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silence. He was right. I hadn't gone
    "That's because you didn't
really save his life, now did you, Ella?" Malik's voice whispered in my skull.
    ***
    I stood outside Meir's
room. The door was closed and the corridor was--thankfully--empty
in the lull between shifts. Ironically, this moment kind of
reminded me of my escape on Sho'ful. The heavy silence, my
speeding heartbeat thundering away underneath my chest.
    The last time I saw Meir,
he was alive. But that was right after I'd seen him dead and nearly
rotted through. So now I didn't know. Maybe that was a bad excuse
for not seeing him, or even trying to see him until now.
    I closed my eyes and ran
my hand over his door.
    Meir died.
Period.
    I saw him dead.
    He couldn't be
alive.
    "You're right," Malik whispered. "Everyone's lying to you."
    My eyes snapped open, and
before I could talk myself out of it, I ran my hand over the blue
screen and the door slid open. I poked my head in, hoping to
see...I don't know what. Anything but a corpse.
    The bed was made, the
sheets crisp and wrinkle free and wrapped in a plastic, sterilized
cover like our first night in The Block, which meant Meir had never
slept in it.
    I swallowed down the bile
building in my throat, turned to run back to my room, and ran right
into someone else instead.
    "Forgive me," said a boy
about my age in a golden tunic and pants. He had his head down,
looking toward the floor. His voice was soft, timid. "I did not see
you."
    I rubbed my knee where I'd
accidentally just hit his leg with it, and laughed. "You're
apologizing to me?" I shook my head. "I'm the one not watching
where I'm going." I laughed, way past the point of sanity. Voices
talking to me and a dead man who everyone said was
alive.
    "Even so," he said, still
not taking his eyes off the floor, "I should have been more careful
where I walked." He looked up then, tentative and shy. "Is there
something I could help you with? Were you looking for
someone?"
    I wondered if I should
tell him. Judging by his clothes, he was either a civilian or a
servant, so maybe he'd know. Meir’s Mamood looks did stand out,
after all.
    "I'm looking for a
friend." My heart started beating faster, terrified for his answer.
"He's older. A lot older. And has dark skin. He's dressed like a
Mamood."
    The boy nodded and smiled.
"Yes, I've seen him. He's where all the civilians go, in one of the
Information Viewing Rooms."
    I waited for relief to
wash through me. Meir was alive. And yet that's what everyone had
been saying. Visions of maggots eating his flesh swarmed my mind. I
took a step back and grasped the wall. Darkness started licking at
the edges of my vision. The room swayed.
    "Are you all right?" His
hand brushed my arm, sending a spark against my skin.
    I pressed my hand against
my forehead and backed away. "Just...dizzy. I think I need to lie
down."
    "Would you like me to help
you to your room?"
    "No, it's just down
there." I waved in the general direction and slid to the floor. The
cool, icy floor. I pressed my hot cheek against it. The night
outside in the mountains, by the stream, flashed through my head
again. Maggots. Death. The smell.
    Meir. Dead.
    Dead.
    Malik.
    "Hush, little
Ella," Malik teased. "Go to sleep. Because when you do, you'll be
mine."
    I bolted upright then and
stumbled to my room, running away from the voice, from Meir's room.
All of it. Just away.
    The boy in the golden
tunic, with the wispy black hair and watery blue eyes might've
called for me, but I was long past hearing.
    Once inside my room, I
fell on the bed and buried my face in my pillow. All I saw were the
backs of my eyelids. No more visions of death. No more
voice.
    I sighed and stretched out
my legs, feeling the solid bed, sensing the solid walls around me,
finding comfort in their closeness.
    And then my wall dinged. I
groaned. I just wanted to rest.
    But I rolled over to look
at the time projection. It was way too early for the next shift so
it might be important. The clock winked out