I thought I must have hit my head; I'd opened my eyes but I couldn't see anything. It took my longer than it should have to realise it wasn't anything to do with my vision. My eyes slowly started to adjust to the darkness and I found myself in an empty room with nothing but Helen, the anomaly, and one flat tabletop in front of me.

The smell was abhorrent. It stuck in my nostrils and it burnt my lungs as I tried to breathe in.

'Helen?' I groaned, 'what the fuck?'

She stepped forward, my knees scraped along the ground as she pulled me with her towards the screen.

'I have to admit you weren't part of the plan, Princess.'

I must have cut the inside of my cheek because I was slowly becoming aware of the fact my mouth was filling with blood. I spat it out onto the ground. 'I'm so sorry to be such an inconvenience.' The taste in my mouth was sour. It stirred nausea, and I groaned again.

She chuckled. 'Don't worry. You won't be here for much longer.' Her hand slipped back into her pocket and she pulled out her knife again. 'Now, if I were you I'd want to stay quiet, there are things here that can see your scream from a mile away.'

This time, with the look on her face, something made me doubt that she was bluffing.

Lifting the knife she held her arm out against the wall and swung at me. For a second I thought she was actually going to stab me in the hand but the knife cut through the chain connecting each cuff and instead we were split apart. My arm dropped back to my side.

'Where are we?'

Helen smirked as she moved forward to the flat top table, tapping a finger against in until it lit up like a screen. I stepped forward to peer around her at the letters on the logo covering the surface like a screensaver: A.R.C. Had she not already ignored my previous question I would have asked what it was.

'Since you're here you might as well make yourself useful.'

Before I could ask what she meant she snatched up my wrist, slammed my hand down on the glass and crushed it beneath her own to keep it there. My face twitched in discomfort from the pain but I found myself remaining silent.

The screen scanned me. I watched my name pop up in bold letters:

Identity Confirmed: Doctor Anna Havisham

...

Entry Granted

and went to try and pull my hand back again but Helen kept me there.

'Let me go.'

'Patience, dear.' Her fingers blurred across the screen so quickly I couldn't focus on what she was looking at or searching for because I hadn't seen any of it before, however I had no doubt Helen knew exactly what she was doing here.

After a moment I caught the word Inoculation appear in a box on the screen. It was only for a second before Helen tapped a knuckle against it, tore her hand up off my own and stepped back.

Immediately after that I felt it: a sharp stinging pinprick of pain blossoming out the palm of my hand as a needle pushed up through it into the flesh of my wrist.

The pain made me yelp this time. I stumbled back, holding my wrist to my chest as the nausea returned, the blood in my mouth trickled back down my throat and I felt my stomach twisting.

Whatever she'd just injected me with took effect instantly.

It hit me like a blow to the head and I suddenly felt vertiginous like my brain wasn't in my skull anymore. 'What?' I stammered, '–what the hell did you give me?'

'You'll thank me later.' Still with her back to me, Helen pointed to the anomaly. 'You might want to run, princess. Before it closes.'

My eyes flickered from her back to the pulsating anomaly and a feeling of dread washed over me. I couldn't grab her in my condition and force her to come back with me and neither was there any time to question what the fuck was now in my blood stream without risking being trapped here, away from Connor and Nick, stuck with no one but her.

I snapped my head back to her.

'Helen!' I quipped, 'what–'

'Go!'

I hesitated, not for any reason but to exhale first, but Helen turned. I didn't see her lift her leg until her foot was already in my stomach and I was kicked backwards.

The grass caught me, the light of a bright yellow sun burnt down into my corneas.

I was back in the field.

'Anna!'

The anomaly closed above me but I couldn't move. My limbs were unresponsive, the dizziness spread from my head down my neck in a cooling numbness and I had just enough energy to cough and spit the blood from my mouth as Stephen crashed down on his knees beside me.

'Holy shit,' he cursed, tilting my head back to try and work out where the blood was coming from. 'Anna, christ! Are you okay?'

I nodded weakly, trying again to summon the energy to at least sit up when out the corner of my eye I saw Ryan drop down beside him and reach into the pocket on his vest for a bandage.

'I'm– I'm not bleeding,' I croaked, 'I cut my cheek, but...'

I was cut off as Stephens arms encircled me, hoisting me up and holding me against his chest. 'Let's go.' The movement stirred the queasiness again and I fisted a hand tightly into the front of his shirt. 'Stephen.'

