"No, it's still spring," a little voice replied.

That wasn't Summer's voice.

Hadley's mind was a swirling storm of power, rage, fear, hope and horror! She couldn't control it! She grabbed at her temples, pressing hard with the palm of her hands, hoping it would somehow make it stop! But it didn't. It was like she was back with Mrs. Smith and Ruq had crashed into her mind again, except this was ten times worse and Ruq wasn't here. Hadley fought through the thick smog and did the one thing she knew to do with emotions. She reached for the darkness inside her. The one that had swallowed every feeling she'd had from childhood. She reached for it and tried to dump the storm of emotions into the abyss.

She found nothing.

There was no darkness!

She felt every emotion. All of it. All at once!

After a few moments of contending with the chaos within her, Hadley barely holding on to her sanity, the storm passed, and she could finally open her eyes.

She took in the space around her, trying to control her raggedy breath. The room's lighting was a deep red, but she could make out shapes and forms. It was the clinical room she had woken up in before. At about twenty feet long and ten feet wide, it was a sizeable room with nothing but the hospital bed she lay in, a chair, an infusion pump, a medical monitor, an IV pole and a few other medical items. There was someone on the bed with her. She knew him, even in the disorienting wake of the dream fading away and the contents of her mind churning like soil in a compost tumbler.

"Drew?" Hadley's voice rasped painfully past her dry throat.

The little boy sniffled and rubbed at his eyes.

"I didn't mean to kick it off," he whimpered, pointing to Hadley's right. "But I can't put it back."

Hadley looked at what he was pointing at. It was the IV tubing that had been connected to her, now dangling, and leaking clear liquid onto the shiny floor.

The boy had inadvertently released her from her sedative prison.

"Can you put it back, Hadley?" Drew whispered, still upset. "She won't be happy if she finds it like that."

"Who?"

"The woman with one eye," Drew shrugged sadly. "She gets angry a lot, screams, and hits the walls. I don't want her to be angry at me."

"Drew, where are we?" Hadley asked. Her throat still hurt, and thirst ravaged her, but she didn't dare search for a drink after the last time she'd woken up here.

"She'll be back soon," Drew said, looking warily at the door. "Hadley, can you put the needle back so I can leave? I don't want her to find me here."

"She doesn't know you're here?" Hadley could barely speak through her sandpapery, dry throat. She began to get off the bed.

"No." Drew said, shaking his head and nervously wringing his hands as he watched Hadley. "Don't."

Hadley looked at the IV tape that still held the needle in her vein. She carefully pulled it out. The wound left behind would bleed, but she'd deal with that later. She flexed her arm. It felt stiff, but the feeling quickly dissipated. It was an odd sensation, but one she wasn't complaining about. Whatever sedative the woman had been using must have been terribly weak to be wearing off this fast, but again, she wasn't complaining. Hadley swung her feet to the side of the bed and let them gently touch the cold floor.

"Are the others close, Drew?" Hadley asked. Her throat was much better, though the thirst persisted.

"The others?" Drew wondered. "There are no others. Just me, you, Brownie, and the lady with one eye."

"Brownie?"

The vampire dog?

"He pulled me into the jungle when the bad people attacked the Wildling tribe." Drew said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "He saved me."

Hadley looked up at the room's door, feeling the pressure of time against them. She was curious to learn more about what had happened after Ruqwik had attacked her, but from Drew's nervous behaviour, it was clear they wouldn't be alone for long. The Healer would come back, and like Drew, Hadley did not want to be here when she did. Hadley looked around the room once more, then back at Drew. He seemed absolutely miserable.

"Drew?"

"Yes, Hadley?"

"Where is Brownie?"

"He waits for me outside," Drew explained, wiping his nose. "I don't like sleeping in the forest. I prefer sleeping in here, with you."

The soft bundle she sometimes felt at the foot of her bed.

"Can you take me to Brownie?" Hadley asked with a smile.

"Of course! But you'll come back fast and put the needle back on, right?" Drew said. He yawned. "I'm tired. I haven't slept enough yet."

"If you take me to Brownie, maybe we can find another place to sleep tonight," Hadley said, careful not to alarm the little boy to the danger they were in.

Hadley searched the room as Drew pensively thought about her proposal. She was looking for clothes she could wear. Anything would be better than the papery clinic gown she wore.

