE)

19. SMOKE

I woke up coughing, tears filling my stinging, itchy eyes. Clara was coughing too. The lights were still off, but as I watched, strips of light started illuminating the floor like miniature airstrips. It felt like my lungs were on fire. It wasn’t like smoke from a fire. It was odorless but leaving a bitter taste in my mouth when I exhaled. I couldn’t see where it was coming from and it was filling the room fast. I thought—this is it. They have finally worked out that we are aware. They were going to gas us to death. I fumbled around, trying to disconnect the leads to my machines and monitors they had reattached to me after Clara’s episode. I quickly gave up and just rolled to the floor, feeling the machines towing along behind me. A convoy of sounds—metal crashing against metal, emergency beeps and blips.

I could breathe a little better, down on the cold, linoleum floor. I called to Clara, my voice raspy and hoarse, “Clara get down on the floor.” I could vaguely see the shadow of her awkward form climbing carefully out of bed as the photo wall flickered images I’d never seen before, a window with grey wool curtains, a desk with a photo frame on it, stacks of Woodland textbooks dog-eared lying in the corner. An old wooden chair projected over Clara’s back as she used the wall to support herself as she got down on the floor. I cursed her careful movement and wished she would move faster.

We started crawling towards the door, an oppressive cloud of smoke hovering just over our heads. The machines started disconnecting and setting off alarms. Ignoring them, I stood up and went for the door handle. I lost my balance and slipped in some kind of liquid. What was it? It was slimy and thick. “Clara, are you ok?” It felt like blood. I shuddered involuntarily. “Are you…bleeding?”

“No‚” she responded quickly. “I think it was my bag of fluids.” Relieved, I reached for the handle. I was about to open the door when it slammed into me from the outside and knocked me to the floor. Someone strong picked me up under my arms, dragged me out the door, and then went back for Clara.

What I saw in the poorly lit hall was absolute chaos.

It was a war zone: girls coughing and screaming. Disoriented and frightened. The white coats were trying to get them into a line, but they kept wandering off, banging into walls, into each other. Each of them lost in their own foggy panic. Clara and I were pushed towards a wall that had a long bar running along its length. We held onto it and followed the strips of light. It stayed dark as we walked in line, collecting more confused, coughing girls as we went. Whatever this smoke was it had infiltrated the entire place. Some of the staff were wearing masks, but I could still hear them coughing. They pushed us through doors and upstairs, through another door, up some more stairs until I started to lose count.

Finally the darkness lifted; I could see Clara in front of me. I put my hand on her shoulder, determined not to lose her in the crowd. Now that I could see better, it was apparent the gas was a curious, dark purple. I held my breath for a minute but buckled quickly, watching the gas move into my mouth as I breathed in and seeing it, as it came out, like it was almost solid. Clara’s breath was the same. Other girls were mesmerized by the same phenomenon, but when they breathed out the smoke was tinted pink.

We walked passed a window. A real window. Clara was right. We weren’t that far underground. Sunlight was streaming through it like an invitation. We were on the surface. One of the people in white went to the window and tried to open it. He heaved and strained, his face showing his panic and exertion, but it didn’t move. “It’s no good, it’s sealed‚” he said to the one that had a hold of my arm. “We’ll have to take them outside.”

I felt the grip on my arm tighten as I was strongly guided to two large, locked, security doors. One of them typed in a key code and spoke into a microphone while the other one pushed his fingertip into a jelly-like substance. There was a sharp beep and then a voice said, “Prints incomplete”.