Chief Miller's office smelled of stale filter coffee and cheap cologne. Normally, the scent would have been nauseating, but right now it was a sanctuary for Elara. Because the smell from the morgue still clung to the bridge of her nose: Vanilla. Strawberry. And rotting meat.
Miller was slumped like a mountain behind his desk. He slammed the file in front of him shut. The resulting crack drowned out the hum of the office fan for a split second.
"You're telling me about a business card found in a corpse's stomach," Miller said. His voice was tired. It wasn't full of anger, but exhaustion. "And you're saying this card... was dry."
Elara flicked the pitch-black card onto the desk, right in front of the chief. "I'm not telling you, Chief, I'm showing you. Look at it. Not a single drop of stomach acid on the edges. The ink hasn't run. It's like the damn thing was teleported in there."
Miller didn't even reach for the card. He just looked at Elara's face. At the dark circles under her eyes, her trembling hands, her nicotine-stained fingers.
"When did you last sleep, Elara?"
"That's not the point."
"That is exactly the point," Miller said, his voice hardening. He leaned forward in his chair. "Aris escaped. We have a body and your conspiracy theories. Now you're talking to me about business cards that defy the laws of physics. That's how trauma works, kid. The mind fills in the gaps. Sometimes it just talks nonsense."
Elara gritted her teeth. She clenched them so hard that a sharp pain shot through her jaw. "This isn't a hallucination. That pink liquid... it wasn't blood, Miller. Blood doesn't smell like that. Blood is sticky, but it doesn't string like jam."
"Enough," Miller said. Short and final. "You're going home. Now. You're going to get at least twenty-four hours of solid sleep. If you show up here tomorrow morning with that manic look in your eyes, you can leave your badge on my desk. Is that understood?"
Elara snatched the card back from the desk. She felt its strange, ice-cold texture in her palm. "Understood," she said, lying.
When she stepped out of the office, the station corridors felt like they were closing in on her. The stifling heat of the "endless summer" outside was seeping through the building's thin walls. The air conditioning was failing. Everyone was sweaty; everyone was on edge.
She didn't go home.
When she got into her car, she realized the steering wheel was hot enough to burn her hand. That damn static was on the radio; the melody of an ice cream truck, lurking insidiously behind the white noise. Elara turned the radio off, but the melody continued to play in her mind.
She drove to the old forensic laboratory on the other side of the city, one that was rarely used anymore. The lab at headquarters was too crowded, and Miller's dogs were everywhere. But this place... this was a place of exile, forgotten due to budget cuts, where only basic tests were performed. And Elara's old entry codes still worked.
When she stepped inside, the coolness of the sterile air hit her face. It was silent here. Only the hum of the refrigerator motors could be heard.
From her jacket pocket, she pulled out the sample tube she had secretly taken from the morgue. The pink liquid inside moved sluggishly, clinging to the glass of the tube. It shimmered in the light. It was as if it possessed its own internal glow.
"Right then," Elara muttered as she slipped on a lab coat. "Let's see if Miller is right, or if I'm losing my mind."
She didn't drop the liquid onto a microscope slide. She had tried that before, and all she'd seen under the lens was a meaningless pink blur. It had no cellular structure. This thing wasn't biological—or at least, not biological in any sense she knew.
She needed a more primitive test.
She moved to the section with the cages. One of the test mice, a small white-furred creature with red eyes, was scratching at the wood shavings in the corner. Elara dubbed him "Subject 4."
"Sorry, little guy," she said, preparing the syringe. The pink liquid showed a strange resistance as it filled the needle, as if it didn't want to leave the tube.
She grabbed the mouse by the scruff of its neck. The animal squeaked and struggled. Elara didn't hesitate. She plunged the needle into the mouse's hind leg and pushed the plunger. Only half a milliliter.
She put the mouse back in the cage and stepped away.
For the first ten seconds, nothing happened. The mouse simply tried to clean its leg by licking it.
"Come on," Elara said, holding her breath. "Do something."
At the twelve-second mark, the mouse froze.
It was as if an invisible hand had stopped it. Its tiny chest stopped heaving. Then, suddenly, it began to bolt around the cage like mad. It was so fast that the wood shavings flew into the air. The animal slammed into the metal bars, fell, got back up, and ran again. This wasn't an escape. This was a burst of pure energy.
Then the sounds started. The mouse began to screech in a pitch so high it was almost mechanical, a sound no normal rodent could make.
Elara took a step back. The mouse's eyes... those red beads were changing. The irises dilated, and that familiar neon pink color filled the entire eyeballs.
The animal stopped abruptly. It stood up on its hind legs in the middle of the cage. It tilted its nose into the air and sniffed.
Even from behind the glass, Elara could smell it. A heavy scent of sugar was radiating from the mouse's pores, its waste, its breath. Burnt sugar and fresh strawberries.
The mouse attacked the water bottle in the corner of the cage. But it didn't drink the water. It began to gnaw on the plastic tip. It bit the metal. It chewed the metal until its teeth broke and that pink liquid flowed from its mouth. It felt no pain. On the contrary, the animal's body language was... ecstatic.
"Hunger," Elara whispered. Miller's "sleep deprivation" theory was shattering before her eyes.
The mouse shuddered one last time. Its body went rigid, but it didn't fall. It died right where it stood, its muscles locked. It wore the most terrifying expression a mouse could possibly have: a smile. Its lips were pulled back, revealing broken teeth and a mouth full of pink foam.
Elara pressed her hand against the glass. The glass was hot. The mouse's body temperature had risen so high that the air inside the cage was rippling.
This wasn't a disease. It wasn't a poison, either. This was a fuel that rewrote biology. And Mr. Frost was selling this fuel to the entire city.
The phone in her pocket vibrated. Miller was calling.
Elara turned the phone off and pulled out the battery.
The diagnosis was made. She wasn't hallucinating. The city was in the grip of a sugary apocalypse, and Elara, with a dead mouse and toxic blood in her hands, was right in the middle of the madness.
"Fine," Elara said, looking into the dead mouse's turning-pink eyes. She lit a cigarette. The smoke mingled with the sterile scent of the lab. "If you want to play, let's play."