In the After

“What happened to you?” Vivian asked, her voice heavy with concern when I arrived twenty minutes late to class.

“Kay Oh punched me in the face,” I told her. It was more of a chop than a punch but, either way, my face ached; the area around my eye had already begun to turn dark purple.

“What? Why did she do that?”

“It’s a long story. She was trying to help me, if you can believe it.”

“Remind me to never ask Kay Oh for help,” she said, studying my bruise. “But seriously, why did Kay hit you?” she asked. Then understanding dawned on her face. “You’re training to be a Guardian, aren’t you?” she whispered.

“No one can know,” I said, but I was relieved that she’d figured it out. I’d wanted to tell her, if just to vent, but Kay was adamant that it had to be kept secret.

“I won’t tell anyone, I promise. Just be careful.” She reached for my hand, squeezed it. I looked at her face—her scar—my eyes tracing the white line.

“Vivian, you never told me. What happened to you?” I asked.

She surveyed the class and then motioned to the door. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Outside in the fresh air, it was a while before Vivian began to speak. We watched the Class Twos on the playground. I looked for Adam but didn’t spot him.

“We were trapped in our apartment building,” she finally said, sounding distant. “My parents were out. They probably died right away. We were stuck. We couldn’t leave, not with the Floraes on the loose. We barricaded the front doors and the stairs and holed up in the top apartment. It was me, my brother, and a couple of people we knew from our building. We weren’t thinking long term, we just wanted to survive each day.” Her face was strangely calm though her voice was heavy with misery.

“We had electricity for a couple of days. But you know, the news was so grim, it was almost a relief after the power went out and we couldn’t listen to the radio anymore. We had no contact with the outside world. For all we knew, we were the only people left on the planet.” Vivian tugged at her necklace.

“We ran out of food after a month. We were careful, basically starved ourselves to conserve what we had. My brother and the old man from 7B went to search the other apartments.” Her voice quavered at the mention of her brother. “They never came back. A Florae must have gotten in somehow.

“We heard it eventually, clawing at the door. It wanted us. One woman wouldn’t stop screaming. We . . . there was a man, one of our neighbors; he was going to kill her to shut her up. I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. He knocked me out. When I woke up, the woman was dead, lying in a pool of blood with a slit throat. My face hurt when I touched my cheek.” She caressed her face. “It was wet. I thought it was from my tears, but then I looked down and my hand was covered in blood.”

“What happened to the man, the one that killed the woman?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. He was gone when I woke up. I thought maybe he felt guilty and jumped off the roof. I couldn’t deal with being alone, so I went up there to do the same. Going up those stairs in the dark, I was convinced a Florae would attack at any second.” Wiping her eyes, she looked over at me.

“Oh, Amy, I just wanted to die. My parents were gone, my brother; the entire world was dead—but I didn’t want a Florae to kill me. I’d rather have done it myself.”

I nodded knowingly.

“It’s a miracle,” she told me. “I was going to jump when I heard a thud behind me. The Guardians saw me on the roof. They came to rescue me.”

She fingered the gold cross suspended above her breastbone. “This was my mother’s. I always thought all that religious stuff she tried to get us to believe was crap, but standing there on that rooftop, no hope in my heart, and being saved by the Guardians . . . I thought they were angels. I know I was half starved and delusional with grief, but at that moment I believed my mother had sent them to me. I still do. I light a candle every Sunday and thank God I’m alive.”

I wrapped my arms around Vivian and gave her a gentle squeeze. I wasn’t able to take away her horrible memories, but I could share her pain. Vivian hugged back and when we pulled away she gave me a small smile.

“You’d be surprised how many of these people of science go to chapel every Sunday. People who aren’t even religious, they just want a quiet place to pray.”

“I’m not surprised, it being the end of the world and all.”

“I don’t think it’s really the end, you know. Just something new,” Vivian said.

“I hope you’re right,” I told her.

* * *

“I feel very positive about this.” I hear Dr. Thorpe say, somewhere in the room. My body and head are secured; I can only see the ceiling.

“How many treatments before we can hope to see signs of recovery?” comes another, older voice. Dr. Samuels.

“It truly depends on the patient,” Dr. Reynolds says. My stomach drops at the sound of his voice. “With some, there is noticeable progress after one session. Some take more than twenty, and some never improve at all.”

“And the memory loss?” Dr. Thorpe asks. “What are the chances that Ms. Harris will be affected? She was very concerned about that when I spoke with her.”

“Retrograde amnesia can be a side effect. So can cognitive impairment and death. No treatment is without risk.”

I hear footsteps and the hum of a machine. I open my mouth to protest and something is placed in it. It’s rubbery and smells like old leather. Dr. Reynolds’s head appears above my face for a moment. He licks his lips, a look of pure joy in his eyes. “Let’s begin,” he says loudly.

The pain hits me like a lightning bolt and my entire body seizes. Every nerve, every synapse is on fire. I am burning from the inside out. I bite down on the piece of leather in my mouth, wishing that I were dead, that the excruciating agony would stop. Anything to make it stop. When I lose consciousness, I welcome it. The darkness will end the torture. The blackness is a relief.

* * *

“Keep your focus,” Marcus yelled at me.

“Watch your back!” Gareth shouted.

“Where is your head today?” Kay spit.

They were watching me fight three of the Elite Eight, who had been instructed to behave like Floraes. That meant they would run at me at top speed and try to slice me with their knives. Not the rubber-tipped knives I trained with at first, but real ones with sharp, shiny metal blades.

I felt someone stab at my back, and it could only be Jenny, because I had the two boys in my sights.

I thought wearing the synth-suit’s hood would hurt my hearing and obstruct my vision. The hood is attached to the back of the suit, but you can pull it down over your face where it fastens seamlessly to the neck material with a strong, Velcro-like fastener. It’s as strong as the rest of the suit, but so thin, it didn’t hinder my senses at all. It amazed me that the concept for this started in our class. Vivian was a genius.

I heard Jenny approach again at a run from behind and I crouched down low at the last second. Kay taught me that trick. Jenny tripped over me and fell on her side. I pushed her on her back and traced my knife across her neck. According to the rules, she was dead. We learned that if you were going to fight a Florae with a knife, your best bet was to slit its throat, sever its spinal cord. Stabbing it anywhere else would just piss it off.

I backed away from Jenny, who played dead on the ground. Nick and Rob didn’t waste any time rushing me, taking me down. They stabbed at my face and torso. Now I was dead. They backed away and Jenny got to her feet. She pulled up her hood.

“Not bad.” She smiled.

I pulled up my hood, feeling a little disappointed in myself but also frustrated with the setup. “You know, this is completely unrealistic,” I told them.

“Don’t be a sore loser,” Nick said. He hadn’t taken off his hood, so I couldn’t see his expression.

“No. If you all were Floraes,” I explained, “I’d have been dead in five seconds. But if I had managed to kill the Jenny Florae, you two would have been on her instantly, and I could have made my escape . . . or killed you