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Currently, there were two things at the forefront of Riley’s mind. One was an opinion, and one was a fact.
The opinion was that capture the flag was stupid. She felt this very strongly. It was an inane game for young children, running around to achieve a pointless goal. The sciencey ceiling voices could rant and rave about recreation and recovery all they wanted. Having a little bit of fun wasn’t going to make anyone any less dead. Why bother? Better to play a solitary game of Solitaire in the game room. Less noisy.
When the lights went out, she assumed that the ones who had gone out and played capture the flag had caused it, somehow. It made sense at the time. What did not make sense, however, was the sudden sensation of having an entire container of itching powder dumped over her head. When she scratched at her arms in the darkness, she could feel something come off, a different texture underneath -
The intercom spoke again. Leroy. She directed a middle finger in the general direction of the ceiling. She doubted he would be able to see it with the lights out, but it was the thought that counted.
Then the lights came back on, which brought her to the second and primary thing occupying her thoughts right now, the fact – her skin is peeling, much worse than before, and there were feathers there. On reflex, her mind picked out a few shades of color. Cinder, charcoal, woodsmoke, eclipse, black, black, black. Was she not breathing? Ah. That would explain the dizziness.
She stood up from her chair, the half-played game of Solitaire forgotten. It seemed worthwhile to get a second opinion on the feathers. The feathers that had just sprouted from her arms and, judging by what she was feeling, everywhere else, too. Black feathers. Feathers. Okay Maybe she was just hallucinating. This was the only situation that she could think of where vivid daytime hallucinations were vastly preferable to the evident reality.
She slowly walked out into the hallway and towards where she knew the others would have been playing capture the flag, hoping to catch someone on their way back. She only made it partway there before she had to stop and lean against the wall, but she spotted someone heading down the hallway.
“Hey-” she started, but stopped to clear her throat, pounding a fist against her chest. She still couldn’t breathe right. It was like trying to inhale through a throat full of cotton. “So this is a thing that’s happening.” She made a vague gesture with the arm she wasn’t using to stabilize herself of the wall. It was unclear whether it was meant to emphasize the feathers on the arm or the person she had just approached.