Fractured Mind Episode One (A Galactic Coalition Academy Series) Read Online Free Page B

to answer. He did, however,
hold the doctor's gaze.
    Eventually Wallace nodded, shifted to the
side, and gestured towards the door. “You'll be fine for the next
few days, lieutenant. But you will come and see me after that.”
    Karax snapped a mock salute. He walked out
of the room with a hurried, “Thanks, doc.”
    The truth was, he wouldn't have the time to
come back in a few days.
    Time was a resource rapidly slipping through
Karax's fingers.
    Even as he thought that, his heart
quickened.
    His pace quickened, too.
    He pushed into a half-jog as he made it
through the med bay and out into the main grounds.
    He couldn't be late for his meeting with the
admiral. Too much was riding on this.
    As he flew across the main grassy area that
separated the primary buildings of the Academy, he found his gaze
flicking to the side and locking on someone.
    Out of the sea of cadets and commissioned
officers out on the grass, only one person could catch his
attention.
    Cadet Sinclair.
    She was walking – not towards the Academy
main buildings, but away from them.
    Presumably back to her apartment.
    She had her head tipped back as she stared
at the sky, an odd, distant expression on her face.
    It hardened his resolve.
    If she dodged his class once more, she'd be
out on her ear.
    Karax just needed one good reason to kick
her out.
    Deliberately cutting class may not see her
kicked out, but it would worsen her already appalling record.
    So, despite the fact it was quicker to head
up through the center of the campus, he found himself following
her.
    ...
    Cadet Sarah Sinclair
    She shouldn't be doing this. But she
was.
    And a part of her just didn't care.
    A part of her just couldn't put up with the
Academy anymore.
    When she'd first joined, she'd been filled
with so much hope. So much potential.
    Then the dreams had started, and....
    She sighed and shook her head.
    Instinctively she clutched a hand on her
upper left shoulder.
    Her fingers hovered around a very specific
spot – just at the nape of her neck.
    The skin was always red, always irritated,
nail tracks permanently etched through it.
    She couldn't count the number of times she'd
woken up in the middle of the night scratching and clutching at
it.
    She... it sounded crazy, but she knew
something was buried just underneath her flesh.
    She'd told the doctors a few times. They
could find nothing.
    She shivered as she shoved her fingers
harder into her skin.
    She could feel it – that thing – just
underneath the surface.
    A cold tight sensation shifted hard through
her shoulders, and she took a quick gasp.
    Sometimes she felt as if someone was walking
over her grave.
    It felt... it felt like she was dead, and
this was all just a dream. The real her – she was somewhere
else.
    Sarah was nothing more than a walking
talking corpse.
    She'd never shared these particular thoughts
with anyone – she didn't need to give the doctors any more reasons
to think she was crazy.
    Without realizing it, Sarah found herself
taking a circuitous relatively secluded route back to her apartment
block.
    Though mostly she could ignore people's
stares – even the muttered comments – today her natural resilience
was diminished, flushed away by the vestiges of her violent
dream.
    She just wanted to be alone.
    She needed to curl up on her bed and fall
asleep.
    ... And then what? Have another one of those
dream?
    She caught herself just in time. “They
aren't dreams.”
    They were memories. Or maybe she was somehow
tapping into someone else's consciousness. Maybe a part of her
shifted through dimensions at night.
    It sounded crazy – but something was
happening to her.
    She dropped her hand, noting a few flecks of
blood under her nails.
    The skin along the nape of her neck smarted,
but she made no attempt to check on it.
    There were times she wanted to take a knife
to her neck and cut the object out.
    As Sarah made her way forward, that cold
dead feeling – the one that felt like someone was walking over