My Strange Grace

* ✫ 4 ✫ *

The way the air felt at night was calming. Every bit of my body felt like the wind was part of me. As I made my way through the deadheads, I tried to be very quiet. For some reason sleeping was incredibly hard, so I thought I would try and tire myself out. Chuck had warned me that the deadheads was the graveyard, and I shouldn't go in there. As per usual, I didn't want to listen. I was curious how many have died, and what their names were.

The makeshift crosses that were stuck in the dirt led me to the graves. So many names. Anax, Hero, Charles, Thadius, Everick, Will, Max, Otto, Jacob. There were even more too. I stumbled upon another one, but this one wasn't buried fully, he was in a glass box. I dusted off all the dirt and grime off so I could peer in. 

My heart dropped to my throat. Half of this kid's body was missing; he had been sliced at the waist. I muffled my gasps and cries with my hand. The glass had an engraving on it. "Let this half-shank be a warning to all: You can't escape through the Box Hole."  Tears leaked from my eyes, this poor kid. I whispered to the boy, "I'm so sorry you had to go out like this." 

Behind me a twig snapped. I shot up off the ground with a strangled gasp. The glade was so dark I couldn't see anything. Another twig broke. My hand tightened around my mouth; I didn't want a single sound escaping my mouth. 

"Hello?" Fuck, I recognized the voice. The silhouette appeared from behind a tree, tall and muscular. 

"God, Gally you scared me! What are you, um, doing up?" He made his way closer to me. Once my eyes finally adjusted, I could see his face. His deep green eyes were intoxicating; they fit perfectly into his facial structure. The defined jawline was perfectly visible while he turned his head to look around. I couldn't help but hate the way he made my body feel. 

After he looked around and saw that I was alone he spoke, "Greenie. What are you doing in the deadheads at night?" he completely avoided my question, but I wasn't going to pry him. Now was definitely not a time to fight.

"I couldn't, um, I uh, couldn't sleep." I tried to calm my voice, but it was still unsteady from the tears. My first night here and I'm already crying in front of one of them, great.

"Have you been crying?" Of course, he notices. He walks closer to me until I'm within arm's length. 

"Did you know him? The one who went down the box?" I knelt back to the ground beside the glass. 

Gally sat beside me and sighed. "Yeah, I did. His name is Stanley. Stan was the first real friend I had here. I still remember the day it happened, the day he went down." He took a deep breath, this was hard for him, poor thing. I placed my hand on his, to let him know it's okay to continue, that I'm here to listen for now. "I had told him it wasn't a good idea, but my god he was stubborn. He just wanted to get out of here." He ran his hand over his face then through his hand. The leaves moved as he shifted his knuckles over the glass. "Now all I have is Ben."

I wanted to just hug him, hold him till the sun comes up and tell him it'll be okay even though I had no clue if it would be. But shortly after he finished talking, he got up and left, without a word.