He shushed me. 'I've got you.'

'I think I'm gonna throw up.'

'You're not. Which one?'

Ryan pointed the anomaly up the hill, 'this way' and I buried my head into Stephen's chest and gripped tighter as the familiar feeling of tightness started creeping up my throat.

The first thing I heard once we were back through the anomaly was Nick's sigh. I didn't know if it was because it was the only sound breaking through a pensive silence, or somehow I had sought him out in a sea of noise to try and grasp some sort of comfort. I felt the coolness of the stainless-steel worktop beneath my bottom as Stephen set me down.

'Anna.' Nick's hands cupped my face and I didn't even realise that I'd shut my eyes until I had to force them open.

'She needs a bowl,' Stephen ordered, arms still around me, catching my head in the crook of his elbow as my neck gave out, 'she might be sick.'

Connor scrambled to the nearest cupboard, threw it open and rattled through to find a metal bowl big enough.

'Hey, Anna,' Nick's voice called again as his face grew closer to mine. He peered into my eyes. 'Did you hit your head?'

'Here.' A bowl clattered down into my lap and with it Connor crashed into my side.

I reached for the bowl but didn't quite grab it quick enough before I coughed again, blood sprayed out from my lips and Nick and Connor jumped back. 'Get the medic,' Nick said. Connor turned as a cold sweat sprang from my forehead.

I managed to catch his arm. 'No,' I said, 'water.'

'Water?' Connor repeated. He glanced at Nick.

'Get her a drink,' Cutter clarified.

Connor reached for his bottle from his bag, unscrewed the lid and wrapped a hand around my neck to gently pull my lips to the bottle.

I swallowed down mouthful after mouthful, trying to both remove the metallic taste from my mouth and stop the sick feeling bubbling inside me.

Pulling back from the canteen I tried to sit myself up.

I was still enclosed in Stephens arms. It was more of a shock that I was actually grateful for it because I couldn't stay upright on my own.

'Uh, fuck.' My face twisted and I shuddered. My hand found Connor's forearm and I gripped silently in desperation to convey my feelings to him somewhat telepathically. But already my mouth was filled with blood again and this time I groaned and just swallowed it.

'What's happened to you?' Connor asked. As he shoulders his way closer to me he jostled past Nick, and Cutter was forced to take a step down the worktop until he was standing by my feet. His hand gently grabbed a hold of my ankle.

I shook my head.

Connor frowned. 'What, what does that mean, A?'

'No.'

He looked firmly at Stephen. 'What happened to her?'

Stephen shook his head. 'I don't know,' Stephen said calmly, 'she wasn't there when we went through. Helen had taken her somewhere else.'

'Somewhere else?' Nick repeated.

'There was a field full of anomalies. Hundreds of them. Helen must have taken her through another one.'

'You mean like a spaghetti junction of anomalies?' Connor asked.

'There's no way I could have followed her, it'd be like running into a wall of mirrors. She came back through like this and that anomaly closed behind her.'

'And let me guess,' Nick continued, his hand squeezing my ankle again as though just to reassure me that he was still there, 'not a sabre tooth cat in sight.'

'Not even a kitten.'

Someone responded to that. The voice didn't sound right in my ears like my head was under water. Trying to focus on it made me dizzy and I had to squeeze my eyes closed. My fists clenched even tighter. The room felt like it was spinning like I was pissed but not in the good way.

My stomach lurched again. This time I thought I could feel the bile rising up my throat. Oh god.

At that moment I heard my name again in a tone like someone was trying for a third time to get a proper response from me, but my chin was still tucked into my chest and my forehead was furrowed. It was so unbelievably hot in the kitchens. I could feel the sweat drip down my head and soak through my t-shirt.

'Okay, Connor, get the medic,' I heard Stephen say.

I shook my head.

'Anna,' Nick argued, 'you need to get checked over. Look at you.'

'I'm okay.'

There was a collective noise of disbelief from the guys. 'You look like you're dying,' Connor said.

I shook my head again. 'No. I'm not.' My hand had got so numb I hadn't even realised I was still fisting Stephen's jacket. I came to my senses and carefully began to ease my grip. His arm –the one that had been hooked under my knee that whole time– moved up to take a hold of my wrist and grabbed the loose cuff rattling around it.

'Hey,' he called out to Ryan, 'who's got the damn key for this?'

'I...'

