Harmonious Hearts 2017 by Olivia Anne Gennaro

Author:Olivia Anne Gennaro [Authors, Multiple]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: young adult
ISBN: 978-1-64080-160-8
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2017-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

GROPING BLINDLY for the sides, I heave myself onto the earth. The dirt. The tubes in my throat slide out from the pit of my stomach, slow and sickening. Great hacking coughs wrack my body, dislodging something, and I begin to vomit, expelling blue gel from my lungs. It comes and comes until my guts are hollow and my throat is on fire and I’m trembling like a leaf—panting hard, for the first time in an eternity.

“Oh God,” I rasp. “Oh God.”

My body spasms; twitchy legs, jittery stomach, shuddering breaths.

And then it hits me.

I can feel again.

Suddenly I’m laughing, never mind my sore, hollow stomach and raw throat. I muster the strength to prop myself up on my arms. Hakim’s voice echoes in my ears. “Slow, Gillian. Take it slow.”

Everything’s dizzy. It takes a while to remember how to focus my eyes, how to send impulses through my body that should’ve been so instinctive.

“The lenses, Gillian.”

Shakily, I remove them. They’re slimy to the touch, bubbled at the edges—too much sun, melting straight through the plastic.

My vision focuses.

Station 111 looms high above me. The Mayflower rests at the bottom of a hill, with a trail of broken twigs and flattened grass marking its path all the way up to where a station wall seems to have collapsed. Once this landscape was scrubby and bare. Now a forest of goliath trees stretches its limbs across the sky. All the colors feel turned on, like LSD, like Alice in Wonderland, like a freshman photography student fiddling with too-saturated filters. It smells of dirt, of cleanness, of life. Birds trill. I spot the source—a splash of yellow feathers no larger than my fist, perched in a leafy nest. One bird, singing melody and harmony at once.

With an explosion of feathers, it erupts into flight, boughs creaking. And after that….

Silence in the neon forest.

One thought rattles in my head—

This is no longer my world.

“Okay,” I whisper.

And I exhale.

Then something catches my eye, and my heart lurches.

Another pod rests in the corner of the clearing, nestled in ferns dotted with spiny yellow pods. The foliage is trampled in its path, glittering with shattered glass and metal. The landslide, or—or collapse, or whatever it was, must’ve rolled this one farther than mine. The name on the pod is faded but legible.

Excelsior.

My heart skips a beat.

Ever upward. Rows of smooth, stainless steel pods. Jackie putting her hand on mine—

Jackie. Jackie!

I’m off like a shot, wobbly and unsteady, like a knock-kneed foal unable to coordinate its limbs. I race to Excelsior’s side and hit my knees hard.

There she is. Snow White, inches away, the glass fractured into spider webs. She’s peaceful from this angle, tight brown curls resting on her cheeks, her dark skin unusually pale. Oh, thank God, thank God, her chest is rising and falling. She’s breathing—she’s alive.

With all my strength, I wrench the pod’s handle. Gas whooshes out.

“Deployment initiated.”

Jacqueline’s thick eyelashes flutter.

As the restraints retract, I grab her hand. “Jacks?” I whisper. My tears are dripping onto her cheeks.

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