Nepenthe | Sapnap |

The Dead Firefly

It's been a week. Well, technically it has been over a week. Nine days to be exact.

I haven't shown up to patrol at all.

The only time I leave my room is in the dead of night since I try to sleep during the day when it's light out.

The nightmares have also made a reappearance, but they flip and flop between Pittsburgh and what happened that night on the trip. I spend the nights using the skateboard that Nick left at my place. I was hoping that if I spend enough time falling off of it, it'll break in half. Unfortunately, I had gotten the hang of skateboarding around the neighborhoods.

Multiple people have tried to stop by, but I just kept the door shut and locked. The only person I would open it for was Mom.

Clay stopped by the first day I skipped patrol, probably to yell at me for missing it, but when I refused to open the door after a couple knocks, he simply left. He tried again a couple days later but when I just turned the music up louder after he kept knocking, he kicked the door in a huff and hasn't been back since.

Morgan's stopped by a couple times. She tries to get me to unlock the door longer than anyone else. Her knocks are lighter and they sound more pleading than the others, but eventually she too gets annoyed and leaves.

Alex hasn't even tried to knock. He's only been by once and he slipped a new music album under my door. At least, he understood. The cd lays in the same spot where it skidded to a stop the day Alex slid it under. Surprisingly, it didn't crack when it fell down the steps. I haven't gotten the motivation to grab it and put it on my shelf with the others.

Callahan even tried. He slipped me multiple notes under my door to try and get me to respond that way, but once again I refused. I threw the folded notes out without even opening them. I wasn't even the littlest bit curious to what Callahan had written on them.

Nick hadn't been by once. Well, at least from what Mom has reported back to me. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. The ball was technically in his court when he said that he had to think and not to follow him.

And I wasn't going to go to him. This was all on his own volition.

Now, I just wanted to be alone.

Glancing down at my watch, I shook my head and pushed my foot harder against the asphalt of the street to skate home faster.

6:45 AM.

Patrol starts in fifteen minutes, and I was a block from home. It's a dangerous time to be out with people on the morning team walking to the stables during this time. Last thing I wanted to do was to run into Nick. I didn't even want to see him, and especially not by accident or coincidence.

I let out an annoyed huff and slammed by foot on the ground to stop the skateboard as I rounded the corner of my street, rolling my eyes at the two people knocking on my front door.

"What y'all want?" I kicked the board up with my foot to grab it and shook my head.

"The fuck are you doing?" Alex yelled back as he hopped down the steps. "We don't see you for a week and you're out here skating at the crack ass of dawn?"

I raised an eyebrow at him. He had his backpack on and a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, but I let it slide, ignoring it as I tried to walk past him. "I've been out since like nine last night."

"You haven't slept?" Morgan asked quietly as I almost knocked my shoulder against hers, going to open the front door.

"I sleep during the day," I answered curtly.

"Well, grab your bag. We're needed at the stables," Alex wasn't having any of my shit as he turned back around and had on foot on the bottom step, looking up at me.