Chapter 13: Sink and a Towel

After waiting about ten minutes for the pair to pass, Milo left the isolation room.

With each step echoing down the dimly lit tiles of the corridor, he hoped for no other person lurking behind the corner. If Plague had a high affinity for changing one’s mental state, this corridor was one wrong silhouette away from a horror movie.

But he was the one with immunity. Shit. Unless the slow-inhaled version took the mind first, in which case he had been losing his since the beating.

Milo stopped.

Listening for the sound of his own mind going, he heard only his stomach.

No dinner yesterday, no breakfast today. Food first, and the relic room after. Or skip the food and go straight for the relics? Come to think of it, the bullet’s saturation might’ve been masking the hunger right to the very end.

That might’ve also been adrenaline.

And so to the dining room he went, though Survey classrooms lined the corridor he needed to pass.

Voices and patter came from behind emergency seals. A bench came up on his left, a makeup mirror propped in an open pencil tin among the sketches. In it, he saw the darkening bruise on his cheek and the trace of leaking blood when he gave a deformed smile.

If anything, he’d be considered the monster here. He had started to limp without even deciding to, each step going short on the bad ankle and light on the worse side of his ribs.

Like that came the first door. Good, because he was getting closer to the dining hall. Bad, because somebody had put a glass pane in every classroom on this corridor.

Behind the first pane, the teacher dictated something to the class while pointing at a board with a ruler. The lights were on, and while he couldn’t see the students, every face in there had a board to be aimed at. That was the theory.

Avoiding potential witnesses by crawling on the ground didn’t seem to outrank the pain.

He took a deep breath and passed through in a single, long step.

"OH MY GOD!!!"

Fuck. Milo’s hands were over his ears before the scream finished.

"DID YOU SEE IT?"

Chairs dragged along the floorboards, a dozen at once, students getting to their feet behind the door.

"A-A GHOST... W-Was it a ghost?!"

Milo took a deep breath again. Were all Survey students like this? Was Layla like this when he was not watching?

The teacher called for the students to calm down and approached the glass pane herself, heels clicking.

While she peeked out, Milo pressed himself to the wall.

"No one’s there."

"Miss, there was blood in its mouth!"

"I-Is it the Plague? The Plague’s host?!"

"Calm down, everyone."

"But Miss—!"

The students would not drop it, and the door was one more shriek from opening. Milo began eyeing the farthest intersection, measuring the sprint it would take out of his beaten body. He wouldn’t make it in time, and would instead create an even worse myth.

But like any rational human during an apocalypse, the teacher did not open the door and went back to her speech, whether the students liked it or not.

Close one.

For every door after that, Milo crawled.

Down, argh, haul, uff, up.

Down, argh, haul, uff, up.

By the seventh repetition he lost count, and the corridor produced three or four more doors before the dining hall.

The smell of ginger and pepper met him at the corner, his stomach growling back.

Luckily, no one had ever thought of installing a door there.

The round tables made him weave, the bad ankle throbbing at every change of direction, and behind the counters the cooks and maids went quiet.

Slowly, they took him in. His bruising. The blood leaking from what seemed to be his mouth—

"D-Don’t come any closer!" one of them yelled, staggering back.

"Hey, no, um," Milo choked out, palms forward. "I don’t have it. I’m cleared."

"You’re bleeding!"

"I’ve been hit. Teenage boys are supposed to bleed when that happens."

He spread his arms wider, and the nearest maid backed away.

Behind her, another maid had a phone out and was dialing.

"I’m here for food only!" he continued. "I’m from Studies. The Plague spreads only by touch. Even if I had it, you wouldn’t be infected!"

The maids stared at him.

"You wouldn’t be infected, Miss..." He thumbed the red off his chin and borrowed the principal’s telephone voice. "Air filtration is on. Students are with their teachers. We believe it’s contained."

"Contained." The oldest of the cooks stepped up to the counter with a ladle in her fist and aimed it at his face. "You look contained."

"This?" Milo showed them the red smeared on his thumb and scoffed. "This is from before. Unrelated."

"Th-there was screaming," said the youngest maid. "Just now. Down the corridor."

"Survey students. You know how they are."

The ladle stayed level.

The woman with the phone pressed it harder to her ear. "It’s ringing."

"Good." Milo nodded at her, all approval. "Ask for Mr. Thwaite himself. Tell him the cleared student from Studies is at the dining hall, exactly where the plan puts him!"

As the ringing went on, the maid checked with the cook, the phone drifting off her ear. "...The plan?"

"The plan." Milo frowned at them. "Nobody briefed the kitchen? In a crisis? I’m here to pick food up for my class."

"Studies." The ladle traced his outline, top to bottom. "Studies boys don’t come apart like that."

"We study veeeery hard."

In the silence that followed, his stomach gave a long, mournful growl.

One of the cooks at the back snorted.

Unanswered, the phone came down.

"Wait at the far table." The ladle pointed the way. "Sit, and... don’t breathe. Much."

"It doesn’t spread by breath, Miss—"

"Don’t."

Milo went. The youngest maid came out with a wet rag, wiped the far edge of his table at full arm’s stretch, and was back behind the counter before he had lowered himself onto the bench.

"Thank you, Miss. The academy will hear of your bravery."

She squeaked something and vanished behind the pots.

"How many portions?" the oldest cook asked, dropping a stack of cardboard bags on the counter.

It was a lot of doors he had to get through, carrying bags of food under his bruised belly.

"Twelve."

"Twelve? Studies run in twenties."

"Attendance is poor these days."

Milo shrugged, meeting the look she gave him and outlasting it. Behind the counter, one cook ladled soup into boxes while the other monitored him do nothing at his table.

"Actually." He raised two fingers to his cheek, pointing at the violet bloom and the crusted red under it. "I could use a sink and a towel."

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "All His (Part 1)" ... ⤵︎ [!]