There'd been the warmth of sunlight, a cool natural air but when her eyes opened, it vanished. Like it had always been a lie.
Her flesh felt weird and alien but, still, the weight of the planet's atmosphere and its gravity pinned her down. She didn't know why but goodness was she glad she was still on earth.
Then her pain sharpened, it had the remarkable effect of putting her in the moment.
She was in a hospital bed, a leg up on its own little hammock. They had mummified her with a lunchbox cart wrapped in an iron mesh that crisscrossed. The modular design, the creasing where they would open it up and she would spill out. Not to mention the multiple tubes pouring out of the cast, whatever flesh they poured into, she couldn't feel, it never so much as crossed her mind that perhaps she didn't have a left side.
And then it became all Kate could think about. She needed to work her eyes, she needed to see!
Her breathing quickened and her heart started pounding. Then it dawned on her.
Was she even breathing?
No.
Not naturally.
A tube was running up from her throat. She screamed into it, her free hand working on its own as if some piece of hidden programming had activated. And Kate, with pained effort, pulled. It hurt in ways that were strange and unique. She screamed the whole way through, there were beeps and alarms as a pair of nurses came running but she was done at that point, the awkwardness surreal in the attempt but she had to. Entire departments of her mind were completely inactive all because nothing else in the world mattered.
Hands gripped her own. There was the panicked talking of the helpless and then, suddenly, there was sharp barking. Hands holding Kate let go and suddenly there was a shift in her sense of up and down.
Kate all but bounced with the coughing and spluttering. Her mouth and throat so soaked and cached in foam and mucus, it was useless to breathe. Air entered her lungs and bounced around, only for it to hurt like having salt poured over her wounds.
Snot blasted out of her nose as she gasped and closed her mouth, there was a needle and suddenly departments that should have been active kicked into high gear and started kicking her ass like a guard pushing through a crowd, except she was the entire crowd, bystanders too, and her body and heart were pummeled into acting and her strained and desperate gasps actually started to count as breathing.
She was breathing.
She was crying despite herself her own tears turning the world into bright blur of activity. She gave up on them, shutting her eyes to focus only on singular items. Her breathing, her heartbeats. She listened as it drummed. All despite her battles. She would just listen. Soon her breathing calmed.
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✨ Follow, share, and support me as Zenith unfolds — every lie has a price. ✨
Sleep was the enemy, but Mother was worse.
Immaculate, unyielding, she kissed with devotion and struck with fury.
Kate's desperate plea for her brother shattered the fragile calm—
and Mother's answer came not in words, but in blood.
Love, discipline, betrayal: all bound in the same hand.
Next time on Zenith:
When truth is punished and loyalty is tested, how much more can Kate endure before she breaks?