COME TO ME. I have need of you.

“I can’t breathe,” Lana said, although if she spoke with her mouth, she heard no sound from it, nor did she feel her tongue and lips moving.

The gas compound deprives you of oxygen.

Yes. That was it. The gas. One spark and . . . somewhere she had a lighter. One spark and she would be free. Dead. Dead-free.

She laughed and the laughter became crimson daggers stabbing into her brain. She clutched her head and cried out in pain. She heard no sound. She did not feel her hands pressed against her temples.

Crawl to me.

Body not working. Was it? Was she on her hands and knees? Was her body still real?

Was she blind, or was it too dark to see?

Had she been unconscious? How long?

Moving, she was sure she was moving. Only maybe it was a breeze blowing past her.

I expel the carbon-hydrogen compound.

The . . . what? Carbon . . . what? Her mind was reeling, swirling, round and round and as it swirled out came the knives of pain to stab at her, to torture her. Head exploding. Heart hammering in her chest, trying to escape, ripping her ribs apart to get out of her.

No, all hallucination. Madness and lies.

But the pain was real. She could feel that, the pain. And the fear.

The oxygen-nitrogen mix flows.

Air. Replacing the gas. It did nothing to lessen the pain in her head. But her heart slowed.

Hunger, Chapter 31