Even now that they were starting on their first actual potion, Eva hadn’t written down a single word. She didn’t even have a notebook out.
And Professor Lurcher hadn’t missed her scoff.
“Something the matter, Spencer?”
“I’ve told you before to call me Eva.” The girl’s tone had a distinct edge to it that Irene did not want leveled her way. “And there is something wrong. All that drivel you just spouted, Wayne Lurcher. I’ve taken possibly hundreds of general remedy potions, and seen plenty of other people take them. Not once have I seen any of your listed side effects.”
“Then I suggest you exercise caution in the future. Regardless of your personal experiences, Spencer, people can and do suffer more than they’re cured when they take a quick fix elixir.”
Eva just glared at the teacher, probably for using her last name again rather than his berating her. For whatever reason, her name seemed to be a sore spot for the girl. Still, she didn’t raise her voice at the professor again.
Irene gathered the ingredients from the professor’s desk. She set to grinding eggshells while Eva diced mushrooms.
The lotion, dirt, and pond scum all went into a flask of water. It was heated over the burner. Irene measured out an exact amount of her eggshell powder and dumped it in while Eva just eyeballed the number of mushroom chunks to put in.
They carefully stirred the murky brown and green goop. The temperature had to be regulated constantly. It needed to stay hot for a few moments before cooling for another few moments and back again. Eva volunteered to maintain the temperature.
She did not seem to pay attention to the thermometer.
Irene’s fingers twitched at that. She felt a need to take over from Eva and follow the directions in the book. Before she could protest her partner’s irresponsible brewing, the potion completed.
In the blink of an eye, the opaque goop turned clear with a light blue tint.
Irene shook her head.
The Void
Author’s Note: There is blood in this chapter. Nothing on the level of the previous chapter. You will be able to bypass it by skipping down a few paragraphs.
Eva jolted awake.
Gritty sand flew in all directions as she flopped over to her back. She could feel it; it ground into her hair, her mouth, her finger stubs, her–
Eva landed on a small island. Water stretched endlessly as far as Eva could see.
A small flutter of hope beat in Eva’s chest. She brought her wrist to her face slowly. Her fingers were still gone. She could see them, or rather, she couldn’t see them. But she could see.
Her wrist bumped into an empty eye socket. She slumped back against the sand.
Eva clamped down on a tension in her jaw. There had been enough crying earlier. She wasn’t going to cry. It couldn’t be a good idea to cry with empty eye sockets.
She knelt on her stomach and dry heaved at the thought. Her mouth still carried the putrid taste of vomit. She crawled up to the edge of the water.
It was black. The entire ocean had not a single ripple or wave. The entire glassy surface was black. Eva looked up. There was not a single star, sun, or moon in the sky.
There were no fires or lights, nothing that might help her see. She had a brief wonder if that was how things would look if Eva had her eyes. It didn’t matter.
The water, despite its color, didn’t smell different from normal water. Eva touched just the tip of her tongue to it. Normal, as far as she could tell. Not even salty like an ocean. Even if it turned out to be unnatural later, she wasn’t planning on drinking it.
Eva cupped some up in her hands–a task much harder without fingers than it should be–and rinsed it around in her mouth. She repeated the action another few times as well as wiping out her nose–the best she could with no fingers. The water ripples flattened out much faster than they should have.
Feeling much cleaner, if not much better, Eva took stock of her surroundings. The island might have taken her maybe five minutes to run around the edge at a light jog, if she felt so inclined. It wasn’t very big. A single tree with gray bark jutted out of the center. It was a skinny thing that held no leaves on its thin branches.
That was it. An endless black ocean in every direction, a small beach, a tree, and an empty night sky.
And heat. Eva was quite thankful for that. Being broken and naked in a cold place might have been unbearable.
