Instability

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I wake up on the floor next to Entrance Six, barefoot and freezing. I slowly sit up, my vision flashing in and out before settling my surroundings into a dark bluish tint.

I can't think or see clearly. All I can do is focus on the sluggishness of my movements. Slowly rising to my feet, I use the wall for support as my head spins.

I'm compelled to walk down the dark blue hall to see whatever's at the end. I take one step and splash into an inch of water. I peer down at my bare feet, the hem of my dark pants soaked with water though I don't feel wet. My vision zooms in and out of focus.

I take a few more steps down the passageway, a fog descending in front of me. The more steps I take, the denser the fog becomes. Without warning, I panic and bolt into the fog, blinded and desperate to find what I need to see. I swat the fog away, and it clears away.

I look at my feet again, and the water is tinted red. I slowly raise my eyes from the ground, letting my hair dangle in front of me. My stomach churns when my eyes focus.

My mom and my siblings hang from the ceiling, nooses tightened around their throats. Blood seeps from their blackened eyes. I back away from them, completely terrified. Placing one foot behind the other, I bump into something and spin around to face my enemy. Daniel, with eyes hauntingly black and knife hanging from his hand, stares into my soul.

I let out an ugly, high-pitched scream so loud the entire Entrance collapses. Somehow I'm still alive, still breathing, underneath all the rocks. Thunderous boulders fall around me, flashes of horrifying scenes ripping across my vision. I cover my ears and close my eyes, trembling so hard the rocks rattle. Nothing forces the visions away.

A particularly gory scene of cannibalism displays longer than all the others combined, and I scream again. All the stones rebuild themselves, the vision shattering. I carefully open my eyes, standing upright.

I'm in the middle of a wheat field, the sun shining beautifully on the blurry, blue-tinted plants. I look around the field, causing the wheat plants near me to sift. I feel something plunk at my chest. I look down at an arrow piercing my chest right in the middle. The pain hits me like a bomb, and I scream. My father rises from his hiding with the scariest grin I've ever seen plastered onto his heartless face.

I yell again and fall dead in the wheat field. Stalks brush against my skin as I hit the ground in slow motion...

I bolt upright, banging my head on the top bunk. My head beats painfully as I lie back down. I inch my way out of bed, now in my dully-lit room. Everything looks normal and safe except for Vivian. She's sitting up with her eyes wide and distant.

"V-Vivian," I say hoarsely, clearing my throat. My lips feel dry, and my throat is on fire. I ignore all the unfavorable pain I'm feeling as I walk shakily to her bedside. I can barely swallow without sending a new flame down my throat.

The bed vibrates when I collapse next to her, but she doesn't say anything. Her eyes are drawn back to reality, and she shudders.

"Did it happen to you, too?" I say. She doesn't reply. I glance at the opening in our room, outside of it the passageway from my nightmare. Then it's my turn to shudder uncontrollably. Somehow I realize we need to get to the hospital.

Vivian clasps onto my right arm as we both stand again. I tiptoe into the hallway, heading directly for the hospital room. I practically hear our feet stepping into water as we slowly make our way to down the hall. Supporting some of our weight against the wall, we walk forward. I've never been so afraid in my entire life.

It takes forever to reach the hospital. The nurse stationed at the door barely greets us before helping us into chairs. We each sit as she grabs a bottle of pills. She dumps two pills onto her palm, beckoning for each of us to take one.

"For the burning throat," she says, "but I can't cure your fear or the trembling."

Vivian finally speaks in a raspy voice. "W-What happened to us?"

The nurse sighs, popping the cap back on the bottle with one quick twist of her wrist. She reminds me so much of my mother, it's scary.

The thought of my mother brings back the image of her hanging from the ceiling with pits of blackness for eyes. My hands start shaking again, and my pill almost drops out of my hand. I hurridly stuff it in my mouth and swallow it dry.

"The Europeans poisoned our water source with a hallucination-inducing bioweapon." The pill works its magic. Within seconds, the burning fire in my throat reduces to smoldering ashes.

The nurse continues. "For now, the most important thing you girls can do is hang in there. General Fadhill and the other generals are well informed about this. The poison will hopefully be out of your systems by the time a peace treaty is signed."

I sure hope so, I think weakly. Before long, I'll be back with my family, all of us safe and well. Just the thought of Mattie behind a desk in the ITT turns his skin pale and his clothes bloody. I start shaking again.

The nurse sends us out of the hospital when a new wave of terrified people arrive. As soon as Vivian and I return to our room, I check my compass for the time. 5:56 A.M. There's no way I'm going back to sleep, and there's no way we'll be rescued from the hallucinations, so Vivian and I lay back down and try to ignore our horrifying thoughts.

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"Ashley, Ashley," someone nudges me awake from yet another blue nightmare. I scream madly and hit my head on the bottom bunk for the fourth time in the past three days. I rub the sleep out of my eyes. The scarcely-lit form of Vivian stares back at me.

"What, Vivian?" I mumble tiredly. Each nightmare makes me more exhausted, more terrified when I wake up each morning.

I don't want to be eaten alive in a wheat field. I don't want to see my family hanging dead, my dad killing them. I don't want to experience a stranger amputating Daniel as I'm forced to watch near Entrance Five. I feel like I've seen almost every horror imaginable. But there's always new ones when I fall asleep.

"Ashley, look at me," Vivian says. I struggle to open my eyelids. When I finally do, I see a bloodied-up Vivian with her eyes cut out. I scream so loud, I feel my vocal cords give out.

I wake up and bang my head on the bars of my bed. I groan in pain and fall off the bed. I roll over and see that Vivian's awake, too, but she's sitting up next to the single lightbulb in our room. I tremble so bad my teeth chatter.

"Ashley," Vivian says, sounding fiercer than I've ever heard her before. She reminds me of my nightmare, and I'm afraid to look at her.

"My nightmare are gone," she says. "The light helps a little, but you can't scream out loud anymore. It makes them worse."

I'm so tired I can barely hear a word from her mouth. Vivian gets off of the ground and drags me to a standing position.

"What are you doing?" I mumble.

"We're going outside."

I don't argue with her. I get dressed slowly, pulling on a pair of jeans, a blue shirt, and my dark jacket. The shirt takes me the longest to put on because I get scared that something's going to attack me if I cover my eyes. Vivian forces it over my head anyways. She ties my sneakers for me because my hands shake too much to do so myself.

Vivian supports me as we walk through the passages and steal weapons from the unguarded Arsenal Five. As soon as that archery bow is in my hands, my trembling halts. I sling a sheath over my shoulder, and my mind relaxes ever-so-slightly. We head out of Entrance Five and into the woods. The morning light banishes my fear.

I smile at the treeline. Vivian's done it. She's discovered a cure for the poison. I'm tempted to return to the Entrance and tell someone, maybe the nurse I met in the hospital. But with a bow in my hand and my fear gone, I finally feel stable enough to indulge in something I never could before: selfishness.

Vivian and I sprint into the woods, leaving behind the rest of the world's problems.

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i promised a plot twist, and are you satisfied? comment some thoughts!

song for this chapter: Out of the Woods by Taylor Swift.

Question: are there any parts of instability that should be clarified/edited? PM me or comment below!