"I guess you're awake now and she doesn't have to come into the room all the time to try and heal you." he said, his eyes lighting up as if the revelation had just occurred to him. "I don't think she's very good at it. She keeps bringing more of these bags for you, but you never wake up. When you were hurt and in the tribe tent, she said you would die, but you didn't. And no matter how many times she came here and no matter what she did, she couldn't wake you up. She's not a very good Healer."

"She comes here a lot, doesn't she?" Hadley asked. She looked down at her arm to finally contend with bandaging the IV wounds but found no tell-tale needle marks. Strange. There should have been a few bloody marks at the very least.

"Every day! Sometimes, she takes your blood. Sometimes she takes a lot." he said, nodding. He pointed at the ceiling. At a vent. "I watch her do it."

Hadley resisted punching the door of the empty cupboard, which she was searching through for the second time even though she knew it was empty. Thirst held her mind in a perpetual chokehold, making it difficult to focus.

"Is that how you come here? Is that how we can get to Brownie?" Hadley asked.

Drew nodded.

It was an uncomfortably tight fit in the vent. Memories from her escape from the Compound pressed against Hadley's mind and her chest tightened. She couldn't breathe. The consequences of her escape from the Compound had derailed Hadley's life in a way she would never recover from, and it weighed on her heavily. All the lives lost. Lives, love, and opportunity – she'd lost it all. And in this dark, tight, vent, with the suffocating darkness closing in on Hadley, she wondered if it wasn't right to just stop and let go. How many more people had to die because of her? And how would she justify this bloodshed to her daughter? How could Hadley tell the little one that this was all done for her and be okay with it?

"Don't you want to go see Brownie?"

The voice reached Hadley from far off.

Emotions.

Hadley was drowning in them.

That and the horribly relentless thirst.

"Hadley?"

How did anyone survive the full brunt of emotions without the darkness to swallow them up?

"Are you okay, Hadley?"

"Keep going Drew," Hadley was finally able to say, crawling forward a little more. "I'm right behind you."

"Alright."

They eventually made it to the outside. The clinic was underground. Only a foliage-covered vault door leading down to it and the vent grate they'd crawled out of were above ground. This situation didn't exactly mirror the horror from the one with Mrs. Smith, but it was still terrifying. Once they were in the jungle, Hadley observed they were alone.

"Where's Brownie?" she asked, looking around carefully in case she'd missed the furry rascal. Thankfully, the moon was bright enough to light the jungle through a few gaps in the canopy.

"He's hunting."

Now that Hadley was outside and she could breathe again, she was more than eager to leave this place.

"We should go."

"We can't leave before Brownie comes back," Drew insisted.

The flimsy, paper-thin gown she wore didn't have a back, leaving Hadley exposed and vulnerable. She was also thoroughly confused about how and why she was here, wherever 'here' was, not to mention scared and nervous about the one-eyed Healer coming back before the dog did. They had to leave this place as soon as possible. Hadley couldn't bear the thought of being back under sedation, haunted by dreams of a future filled with gloom and despair! Her chest constricted again, her breath jerking and jolting, coming in as short, shallow gasps.

Drew slipped his hand into Hadley's.

"He'll come back soon," Drew said, with an earnest look. "He always does."

Hadley was losing her mind, but she didn't want to scare the little boy too.

She relented, suppressing her anxiety the best way she could.

As they waited, Hadley was pleasantly surprised by Drew starting a fire for them with a small flint and stone set that she recognised as Jael's. The little boy explained that he was always fascinated by how Jael could start a fire with it, and Jael had gifted him the flint and stone set and taught him how to use it. The warmth and light were welcome, giving Hadley a small sense of security. She wasn't as cold as she should have been. Or maybe she was. She couldn't tell. Her mind was too noisy.

"Did Jael give you anything else?" Hadley asked, half-joking, trying to distract herself from the storm swirling around her brain.

The little boy produced a penknife from one of his pockets.

"It's for kindling," the boy proudly announced. Then he frowned. "But I cut myself, so I don't use it anymore."

"You cut yourself?" Hadley asked, alarmed and about to start searching the little boy's body for infected bruises he might be hiding. Children weren't the best at keeping wounds clean.

"It's okay," Drew said with a shrug, showing her his left hand. "Brownie licked it and made it better."