Stephens other arm– still around my shoulders– slipped down until his hand come to rest somewhat protectively on my waist and I felt my breath catch for a completely different reason. I looked to him and sensing my gaze he looked down from the Captain and locked eyes with me.

Then- suddenly- my head was yanked to the side by Connor as he dragged his coat sleeve across my forehead to mop the sweat 'Oh, sorry,' he said sincerely.

'I-'

'What do you need? Water? A bandage? A pie? Food, are you hungry? Do you want a pie?'

'Space,' I finished quickly, 'to breathe. Air. I need air.'

Connor immediately shrank back, nodding, turning on his heel and jumping back like getting away from me was going to save my life, and I could hear him muttering 'a pie?' scoldingly to himself as he stomped away.

I glanced back at Stephen as though to instruct him that he could let go and I didn't need him to hold me up anymore and he shifted slightly too. 'Are you sure you're okay?' he asked suspiciously.

'Roughly,' I returned.

'Really?'

I just nodded as my attention flitted to Nick– something I hadn't meant to do– but I had to make sure he knew I didn't mean him because I didn't want him walk away with the others. Stephen pulled his arms back and muttered something about getting the key, before he slowly stepped back from the worktop and turned away. As soon as we were alone I locked eyes with the Professor. 'What did she do?' he asked as he rounded the worktop and stood beside me again.

I had to shake my head, 'honestly, I don't really know.' I lifted an achy arm and held my palm out for him to take. He understood and took it gently in his own, holding it close to study it.

'What?'

'Helen gave me something. Injected me. Don't know what with, don't know what for but she said I'd thank her.'

'Poison?' Nick suggested fearfully.

Again, I shook my head. 'I don't think so. There was room, right, it looked almost normal but there was a screen. Right before I got injected it said inoculation.'

'Like a vaccine?'

'Yeah, like a vaccine,' I agreed.

'For what?'

'I don't know.'

'Incoming!'

We both whipped around at Ryan's cry, keen eyes trained on the anomaly as it gargled, my ears ringing in a way I couldn't quite work out if it was because of the stuff in my system, or the anomaly itself. And I didn't know how long it took to subside because my sense of reality was swiftly deteriorating. I was dehydrated, close to passing out, but I knew if I did that it would be hours before I came round again because I was undoubtedly exhausted as well.

A sudden commotion brought my attention back to the group and shapes began swimming in my vision. Animals. They were making strange noises. 'Dodos?' I asked as though to question if everyone else was seeing them too.

'Oh, god, round them up, everybody,' Nick called, 'don't let them get out.'

I swung my legs around to the edge of the worktop, trying to slide down so that I could help out when my knees buckled under my weight and I started to fall. Nick caught a hold of me. 'Not you, Miss Havisham,' he reprimanded.

Stephen enclosed on my other side, reaching past Nick to quickly and without any fuss, lift me up onto the worktop again. 'Stay there.'

I braced my hands either side of my hips to hold myself up. 'Yeah,' I agreed for once, 'okay.'

'They're so dumb,' Connor commented, leaning against the worktop at my side as we watched Nick sitting in the office with a group of them through an open doorway.

'Dodo aren't actually stupid,' I explained, 'just trusting. It's not their fault they became extinct.'

'Funny, you weren't this sentimental about the Gorgonopsid.'

The effort to roll my eyes without resurging any feelings of sickness was calculatedly risky, but like a reflex I found it difficult to stop myself as I turned my head towards him. His open canteen sat on my knee and every so often I washed back the blood with a mouthful of water. I'd need stitches. I had a kit in Connor's bag for such just-in-case situations.

'Is that the lot?'

'That's it.'

'We better ship them back before we upset Darwin. Right, everyone, grab a dodo.'

Ignoring the professor, Connor remained at my side, eyeing me in concern as I tried not to show my inner turmoil and willed my body to get back to normal. I wasn't doing a good job. I'd never had trouble hiding things before, like pain, or discomfort, but I could tell something was still off with me by the way Connor was still concerned. 'Seriously, are you gonna be alright?'

'Connor,' I responded then paused to wash my mouth back with another gulp of water, 'yes. Come on you heard the man, grab a dodo.'

He folded his arms across his chest, his bottom lip pouting just like it had when I told him he couldn't eat my last crispy crème. 'I think the professor's doing pretty alright on his own, actually.'

'Urgh for fucks sake, I'm not going to drop dead just because you've left me alone for one second.'

