Page 126 of 56 Days
A coverstory.
Ciara needed a cover story.
He looks again at theliving-roomdoor and wonders who—what—is actually in there.
But the fog is growing thick, swirling, taking over. He stumbles a little, and has to reach out and place both palms on the wall to steady himself.
She’s a journalist after all. That’s what Ciara is. What she has to be. It’s the only explanation.
Which means he can’t let himself fall asleep.
Hecannot.
No.
Oliver turns and stumbles into the bathroom, feeling woozy, drunk. When he looks down, the ground seems very far beyond his own bare feet. And it’s moving, the streaks of pale marble in the tiles morphing and swirling—
He falls to his knees, holds his head over the toilet bowl, and sticks his fingers down his throat. It’s too late to stop it, but maybe he can delay it a bit. Long enough to think.
Long enough to figure out what he needs to do.
Withher.
But the fog is swirling, clouding his mind, pulling his eyelids down. He can see it coming toward him on a black tide.
Cold water. He can keep himself awake with cold water.
Oliver hoists himself up and steps into the shower—his elbow burns with a fresh pain; he must have hit it—and smacks the lever until a monsoon shower of droplets starts hitting his skin. But the temperature is set to its usual one—warm, getting warmer—and it just makes him want to go to sleep even more. He twists the dial he thinks will make it cold, but it doesn’t get cold. No change.
His hands are starting to feel as if they’re detached from his body, as if he’s watching someone else’s hands at work, and they don’t seem to have any grip.
The sink, he thinks. There’s cold water in the sink.
He stumbles back out of the shower, hitting the porcelain basin with his body and narrowly missing hitting his head on the mirror hanging above it.
He turns on the tap. Ice cold.
He tries to fill his cupped hands with enough water to throw at his face.
“Oliver?”
She’s standing in the doorway, staring at him. He doesn’t even remember turning around.
“What’s wrong?” she says. “What are you doing?”
Her words sound distorted, like some unseen editor has slowed down the audio.
“Who are you?” he spits through his teeth.
He looks around for the notebook, the napkin, but he can’t see them.
He can’t remember what he did with them.
“Oliver, did you already take your pill? Because I think you should be in—”
He feels himself sway and tries to take a step to steady himself, reaching out for the shower door he hopes is where he thinks it is, but he stumbles and then he’s falling and there’s an impact and pain and a wall rushing toward him and the sound of breaking, falling, shattered glass—
And then Ciara screams.