Like Ruqwik sealing Hadley's wounds after a feeding.

"Here, you can have this," Drew continued, handing Hadley the penknife.

She studied the blade. It wasn't her whittling knife, but Hadley could make this work. Needed to make this work. She had to escape her mind and mindlessly chipping away at wood was one of the best ways she knew how to.

There was a lot to escape from.

Terror at the memory of when Ruq attacked her. Killed her. Anxiety at the thought of having lost everyone and coming to terms with the reality that she would never see them again. That she would never feel the warmth of Jamila's fondness for her or be the object of Ruq's affection. Plus, the constant, nagging fear she had already ruined her daughter's future.

And then there was the thirst!

The agonising, everlasting thirst!

It was too much!

Her mind had always been dark. Quiet. Clear. Too clear. Too quiet. Too dark. More so after their escape from Mrs. Smith when she had fully disconnected and felt barely anything. All that time, she had wished things would be different. Wished to feel as deeply as she knew others did. But now, her mind was a cacophony of noise and feelings and emotions and everything in between and Hadley could barely tell up from down.

It was killing her!

Because Hadley couldn't imagine death being any worse than this.

And she should know. She'd already tasted its bite.

An hour or so later, Brownie came back with a rabbit in its mouth. It dropped the carcass and smiled, it's tail wagging hard. He walked over to sniff Hadley and gave her a few happy licks as a hello.

"Brownie brought dinner," Drew said. The seven-year-old turned to Hadley and smiled sheepishly. "Even though Jael taught me how to start a fire, I don't cook so well. I always burn it."

Drew walked up to the dog and pet him. The dog's tongue fell sideways as he rolled onto his back and let Drew pet his belly. "Thanks for dinner, Brownie."

All Hadley could think of upon seeing the dog was the Healer with the eye-patch walking up to them from the shadows next and imprisoning her again. She almost couldn't think past this new wave of anxiety and had to work hard to keep from succumbing into a full-blown panic attack.

This couldn't be how other people experienced emotion every day!

If so, she wouldn't survive this.

"We should really go, Drew." Hadley said, urgency and fear lacing her words, despite her desperate attempt at sounding calm.

Drew stopped the belly rub and stood up, a sombre look on his face. He nodded, put out the fire, dropped the rabbit's carcass, and began walking into the jungle. Brownie jumped up and went after the boy. Hadley followed them.

"Can we rest for a bit now?" Drew asked, several hours later.

The sun had been up for a while. The little boy had been extremely patient and was now at the verge of tears. His requests to stop reached Hadley more than once, but that wasn't why she'd eventually stopped. It was because her mind was finally unjumbled enough this far from the underground clinic prison that she could finally hear it – a sound that slowed her down.

"Hadley, can we rest?" Drew insisted between the staccato of catching his breath.

Hadley hushed him, cocking her head toward the sound that had stopped her. The sound that shoved her unrelenting thirst to the fore, dulling all other feelings to a blunt edge. Hadley followed the sound to a sizeable boulder tangled up in roots at the foot of a strangler fig.

Water.

The crystal-clear liquid gushed from a crack in the rock with enough force to create a little channel for itself through the rock and into a small basin of a pool that disappeared into a hedge of ferns and other undergrowth. Hadley plunged her head close to the mouth of the spring, guzzling mouthfuls of the sweet water until her belly hurt. She sat back, eyes closed as she took a deep breath, getting lost in the euphoria of her quenched thirst.

"We can stop now, right?"

Hadley turned to the boy' anxious face, wet from dunking his head into the tiny spring pool to drink as well.

"Yes, Drew," Hadley smiled. "We can stop."

However, before long, Hadley's every nerve in her body was sparking with fear anew, afraid they were not nearly far enough away from the threat of discovery by the one-eyed Wildling Healer! She tried desperately to quash her emotions. Once again uselessly attempting to reach for the darkness that she'd always abhorred but was desperate for right now. While it had made her different from everyone else in the only way that mattered, that emotion-swallowing abyss had been crucial at helping her deal with everything that had happened ever since she'd walked out of the Compound.

Without it, she was a whimpering mess!

