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His glare is fixed on me, so I don’t linger, knowing I will get an earful the moment we are alone.
    Unexpectedly, the cafeteria door swings open. We all turn toward the sound of baby Marcus’ whimpering cry, but Siobhan is the quickest to rise and streak across the cafeteria to the guardian bringing him in. The woman guardian says in broken English, “He no sleep. No disturb Isabel and sister.”
    The guardian carefully places Marcus in Siobhan’s arms and she cradles him to her chest, hushing him and placing soft kisses on his forehead.
    Isabel and her sister. Oh my God, I am so consumed with finding Nate and Ezra, I forgot about Isabel and Corinna! Flashes of Isabel in the meadow of Aokigahara Forest and Corinna fighting by Sam’s side during the battle bombard me. They must have sedated Corinna to get her back here against her will. The Sondian Copula changed her; made her sinister. I wonder if they tried to remove the Copula. What about Isabel? I’m sure she was a wreck seeing her sister in the state she was in during the battle.
    “Are they okay?”
    Sebastian rises slowly. “Isabel is fine.”
    “What about Corinna?”
    Monica leans forward in her chair. “Jesca, we knew that if she came out of the sedation with the Sondian Copula still intact, we would be putting our team as well as the Kyoto team at risk. We had to attempt removal of the Sondian Copula and the old Dobrian Copula as well as implant the new, modified Copula. The same one we fitted Marcus with.
    Monica looks down for a moment. That small gesture makes my heart drop. Something happened. “What is it? What has happened to her?”

Chapter 4
    Ezra
     
    I was the first to come to consciousness. Nate took longer to wake. It is a typical effect when traversing through a wormhole. I have experienced it every time I have traveled. It had been a while since I traveled though. Since Anna passed to be exact. There are some things our bodies simply will not adapt to or aren’t meant to adapt to and traveling through wormholes is one of them. 
    When Nate and I fell into the wormhole, I tried to hold on to both him and Sam Crest. Wherever we landed, I needed answers from Sam and I would get them even if I had to beat it out of him. Once we were in the wormhole, the energy surrounding us was so intense and the movement so fast that I could only see fragments of Nate and Sam as I held onto them. The energy around us in the vortex maintained such a blinding light, it was difficult to see. On top of that, the pressure the wormhole exuded drained my ability to stay conscious. The pulling of my limbs was slow and deep within my muscle tissue; such a strange feeling. My body felt like it was stretching in every direction, but it wasn’t painful. It was kind of like stretching in the morning, but I was not in control of stopping the stretch and strain of my limbs. The only thing I could control about the traverse was holding onto Nate and Sam. Then, I felt a weightlessness take over, like my body was becoming nothing and everything at the same time; becoming a part of the wormhole, swirling in time with the vortex. I lost sight of Nate and Sam by the blinding glow of the energy flowing around us and between us. I still held on to them. Without warning, a wave of intense heat hit me and radiated through my entire body taking my breath away. I tried to catch my breath, but there was nothing to breathe; air ceased to exist in this tunnel. This was something I had not experienced in other wormholes. The heat wave was quickly replaced with a frigid cold wave that sent my body into a full on seizure. After that I blacked out. Thinking back now, that could have very well been us passing through the event horizon of the black hole.
    A sound accustom to our world brings me back to consciousness; birds chirping. Sensing the bright light of the sky above me, I open my eyes slowly. I blink a few times to clear my blurry vision, revealing a small figure hovering above me to