The flu, she thought, her mind grasping for a rational explanation. It’s just a really terrible flu.

  But she’d had a flu before. It had never felt like this. This wasn't sickness. More like a hostile takeover.

  With a groan, she rolled onto her side, away from the window, pulling her pillow over her head. The movement sent a fresh wave of nausea churning in her stomach, hot and acidic. She swallowed hard, fighting it back.

  Her body felt alien. Every nerve, raw and exposed, screamed. Her skin, hypersensitive, the soft cotton of her bedsheets, abraded her like sandpaper. The tag on her t-shirt, a tag she’d never once noticed, felt like a shard of glass scraping against the back of her neck.

  Her bed. Her room. Her safe space. It had become a torture chamber.

  Footsteps padded down the hallway. Soft, familiar footsteps. Mom.

  “Frankie? You up, sweetie?” her mother’s voice called through the door.

  Frankie attempted to answer, but a pained whimper sound only escaped from her lips.

  The door creaked open. “Frankie? Honey, are you—oh, my goodness.”

  Maka Rivera arrived at her daughter’s bedside in an instant. Her mother, a warm, perpetually worried woman with the same long, dark hair as Frankie, radiated a kindness like heat. Her cool hand on Frankie’s forehead, meant to be comforting, sent a jolt through Frankie’s hypersensitive skin, making her flinch.

  “You’re burning up,” Maka said, her voice tight with concern. But then her brow furrowed. She touched Frankie’s arm. “But your skin is so clammy. And you’re pale as a ghost.”

  Frankie peeked out from under her pillow. Her mother, a blurry silhouette, stood against the blinding light of the hallway. Even that sliver of brightness proved too much. Frankie squeezed her eyes shut again, a moan escaping her lips.

  “Okay, okay, stay put,” Maka said, her voice shifting into efficient-mom mode. “You’ve got a vicious flu, that’s for sure. I’ll go make you some toast and get the thermometer. Don’t you move a muscle.”

  Frankie heard her mother’s retreating footsteps, and then, a few minutes later, a new torture begun.

  A smell.

  The smell of bacon cooking downstairs.

  Any other day, it ranked as one of Frankie’s favorite smells in the world. The smoky, salty scent meant a lazy weekend morning, a big breakfast with her mom. It smelled of home.

  Today, it functioned as a weapon.

  The scent didn’t just drift into her room; it invaded. A thick, greasy, suffocating cloud of pure revulsion. It coated her tongue, clogged her throat, and churned the acid in her stomach into a boiling vortex. Not the smell of food. The smell of something corrupt. Something dead.

  She gagged, shoving her face deeper into her pillow, trying to block out the overwhelming stench. But it proved useless. Her nose, a super-powered antenna, dialed directly into the frequency of that one horrifying smell.

  I’m going to be sick.

  She threw the pillow aside, ignoring the explosion of light and pain in her head, and stumbled out of bed. The room spun violently. She grabbed onto her desk to steady herself; her knuckles were white. She had to go to the bathroom. Now.

  Staggering from her room, she entered the small upstairs bathroom, slamming the door shut. Darkness offered momentary relief. Collapsing to her knees in front of the toilet, her body trembled, her forehead slick with a cold sweat. She retched, but nothing came up. Her stomach was a hollow, aching pit.

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  After a minute, the wave of nausea subsided, leaving her weak and trembling on the cool tile floor. She stayed there, her head resting against the porcelain, until her breathing slowed.

  Finally, she pushed herself up, using the sink to pull herself to her feet. She needed water. Her mouth was dry and tasted foul, like she’d been chewing on old pennies.

  She turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on her face. It felt good, a brief respite from the fire under her skin. She cupped her hands and brought the water to her lips.

  The moment it touched her tongue, she spat it out with a gasp.

  It tasted like ash.

  It tasted like bitter, gritty, chemical-laced ash. She tried again, thinking she must have imagined it. But it remained the same. The fresh water from their tap, water she had drunk her whole life, tasted like poison.

  A fresh, chilling fear, sharp, cut through the haze of her pain.

  This wasn’t the flu.

  The flu didn’t make water taste like ash. The flu didn’t make the smell of bacon feel like a physical assault. The flu didn't make light feel like daggers.

  Her eyes met her reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror.

  And she screamed.

  A choked, horrified sound, swallowed by the small room.

  The person in the mirror, not her.

  It couldn't be.

  The girl in the mirror had Frankie’s face, her long black hair, her green eyes. But it was a distorted, monstrous version of her. Her skin, usually tanned and glowing from hours in the sun, was a pale, waxy, almost translucent white. Dark, bruised-looking circles under her eyes made them look sunken and hollow. Her lips, usually full and healthy, were pale and bloodless. A ghost. A corpse. A sweat-slicked stranger who had stolen her face.

  “Frankie? What was that? Are you alright in there?” Her mother’s voice sharpened with alarm from the other side of the door.

  Frankie remained frozen, staring at the ghoul in the mirror, her heart pounding a frantic, terrified rhythm against her ribs.

  What’s happening to me?

  The doorknob rattled. “Frankie, I’m coming in.”

  Maka pushed the door open, a thermometer in one hand, and stopped dead. She took in the scene—her daughter, pale and trembling, staring at her reflection with wide, terrified eyes.

  “Oh, honey,” Maka breathed, the last traces of her calm-mom facade crumbling away. Fear crept into her eyes now. A deep, primal fear.

  She rushed to Frankie’s side, wrapping her in a hug. Frankie buried her face in her mother’s shoulder, a shudder racking her body.

  “Mom, I don’t feel good,” she whispered, the understatement of the century.

  “I know, sweetie, I know,” Maka soothed, stroking her hair. “Let’s just get you back to bed. I turned off the stove. No bacon, I promise.”

  Maka led her back to her room, helping her crawl under the covers. The journey of ten feet from the bathroom to her bed left Frankie completely exhausted, her limbs heavy and uncooperative.

  Her mother sat on the edge of the bed, trying to stick the thermometer in her mouth. Frankie shook her head, the plastic feeling alien and wrong against her lips.

  “Okay, under the arm then,” Maka said, her voice strained. She stuck it under Frankie’s arm, and they waited, the silence in the room thick with unspoken fear.

  When it beeped, Maka pulled it out and stared at it. Her expression shifted from fear, uttering confusion.

  “That can’t be right,” she murmured.

  “What?” Frankie asked, her voice barely a whisper. “What is it?”

  “99.5,” her mother said, shaking her head. “That’s barely a fever. But you feel like you’re burning up. And you’re so cold and clammy…” Her voice trailed off. A woman believing in logic, in cause and effect. Nothing about this made sense.

  Frankie felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. The light from the window, even filtered through the blinds, built up an unbearable pressure behind her eyes again.

  The world clamored. It blazed. It overwhelmed.

  She had to get out.

  She had to get away from the light, from the sounds, from the prison of her bedroom.

  “I need…” she started, trying to push herself up. “I need to get downstairs. It’s too… bright in here.”

  “Frankie, no, just lie down,” Maka pleaded.

  But Frankie, already swinging her legs over the side of the bed, rose, and the world dissolved.

  Her vision tunneled, the edges darkening as if a black curtain were being drawn across her eyes. The room tilted and spun like a carousel gone wild. The sounds of her mother’s frantic voice and the ticking of the clock distorted into a meaningless, metallic roar.

  All the light in the universe seemed to converge into a single, blinding pinpoint right between her eyes.

  Her legs gave out.

  She felt herself falling, a strange, weightless sensation.

  The last sound before darkness swallowed her completely, her mother's cry.

  A scream that echoed and echoed, then vanished.