For Drew's sake, Hadley swallowed her fear and looked around them for a place to rest. She found another strangler's fig tree not too far away with massive buttress roots that grew above the ground into a little cone-shaped alcove. Borrowing Jael's penknife from the boy, Hadley found a few palms and sliced of bundles of the palm fronds to create a little weaved roof over the root alcove while Drew followed her instruction to tear off as many ferns leaves as possible to create a thick blanket of leaves in the little pocket of space. Hadley wasn't thrilled with the idea of hiding in the musky, insect infested space with nothing on but a flimsy, backless, papery gown, but she was exhausted, and the boy must have been in a worse state, though he didn't say a single word in complaint.

Drew was comfortable in thick fur moccasins, a fur hat, and a coat at least two sizes larger than him. It was a new outfit from the fancy dress suits and leather shoes when they had joined Hadley at Lujeo's mansion and even the more suitable travel clothes acquired from Trisca's settlement before everything had gone to shit. Drew's current outfit was rustic and handmade from animal furs and hand tanned leather, and Hadley assumed it was acquired after meeting the Wildlings. According to the little boy, Hadley and the others had stayed with the Wildlings for a while before an unconscious Hadley was abducted by what Drew called "floating monsters".

Just one more thing for Hadley to be afraid of.

"When you had a big bandage on your shoulder and the Wildling Healers told us you were going to die," Drew said wistfully. He was resting next to a fire and eating berries they'd found while Hadley pierced some juicy maggots onto some bamboo skewers she'd shaved to roast over the fire. "Jamila made us say nice things about you and it was awful because everyone was crying. But then, you didn't die. You just slept for a really long time, then the floating monsters took you. They were going to take me too, but Brownie saved me. He would have saved you too if you were awake. I'm sure he would have."

"Drew, how did you find me?" Hadley asked.

The little boy pensively chewed on a berry while staring at the fire before he answered.

"When Brownie pulled me into the forest, we ran for a while, but then we got lost and I didn't know where the others were," Drew finally said. "But one day, we saw the woman with one eye walking in the forest and I remembered her. She's a Healer. But she doesn't like Brownie – none of the Wildlings do – so we secretly followed her. I told Brownie she would lead us to Jamila and the others. But she led us to you instead."

While considering what the Healer's actions meant for them, Hadley moved as close to the fire as she could dare. Unlike Drew, she was definitely not comfortable in her the flimsy clinic gown. Moreover, her bare feet were shredded from running through the forest for hours and then traipsing around after that to set up their camp. Her fear, anxiety and adrenaline had suppressed the pain, but now came the reckoning. She'd been ignoring it, but she would eventually have to access the damage, clean the wounds as best as she could, then determine if she could go on.

Exhausted, Drew snuggled up to her after tolerating a piece of roasted maggot that he thoroughly washed down by the stream water. He was asleep before his head hit her lap. The dog protectively covered the "entrance" into their little alcove, curling up nice and tight before laying its head on its paws facing the forest.

Hadley took a deep breath then finally forced herself to look down at her feet.

As expected, her grimy feet and shins were full of cuts seeping blood and broken blisters spewing clear liquid. What she hadn't expected to see, however, was every cut and blister slowly stitching itself closed as she watched. Taking care not to jostle the sleeping boy, she brushed off debris from the wounds and watched as the impossible continued to happen. It was less than an hour later that her feet, though still heavily soiled, were flawless once more and the pain completely gone.

What the...?

This couldn't be real...

A scary thought played through her mind.

Was she still asleep in that underground Clinic? Or in Mrs. Smith's paisley green room?

Was this just another dream to cope with the horror of being imprisoned?

Hadley watched the little boy in her lap sleep peacefully. He felt real. So did the dog, thoughtfully looking out into the shadows for any dangers. But if this was real, what was happening to her?

Her raucous mind swirled with questions!

And she badly needed to pee but didn't want to wake Drew.

She was never going to fall asleep!

Her incessant mind chatter went up a notch.

How was she even alive? Exactly what had happened after Ruqwik had bit her – killed her? Was Jamila okay? Were the others? Had they also been taken by Drew's "floating monsters"? Had Ruq survived her possession by the Venom? What had happened with the Wildlings? Who, or what, exactly were the "floating monsters" that had brought her, and no one else, to the underground clinic? How long had she been down there? What was up with the Wildling Healer with the eyepatch and what had she done to Hadley in that Clinic?

And how was her mind feeling and holding onto emotions long after she had fully Disconnected?

Whatthe hell was going on?