Chapter Eleven
A shape began to form out of the darkness. An arm, cracked and peeling, positively covered in white, ashy dead skin, as though it had just finished healing, all at once, from a particularly bad sunburn. In a way, I suppose that is exactly what it had done.
I wasn’t alone. I couldn’t see anyone, but I could hear them, and I could feel them, and I could smell them. I was aware of their warmth, of the blood in their veins, of the salty stench of sweat that hung around them. I could hear someone pacing the floor ceaselessly, unable to stand still. I could hear the beating of their hearts, the steady thump thump, thump thump—quicker than it should be, for all of them. They were all afraid.
“I don’t know, Jonathan. I don’t know,” an unfamiliar and perfectly androgynous voice tr
