In a nightmare world ravaged by misery, the Imperium offers utopia to a select few. When Arya and Everett are recruited into this elite society, they choose to leave their homes against their families' wishes.
Naive and young, Arya and Everett are...
I wake with dull, constant pain resonating in my skull. A blast of white light shines into my eyes as soon as I prise them open, intensifying my headache. After much struggle, I roll to my side and push myself to a sitting position on the clean-smelling bed.
The wall opposite me is just a big screen filled with words and colorful bars that start to swim in my vision when I stare at them for too long. When I finally come to a stand on my bare feet, everything about my body feels strange. Almost right away, I sense that my body is a little fuller and more mature now, no longer the frail and bony structure of my sixteen-year-old self. And every time I blink, random images appear behind my eyelids, forming an incoherent collage of bright colors and blurry shapes.
Finding a heavy white door on the only wall in the room that isn't a screen, I turn the handle tentatively. To my relief, the door falls open, giving me a glimpse of an empty hallway with all-gray floors, walls, and ceilings.
What is this place?
I step outside slowly, my breath held tightly in my chest. Suddenly, as I emerge into the corridor, an alarm starts blaring through the walls.
A monotonous voice begins to announce from somewhere in the ceiling, "Patient. Displaced. Patient. Displaced. Patient. Displaced."
Panic builds in my chest and I'm rooted to the spot, my heart and head pounding in a painful rhythm. But when I hear footsteps approaching from behind, I spring into motion, slipping through only other door in the hallway, several paces ahead of the room I'd just left.
Inside, my eyes skim past a figure lying still on the bed in the middle of the room to the walls in search of another door, but I only find screens that are almost identical to the ones in my room.
The soft thump of footsteps from right outside makes me flinch, and I dart towards the bed, pushing it against the door in an attempt to block it. Thankfully, the four wheels under the legs of the bed allow it to glide smoothly across the floor, temporarily blocking the entrance just as someone tries the door handle from the other side. The sound of muffled voices is accompanied by a series of impatient knocks on the door.
With no plan of escape and not much time until the people outside find a way in, I look around wildly until my gaze lands on the person lying on the bed in front of me. I notice his face for the first time, the sprinkling of freckles on his skin, his lips parted ever-so-slightly. And even though his eyes are closed, I somehow know they are an intense, bright shade of blue.
All of a sudden, an onslaught of mental images forces me to my knees. I cry out against the sharp stab of pain in my head, clutching the edge of the bed for support.
The grey sky, his blue eyes, a burnt table, a muddy road, the blazing sun, a screaming crowd, darkness, dry sand, holding his hand, hiding, touching him, whispering his name . . .
My eyes snap open as a name forms on my tongue and along with it, a thousand sensations, sounds, and colors — memories, I realize with a jolt — come rushing into my body as though they have been straining against a flimsy barricade all along.
"Everett."
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Hey guys! I hope you liked this chapter. Please vote and comment if you did!
The past week on Wattpad has been very exciting for me because I recently reached 1K followers, This Lovecrossed 400K reads, and Falling in the Dark crossed 250K reads! I'm about to get really cheesy so I apologise in advance haha.
When I started writing on Wattpad, I had no hopes that my stories would be read—leave alone liked—by anyonebut I wrote anyway because I enjoy it. But as time went on and I gained readers here, I discovered a whole other side to writing, a side where I was not just a girl telling stories, I was sharing them with people. I am so, so grateful for all the love, support and friendship I receive here. I thoroughly enjoy reading and responding to your comments and messages, and I also love being a fellow reader on Wattpad.
I'd like to end my emotional rant by simply saying thank you. You guys are the BEST!
