The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 254

The ice hole was exactly as she had left it.

Shrouded in the absolute darkness of The Polar Night, it looked like a black pupil embedded in the white earth, staring silently at the heavens, and staring silently at her.

Sloane stood at the edge of the abyss, double-checking her gear one last time.

Drysuit, oxygen tank, headlamp, weights, carabiners... Her fingers moved with steady precision. Every buckle snapped into place perfectly, as if she were running through a drill she had practiced a thousand times.

When she finished, she reached into her inner pocket and pulled out a small inhaler.

It was the one she had stolen from Garrison's jacket.

As she held it in her palm, she hesitated for a fraction of a second.

She remembered what Garrison had told her. It was a drug called Budesonide Mist. It worked directly on the alveoli, massively boosting blood-oxygen efficiency in a short window of time. But it was highly dangerous to overuse—it hyper-stimulated the lung tissue and caused irreversible cellular damage.

*Irreversible...* The word echoed in her mind, but it hardly mattered now. A bitter smile tugged at her lips.

If she got lucky, she'd manage to bring The White Microbe to the surface. If she was unlucky... she was never coming back anyway.

Why should she care about permanent damage?

She popped the cap off and aimed the nozzle at her mouth. The metal felt freezing against her skin, carrying the bone-dry, biting chill unique to the Antarctic air. She pressed down hard. A thick plume of white mist shot into her mouth, racing down her nasal passages and trachea. It felt like a wildfire ripping through her mucous membranes.

She took a deep breath.

Then another.

Instantly, her heart rate spiked. It started as a steady thrum, then accelerated into a violent, hammering rhythm. It felt like a trapped bird desperately throwing itself against the cage of her ribs.

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