Read Online Reunification by Timothy L. Cerepaka - Free Book Online Page B

the
Fertile Lands. Some of them did not have eyeballs, while others
only had fire leaking out of their empty sockets like a leak from a
dam.
    Such horrifying visions made me cry out,
which was strange, because mine mouth was still sealed shut.
Nonetheless, I cried out, unable to believe what my eyes showed me,
and I thrashed about until I rolled off the oven rack and onto the
floor of the oven below.
    Yet when I landed on it, I did not burn
into pieces. Instead, like the flip of a switch, I found myself
lying on the soft mattress of the bed I had been sleeping on inside
the Foundation, but it was nigh impossible to see because of the
darkness of my room. I did not see any sign of those strange
imp-like creatures, nor did I hear the oven's creaking and groaning
anymore.
    That is not to say that I was well,
however. The room was unnaturally hot; 'twas like a hot summer day
in the Fertile Lands, though without the cool breeze that usually
accompanied that heat. Sweat ran down my temples and a strong stink
of smoke entered my nostrils, burning them and making me feel as
though I was trying to breathe toxic gas.
    I pushed myself up on my hands and looked
around at my surroundings more closely. The room was almost too
dark to see in, but every now and then the florescent light bulb
above would flicker on, giving me glimpses of what the room was
like now.
    It looked essentially the same as I
remembered it, except that a chunk of the ceiling had fallen at the
foot of mine bed (explaining the weight I felt near my feet) and it
smelled like smoke and fire, even though I saw neither. Lanresia
was nowhere to be seen; not even her annoying speaking snake was
present. This disturbed me greatly, especially when I saw that the
door had been blasted off its hinges and lay, a smoldering heap, at
the foot of mine bed. As for the camera, it hung loosely from the
wires connecting it to the ceiling, though that did not disturb me
quite so much as the way the rest of the room appeared.
    What had happened here? I did not know.
Did remind me of a photograph I once saw, of a Xeeonite hospital
room after a mad bomber had blown himself up in it. Only, in the
photograph, there had been more blood and corpses.
    My body was so sweaty that it made my
clothes stick to my skin like a second layer. I sat up, pulling at
my sleeves and shirt to loosen them around my body and allow air to
flow through, though the air in this room was so stifling that I
felt even more sweat coming from my pores.
    It might have been wiser to simply sit
back and wait for one of the Foundation's members to return and
tell me what happened. Though I still knew nothing about what
caused the explosion, I knew enough to say that this was not a
normal occurrence down here. Unfortunately, I was unarmed and not
certain how much of the Foundation's hidden underground
headquarters was left, which meant it would be foolish for me to
search for answers on my own.
    Indeed, for all I knew, the explosion
might have completely blocked off all escapes routes from this
place. Perhaps it had even cut off our air supply, which meant that
I would soon run out of air and when I did, then I would truly
die.
    But it was not in mine nature to simply
sit back and let others act in dangerous situations. I had to find
out for myself what was going on in here, even if there was nothing
I could do about it. Besides, despite the heat making mine clothes
stick to my body, I felt as though I could stand up and walk, at
least, which 'twas all I needed to do.
    So I sat up and threw mine feet over the
side of the bed, but when they touched the floor, I pulled them
back up quickly. The floor was hot, almost too hot to touch, and I
had no shoes nor socks nor boots nor any other footwear covering my
feet. It burned with the might of a thousand fires, but if I was to
find out what had happened here, I would need to brave it
anyway.
    Gritting my teeth, I lowered my feet onto
the floor again. It still burned hotly, but not