Wobbling his chin, he mumbled 'okay,' and walked away to assist in trying to shepherd the Dodo's back through the anomaly.

And with my first moments peace I groaned, lowering my head, shutting my eyes, and finding my pulse in my neck to check my vitals.

Slightly above average I concluded as I pulled my hand back. Not strange considering. Or actually maybe a little strange that it wasn't worse. Whatever it was that Helen had injected into me seemed to be running its course.

I put a hand over my stomach and rubbing the spot I was sure I'd have a bruise from Helen's foot. I would have been trapped there with her had she not taken that exact moment to push me back through.

It was close. Too close perhaps.

'Professor? We're a dodo down.'

I brough my attention up, wiping my forehead with the back of my arm and wishing I had a jacket with me to pull on. The shivers had set in, goosebumps lined my arms and I huddled into myself for warmth.

'Oh. How did that happen?'

'Maybe it ate one of the pies,' Connor joked. Everyone stared at him. I had to admit it was funny. Connor apologised and looked to me but I just shut my eyes again and nodded.

'Poor little guy. We should do an autopsy, find out how he died,' Nick said.

'I'll do it,' I offered.

'No,' Nick returned, 'you need a hospital.'

'I need to get back to uni,' I counterposed, 'once I get to a lab I can run my bloodwork there, check for antibodies, but for now I just need to stitch up my cheek and get back to work.'

'Anna–'

'Nick.'

He started shaking his head. 'You need a doctor.'

'I am a doctor. Most I need right now is a mirror. And the suture kit in Connor's bag. Look, the Dodo probably died from the shock– I hope. Otherwise whatever it was is a lot nastier and the sooner we find out the better.'

'Could it be an effect of travelling through the anomaly?' Ryan suggested.

'Well, all 4 of us have been through and we're alright,' Nick replied.

'As far as we know,' Stephen added. He looked up from the dead Dodo to me.

'That's something else I should run some tests on.'

'Well maybe that's what wrong with you,' Stephen continued, 'maybe going through too many of them in a short space of time makes you ill-'

'Cutter, we've got another problem...' Connor then interposed, from the fridge, compass in hand. 'The anomaly's fading.' Nick's footsteps echoed as he crossed the kitchen towards Connor and the anomaly.

Out the corner of my eye I watched Stephen stand up. He stepped around the dead Dodo, making his way towards me where he reached for my wrist, took the key to the cuffs from his pocket and unclipped it. 'Thanks,' I said, ringing the wrist in my hand.

'I knew it was a stupid idea.'

I sucked in my cheeks. 'Well good for you.'

I heard him sigh. 'Jesus, Anna, I'm not trying to start an argument-'

'I'm sure you never are, Stephen. I can't believe you haven't worked it out by now.'

'Worked what out?'

Groaning, I rolled my eyes again, shifting across the worktop to jump down onto the ground. My legs buckled as I touched down but I caught myself before he could and held up a hand. I didn't want his help.

'Anna...'

I walked away before he could continue with whatever he was trying to say. I took careful, methodical steps across the kitchen to Nick. And reaching out to catch his attention, I hooked a hand through his elbow and he turned to me.

A brief smile graced his lips but in a second it was gone and he started to frown again. 'You're shaking,' he informed me.

'It's normal,' I assured him, 'it's just chills, my body's working exactly how it should. Connor–' I turned but was cut off as Nick wrapped his jacket around my shoulders, '-oh,' I said and glanced back at him. 'Thank you.' I turned back to Connor. 'Con?'

Connor looked up from the compass. 'Huh?'

'Can you get my emergency kit from your bag. And there should be some alcohol in there too. You'll need that.'

Frowning, Connor looked down at his watch, 'it's a bit early, isn't it?'

'It's for your hands.'

'Why?'

I shifted my weight onto my hip. 'Because you're going to have to help me hold my cheek open so that I can stitch it up on the way back to uni.'

'Right,' he nodded and scuttled away to grab his bag from the side table he'd stuffed it under on the way in.

Catching a side glance from Cutter, I swallowed another mouthful of blood, and sighed. 'You've got something to say?' I proposed.

'Yeah,' he nodded.

'Is it about the anomaly?'

'No.'

'Why don't you trust me, Nick?'

He did that thing, again, something I hadn't realised I'd noticed him doing before but somehow recognised - where he laughed and he sort of looked away and smiled even though it isn't funny. 'Because you don't put yourself first,' he said. He crossed his arms across his chest. 'Are you honestly telling me if it was anyone else– if it were Connor, you wouldn't force him into a truck and drive him to the hospital yourself?'

