Lunar Virus ✔️

Chapter Twenty-nine: Elie

Elie's POV:

The gas station is starkly closer than we’d thought it was before, and I feel a shiver creep up my spine in just looking at it. A droopy red sign slapped on the storefront advertises the fact it’s a twenty-four-hour gas station, but the store itself is closed. No tepid lights stream out from the windows. No glossy magazines flash bright hues of pinks and yellows through the barrage of cheap foods and over-priced water bottles. Everything just looks dead.

I glance at the clock and feel an overwhelming sense of urgency flood through me. Just a few weeks ago, we’d been informed about a massive surge in the number of “accidental” deaths--especially in teens. How many people are dead now?

I glance back at Elodie, all of them really, and linger on the notion that I am the only one with an activated virus inside me. It just doesn’t seem right. Diane the hair-lady had said that the virus was activated by stress, particularly heartbreak. Hadn’t they all faced pain? My thoughts turn to Elodie, reminding me of my impulsiveness just hours before. I shouldn’t have tried to kiss her. I push the thought out of my head and focus on the storefront. Sheila pulls the car around to the back and slowly pulls out the car keys.

Without the engine noise to fill in space, the car is deafeningly quiet, and we all just sit thinking intensely for a while. And after some time, Elodie steps out of the car with the key in hand. She goes up to the back door and inserts the key into the lock. There’s a minute filled with a dense apprehension before she twists the key. It doesn’t work.

Everyone turns to me.

“I don’t have a lock pick set, I don’t think I can open it,” I respond.

Jayne grumbles and pushes her way towards the door, “Let me. I can force it open.” She lifts her boot and with one powerful kick, the doorknob falls.

She kicks one more time and the door swings open. Lights automatically switch on, sensing movement. No alarm sounds, no people stir. The gas station is completely deserted. Jayne and Elodie steps in, exercising caution in every step.

I hesitantly step in after Elodie and feel a jolt. It isn’t a physical jolt, but I somehow feel it nonetheless. Quentin’s presence, which I’d gotten used to by now, recedes like waves on a shore lit by moonlight and stars. There’s a sweet melt of lightness as it passes, followed by something more gripping--something more violent.

It twists and tightens in my skull into a fist of unhinged fire. Spots crowd into my vision and I lean against the doorframe for support. Elodie looks back and pulls me inside so that the Sheila can come in.

I feel my blood drain and my hands start to clam up and tingle. Quentin? I try to call him, but he isn’t there. “I think I . . . I need to sit.” I stumble past Sheila and Jayne, practically triping over my feet to get past the threshold of the door and back outside.

Fresh air hits my face like a slap of cool water. My head clears and the vise in my head loosens. Elodie follows me out, concerned. I simply turn away and close my eyes, trying to get my bearings.

Quentin: That was just . . . not a very nice feeling. Woah.

Me: What just happened?

Quentin: I really don’t know. But, I wasn’t there for a moment. It was like I’d been ripped out--uprooted. There’s something in that room. The Hyst.

Me: The Hyst?

I get no answer.

Me: I have to go in, don’t I?

Quentin: Once you pass through that doorway, I won’t be there to help you. You just have to push through and find the Hyst. You can let go when you find it.

Me: Let go?

Quentin doesn’t respond. Elodie comes up behind me and waits patiently for me to turn with a comforting hand on my shoulder. “You good?” she murmurs. I manage to nod and twist sideways, eyeing the door warily. I subconsciously massage my neck, remembering the tightness in my skull once I passed through the doorway. The Hyst. I ponder the name.

Elodie slightly squeezes my shoulder. When I look at her, I see a silent understanding soften her eyes. I walk hesitantly towards the door and stop just meter away from the opening. Dev gestures impatiently for me to enter.

Vertigo hits me as soon as I step in. Quentin is gone, the fire is back. The floor tips and my vision fades. Find it. What are you waiting for? Elodie places her hand on my back, supporting me silently.

Everything in me wants to fall and sink down but I feel an unexplainable pull, like the delicate strings of a violin keeping me from drowning and urging me forward. Just one more step. And another after that. I find Elodie’s hand to ground me. I float anyways, feeling like a barely contained explosion, and then it just stops, just for a moment, and returns in waves. Goading waves. Taunting me.

“Something’s here. Behind that door,” I gesture weakly in the general vicinity of what I feel is our answer.

“Elie,” Dev, “That’s a wall, not a door. And, you look a little pale. Do you need to sit down, or--”

“Hush,” Elodie sharply silences Dev and turns to me. “Elie, what do you think is here?” she prompts.

I blink rapidly, trying to clear the blaze out of my head, trying to think. What’s behind the wall, Elie? What are you going to do?

I run my hand along the wall, feeling a sort of connection even through the wooden paneling. Invisible sparks dance across my fingertips and into my vision and light the room ablaze, before quickly returning to normal again. I lean my forehead against the wall and feel the non-existent flames bathe my skin.

I turn my head to the side, spotting something red in the corner of the back room. It’s an empty petrol can, just sitting there. An idea forms, at first slow in reaching the depths of my mind. But when it reaches, the epiphany shakes me to my core: we are in a gas station. Gas stations mean fire.

“We have to light this wall on fire, there is something behind it.”

“Are you crazy! We are in a gas station, do you realize how horribly wrong that could go?” Sheila cries.

“Imagine how many people will die if we don’t do this.” I reason with her and myself. This had to work. “There is something behind this wall. It’s the key to everything. I can feel it.”

Sheila looks to Elodie, as if begging her to reason with me, but Elodie just looks thoughtful.

She looks up at me, and then at the wall beneath my fingertips and nods. “As awful as it sounds, I think it’s our only option.”

Elodie digs around in her pocket and extracts her card which contains the last of our money. She hands it to Dev, who solemnly takes the card and the petrol can to the fuel dispenser. He comes back with the can full of gas and pours it along the outside of the wall. A match is lit and thrown, creating an almost instant inferno to match the one pounding in my skull. But instead of spreading and going outward, as soon as the wall crumbles, the flames whirl inward into a tunnel dipping into the ground; the wall had been built over an underground tunnel.

The fire, still going strong, gutters as Jayne thinks to smother it with salt. And almost ethereally, the flames dissipate along with the burning pressure in my head.

I peer on into the tunnel.

We found it.

We found The Hyst.

***

Author's Note:

Wow, okay, first off, let me apologize for not updating last week (finals were completely torture and I just couldn't). Second, sorry for the no doubt abundance of grammar mistakes and bad sentence structure. This is unedited and it is very late and I'm kind of dead. So there is no doubt that I've probably confused you with this chapter.

On another note, I hope you liked this chapter. As you can see, we are heating up to a climax ;)

♥️♥️♥️