I go into the kitchen, the familiar routine of making coffee a comforting anchor in the sea of my confusion.
The smell of the brewing coffee fills the small space, and I pour a mug, drinking it black and hot. The bitter liquid is a jolt to my system.
I finish my coffee, lace up my shoes, and head for the door. I don’t leave a note. I just need to go.
I step out into the cool morning air, the sun just beginning to crest over the hills, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. I take a deep breath, the air crisp and clean in my lungs, and I start to run.
I push myself harder, my lungs burning, my thighs aching, trying to outrun the phantom sensations of the dream, the confusing muddle of scents and touches that still cling to my skin like a second sweat.
I run past Daisy’s Diner, its windows dark and empty. I run past The Dusty Boot, its saloon doors closed against the morning light.
I run until the houses thin out and the open road stretches before me, flanked by rolling hills dotted with pine trees. The sun is higher now, its warmth similar to the fever that still simmers under my skin.
The restlessness doesn’t go away. It just changes form, transforming from a frantic, caged energy into a deep, bone-weary exhaustion.
By the time I turn back toward town, my body is a symphony of aches, but my mind is… quieter. The noise has subsided, replaced by a dull, persistent hum.
I stumble back to the house, my legs feeling like lead. The door is unlocked, and I push it open to the smell of brewing coffee and something else, something clean and antiseptic.
Clara is on the sofa, a laptop perched on her knees, a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal on the coffee table beside her. She’s wearing a pair of my old sweatpants and a faded T-shirt from a veterinary conference I attended years ago, her hair pulled up in a messy bun.
She looks so comfortable, so at home, and a pang of something sharp and painful hits me.
“Hey,” she says, looking up from her screen. “You look like you just wrestled a bear and lost. Feel better?”
“A little,” I lie, collapsing onto the armchair opposite her. “Tired now.”
“Good,” she says, turning her attention back to her laptop. “I’m just trying to finalize some lesson plans for the substitute who’s covering for me. I swear, trying to explain long division to a nine-year-old via a pre-recorded video is a special kind of hell.”
I nod, my eyes drifting shut. The sound of her typing is a soothing, domestic sound. I’m almost asleep when she speaks again.
“Your phone has been buzzing like crazy all morning. It’s on the kitchen counter.”
My eyes snap open. I push myself out of the chair and walk into the kitchen, my heart starting that frantic thumping again. I pick up my phone.
The screen is lit with a series of missed calls, all from the same number: Dr. Alistair Finch.
A cold dread washes over me. He wouldn’t be calling this much, this early, unless it was bad. My hands tremble as I scroll through the notifications and hit the redial button.
He picks up on the first ring. “Sedona,” he says, his voice crisp, all business. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I went for a run,” I say, my voice a weak excuse. “What’s wrong? Is it the samples?”
“It’s the samples,” he confirms, and there’s an odd, excited edge to his voice, the kind a scientist gets when faced with a fascinating new problem. “They confirm a parasitic outbreak, but it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen. The morphology isEimeria-like, but the protein markers are completely atypical. It’s mutating, Sedona. Rapidly. This isn’t something we can handle from a distance. It needs hands-on care, a team of specialists who can work with a live culture.”
My blood runs cold. “A team?”
“Yes. We’ve already notified the state veterinary authorities and the CDC. They’re taking this very seriously. The problem is, we have almost no information on its lifecycle, its transmission vectors, or its long-term effects on livestock, let alone on humans who came into close contact.”
My hand flies to my mouth. “Humans?”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. A weighted, deliberate pause. “Yes. That’s actually why I was calling so persistently. I need you to be honest with me, Sedona. Have you been experiencing any… weird symptoms?”
Oh shit.
The fever. The nausea. The crying jags. The headache that felt like my skull was splitting open. The dream. The overwhelming, confusing dream with all three of them.
It all clicks into place in a single, horrifying instant. It’s not stress. It’s not grief. It’s the parasite.
