Page 84 of Star-Born Anomaly
Neverending dirt stretched before her. Wynn pumped her arms and legs, trying to run faster.
He’d told her to run, but betrayal slashed through her chest. She shouldn’t have left him.
Don’t look back.
Don’t stop.
Her heart pounded in her ears. Her visor fogged from her breath, making it almost impossible to see.
She tripped on a clump of dirt and stumbled. Unable to catch her balance, she landed face first in a row of seeds.
The visor cracked, then shattered, the sound so loud it felt like her ears bled.
Then she wasn’t wearing a UV-suit at all. She lay in the dirt in her underwear, her skin exposed to Earth’s radiation.
She tried to scream, but her lungs were already burning, her throat closing. Ugly burns spread across her hands, and arms, and face. She clawed at her skin, ripping the pain away. Then something howled in the distance.
Wynn’s eyes flew open. She closed them again when bright lights stabbed at her from the overhead. Sweat coated her body from her forehead to her knees. She lurched forward and found her arms and legs held down by restraints.
Panic speared through her chest. She opened her eyes again and looked down at herself, realizing she wore a patient’s two-piece garb. A sense of violation swept away her panic, replacing it with rage.
Clenching her jaw, she turned her head. She was in a lab. Terminals lined the wall, interrupted by analyzers similar to what she’d used at her outpost. A movable machine sat close to the bed, one arm extending over and blocking some of the light from above.
She turned her head the other way and found a one-way window glaring her reflection back at her. No doubt there were people on the other side.
That rage turned white hot.
“Hey!” she shouted, flexing against the restraints. “Let me out of here!”
Schzzzz. From the corner of her eye, a metal band extended from the table by her ear and rose upward. She struggled against the restraints around her wrists, then twisted her head back and forth. The band lowered over her forehead, keeping her skull in place.
“Stop it! Let me go!”
She couldn’t move with this new restraint in place, forced to stare up at the overhead.
“You’re going to regret—”
Another buzzing sound drew her eyes to the side. A dermal syringe extended from the bed, aimed at her throat.
“No! Stop it! Just let me talk to someone.”
She fought to remember the names Sawyer had told her, but came up empty as the syringe neared. It pressed against her neck and hissed as it injected fluid into her bloodstream.
I’m so done with being knocked out.
Then all went dark.
Cool air whispered against hot cheeks. Wynn tensed, then opened her eyes to find white upon white stretching before her. Pain pulsed through her temple, and she winced when she tried to sit up. Her hands connected with a padded floor.
She froze. A brief memory of being restrained slammed into her head. She pushed herself up, the steady breaths of slumber morphing into sharp inhales. Her feet propelled her backward, scrambling, untilsmack.
Her spine hit something firm. She turned to find more white. It extended upward and over her head.Nothing but white.
She braced her hands beside her hips and faced forward. Her impression of endlessness shifted, the white in front of her forming into another wall, four of them becoming a room smaller than her quarters, the ceiling barely high enough to allow her to stand.
“What is this place?” Her words croaked out of her, then disappeared abruptly into the walls, muffled.
No one answered.
