Ultraxenopia (Project W. A. R. Book 1) Read Free

losing
focus.
    I squint at the screen
below me as I shake my head, trying to suppress the nerves that are beginning
to overtake me. But nothing works.
    My symptoms grow worse.
    I try to inhale, but oxygen
seems lost to me. For whatever reason, even my lungs are acting up, tightening
to the point where it’s becoming difficult to breathe.
    A panic attack? I wonder. Not now, I
beg.
    “One hour, forty-five
minutes remaining.”
    I squeeze my fists tightly
together and bring my face close to the screen, determined to finish this
exam—terrified of what will happen if I don’t.
    “Don’t stand out. Blend in.
Remain invisible,” I mutter through clenched teeth. A desperate reminder to
keep myself going.
    I begin to read the next
question, but only one word in the entire sentence is clear.
    “End,” it silently says to
me.
    End . . . .
    Spasms erupt throughout my
body, and it feels as if, at any moment, I might explode from the extreme
pressure that seems to be pushing at me from the inside. Every breath I take is
heavy as I gasp for air.
    I know without having to
look that the other people in the room have become alerted to my strange
behavior. I want to stop it. I want to continue the test. I don’t
want to fail.
    I don’t want to stand out.
    A cry of pain escapes my
lips and passes through every inch of me until it gets to the point where I can
no longer bear it. It’s too much.
    I can’t take it.
    A tremor rolls over my
hand, weakening my grip on the stylus. It falls clumsily from my fingers,
clattering loudly onto the tiled floor—the sound acting like a trigger as
everything around me instantly goes black.

 
     
     
     
    WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, I’m no longer in
the classroom. Somehow . . . impossibly . . . I’m someplace else
altogether.
    I turn around in my seat.
The pain that I felt before is now gone, however, it’s been replaced by
emotions I have no hope of controlling.
    Fear.
    Confusion.
    Disbelief.
    My eyes widen as they all
attack me at once, overpowering the part of my brain that might actually be
able to comprehend what’s happening.
    Is this a dream? A
hallucination?
    Whatever it is, I’m
frightened—that much I can say with certainty.
    My legs quake as I rise to
my feet, my fingers clutching at the chair to hold me to the one thing I know
is real in all of this.
    A strong wind blows past
me, and I can feel bits of debris as they graze across my skin. The air is full
of dust. Yet, in spite of the impairing fog, I’m able to recognize where I am.
I know this place. After all, I’ve lived here my whole life. Except the
city that I’m so familiar with is drastically different from the one I see
before me now.
    The scene of destruction
that surrounds me is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed. There are no people.
No lights. There isn’t a single sign of life. There’s only me, standing here
all alone as everything crumbles into nonexistence.
    The panic that hits me is
overwhelming. I can practically feel it boiling beneath my skin. It consumes
every inch of me until it feels as if my sanity will abandon me at any moment.
I want to close my eyes—to shut out the havoc taking place around me. But no
matter how hard I try, I’m forced to watch every passing second.
    To see what I can only
assume must be the end of the world.
    I swallow as I fearfully
take a step forward. The gravel and debris crunch beneath my feet, but some
unseen force stops me from taking a single step farther. Hesitantly, I reach
out my hand.
    A loud gasp bursts from my
lungs when I’m suddenly ripped away from my body—torn from my ruined
surroundings until I’m seeing the city from overhead. The air whips around me
as the buildings steadily grow smaller, shrinking.
    Shrinking.
    In less than a minute, I’m
floating above the entire planet. Except, I’m not here. I’m somehow outside of
myself, witnessing the end of all life, including my own.
    In the blink of an eye, the
destruction I saw up-close seems to explode,