Free Oasis (The Last Humans Book 1) by Dima Zales, Anna Zaires Page B

is a one-way communication system. I can’t even be sure you’re reading this, but you better be, because you’re in danger.
    Someone from the Adult section is on their way to the Prison. That’s really bad.
    I will try to unlock your door in a moment. I think I tapped into the building’s emergency-exit procedures. Once the door is unlocked, exit, make two rights, then a left. Then you’ll have to leave through the emergency exit. It will look like a regular door.
    I stare at the ghostly Screen in stunned fascination. My daze is broken by the Screen disappearing in the same way it appeared.
    Is Phoe serious? She wants me to escape Quietude?
    No Youth has ever done this, and I’m sure every single one of them wished they could have.
    My pulse racing, I walk up to the door. Unlike regular doors, it doesn’t open for me when I gesture at it. Testing out the ancients’ method, I push it with my hands.
    I could just as easily have been pushing at a wall.
    “What now?” I subvocalize by habit.
    As though in reply, I hear a sharp noise that makes me jump back.
    Then I understand.
    It’s the door.
    Something just happened to it.
    I approach the door again and press on it.
    Given Phoe’s message on the Screen, I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.
    The door opens.
    Warily, I stick my head out and look around.
    The corridor is empty.
    I walk out and try not to dwell on what the punishment for doing this will be.
    “Two rights and a left,” I repeat in my mind as I tiptoe down the corridor.
    When I get to the end of the corridor, I crouch and look around the corner—a trick I picked up from playing hide-and-seek with Liam and Mason during our childhood years.
    My heart bobs up to my Adam’s apple.
    There’s a Guard walking toward me.
    He’s half a corridor away.
    Is it my imagination, or is he walking faster all of a sudden? Did he see me?
    It’s impossible to tell with him wearing that shiny visor.
    I duck out of sight and swiftly make my way back to the room where I’m supposed to be, staying as quiet as I possibly can.
    To my relief, the door closes behind me.
    I put my ear to it, but I can’t hear any steps coming down the corridor.
    This most likely means the door is soundproof, but it could also mean the Guard didn’t turn this way.
    I count the way I did when I was little—one Theodore, two Theodores—until I reach twenty.
    Gingerly, I exit the room again.
    When I don’t see the Guard in the corridor, a grateful whoosh of air escapes my lungs.
    I get back to the corridor on the right and repeat my earlier trick of crouching by the corner.
    The Guard is gone.
    I get up, turn the corner, and start walking. The corridor is long, and the gray walls blend together to obscure just howfar it goes.
    I walk for what feels like a couple of minutes, with no end in sight.
    I pass a right turn, but ignore it since Phoe told me to make a left.
    I walk some more and finally see the end of this monstrous corridor, but it’s a good twenty feet away.
    “This stupid corridor must curve,” I think, unsure whether I’m talking to Phoe or myself.
    She doesn’t reply and talking to myself has never really appealed to me—unless that is what I do when I talk to her , but I’ve moved beyond that theory.
    “Theodore,” a voice says from behind me. “Stop.”
    I think it’s coming from where the right turn was.
    This voice is male, so I know it’s not Phoe. I assume it’s a Guard, but I don’t look back—that would be a waste of time.
    My stealthy walking pace forgotten, I torpedo forward.
    He runs after me. Through the beat of blood in my ears, I hear his pounding footsteps. A wall at the end of the corridor looms in front of me. I almost smack into it, but manage to turn left, my shoes sliding on the smooth gray floor.
    “Theodore, stop! What are you doing?” The Guard sounds as if he’s about to turn my way.
    I sprint down the smaller corridor, toward the door at the end. Skidding to a stop in front of it, I