'No, I would,' I agreed, 'but only because I have yet to experience what it's like to be Connor. I can feel what's going on inside my body, I know that I'm okay, and all I need to do is get a blood test. It's science.'

'Science,' he repeated in consideration.

'Yeah,' I said. 'If I die, you can say I told you so.'

'That's not funny.'

I bit my lip, 'it is a little bit.'

Nobody said anything as I stood over the body of the dead Dodo, scalpel in hand ready to make the first incision perpendicular to its neck and across its chest. Before I touched it- before I even got near it- the Dodo twitched and I saw Stephen jump.

Taking a step back, out of some sort of precaution, Nick took a deep breath. 'Um... What?'

'Muscle spasm?' Stephen suggested.

I shook my head again. 'No.'

'It can't be,' Nick agreed.

'It's been dead for hours,' I explained. Just as I was about to resume the incision, the Dodo twitched again, this time its mouth cracked open and a larval parasite dropped from within its bill. It hit the floor right by Nick's feet, and assuming it was drawn to warmth in search of a new host I pointed to the countertop behind Stephen. 'Bell jar,' I said, 'quickly.'

Stephen reeled around, picking up the glass jar and slamming it down on the ground over the larvae. 'Ew.'

I dropped down to crouch beside him to inspect it. 'Yeah.'

'It looks like some kind of larvae,' Stephen noted as I suspended the parasite in a pair of tongs for him and Lester to examine.

'I thought that too at first, but no. It's actually fully grown,' I responded.

'Some kind of giant sistroid...' Nick added. I held out the tongs to Stephen and, grimacing, he took them from me.

'It's destroyed the internal organs and attacked the central nervous system,' I expanded.

'I thought the trick of being a good parasite was to live off the host creature without killing it.'

'Well, usually that's correct, but this particular one doesn't compromise. As far as I can tell it enters the blood stream as larvae, feeds off the host then moves up the body to lay its eggs, keeping itself alive just long enough to reproduce. Then, mission accomplished, they both die together,' I finished. 'It's quite a love story, if you think about it.'

Lester narrowed his eyes at me, unclasping his hands to lean in over the table. 'Are you alright, like, in the head?'

I glanced at Nick before I answered. The events of today were just the start. I had no doubt that if Lester found out about my past he'd probably not want me anywhere near this whole thing. I didn't blame him.

I gave a brief smile. 'Most of the time. But isn't nature wonderful?'

The car ride back to Uni went quickly. As Nick drove, I sat beside him in the passenger seat and tied a length of elastic around my arm, swabbed alcohol over my skin and set up the vacuum bottle to draw blood ready to test once I got back to the medical lab at the university. I put the needle into my vein, attached the receiver to the vacuum bottle and filled the tube with approximately 100ml of blood.

We'd just got back to uni and I'd said goodbye to Nick and started back to the lab when – from across the boardwalk surrounding the archaeology building– Duncan came running out towards me.

'Anna! Wait, Anna!'

I stopped, one hand on the door handle to the medical block. 'Hey, Duncan, what's up?'

He was so out of breath that it took him a moment before he could speak. I held the door open behind me and he stepped into the building. 'Is Connor here?'

He traipsed in after me, following me through the hallways to the haematology and toxicology department. 'Library,' I told him, 'I think. Why, what's up?' I reached my lab, pumped a handful of alcohol sanitizer into my hands from the dispenser by the door then pushed it open. As Duncan stepped into the lab behind me I turned and quirked an eyebrow at him and took a step forward to force him to take a step back to silently explain he wasn't allowed in here– health and safety– and he retreated back into the hallway. Keeping half my attention on his fidgeting hands, I walked straight to the centrifuge, opened the lid and put the retainer into the machine.

'I need to talk to you,' he said.

'Yes.' I shut the lid, started the machine then turned to look at him.

'We did something stupid.'

'We?'

'Tom and me, we– we … where's Connor?'

'Library,' I repeated deadpan. My eyes narrowed. 'What did you do?' Then I straightened up with realisation. 'Where's Tom?'

'Something happened to him,' Duncan said. But I couldn't hear him properly over the machine starting up. I walked back over to him, took him by the arm and guided him back out the lab. 'We followed Connor and– and there was this bird.' I felt my stomach drop. 'We put it in the van.'