Syndicate of tribulation

Chapter 16

Eustace's POV

I feel isolated sometimes. Being the odd one out, always, will do that to you.

I was bullied harshly before I came here. The type of bullying that will send you home exhausted, wishing you could just... turn it off. Turn it all off. Your heart, your brain, your breathing. No more tears left in your eyes as you think to yourself perpetually. Why me?

I don't believe in past lives but if I did I must have done something horrible. Something torturous to the most innocent type of people to deserve this.

They said 'sticks and stones might break my bone but words could never hurt me'. But words hurt a lot. So much. More than anyone will ever be able to understand because scars – they fade, wounds – they heal. But emotional damage will sing kumbaya and skip dandily, orbiting you till your grave.

It doesn't care for you like your wounds or scars do, because they eventually let you off the hook by disappearing. But emotional hurt doesn't care about you, it will fight for it's place as a chip on your shoulder for as long as you let it, or maybe longer. It's a jealous thing, no it's possessive; once trauma has it's claws in you, why would it ever want to let you go? It will make you stand in it's over-bearing shadow because if you, even for a second, reach the light, it will fade and you will leave it in a dark unmemorable place in your mind as it yearns for you to let it, once again, take control.

I smiled as I saw King and Tyro alive. But I was the only one. Everyone had a deary look in their eyes, understandably so, seeing as we did runaway from Blake to be here, but still... how come no one else could muster up the slightest bit of fake joy? King smiled back at me weakly as Tyro grit his jaw. Did we interrupt something?

Amo walked briskly up to King inspecting the drips she was attached to and how well they bandaged her wounds, he isn't a doctor but I guess... close enough. "I asked the doctor's for an assessment of your injury, told him you were my adopted sister, by the looks of it you are fine and no vital organs were damaged" Amo voiced to King who just nodded along.

We all had to make fake personas to meet King in her room. I was meant to be her best friend along with Domo, Dax was also meant to be one of her adopted siblings. It's surprisingly easy to make fake identities and even easier when King never identified herself.

"I spoke to Bes, he seems like a solid dude, but there is someone else in his head for sure" Dax said as he sauntered over to Tyro whose jaw has been ticking like crazy, like he has/had something to say and no longer has the courage to say it. Tyro looked at Dax, confused by his comment. "I saw it too" Amo voiced as he finished checking on King, "I'm going to try find out who/what it is but it might take some time and we need to go back to Blake. "How did you guys even get here in the first place?" King's course voiced echoed through the room, silencing us all. Even when she is down, she is still the strongest of us all, sans Tyro but I don't want to get into that. "Short answer: we stowed away" Domo voiced acting like what we did to get here wasn't a miraculous feat, one due to luck and meticulous planning.

"I say we have approximately 18 hours before Blake comes looking for us" I say as I look down to the watches he gave us. It won't take long to track us but it took us a short while to get here so I can only assume it will be less than a day before he pinpoints our location and comes to get us. "No, it will be less than that. We got here by train and... other methods. He has a plane and doesn't need to hide from border control" Amo says as he calculates the time in his head. "I give him 5 hours maybe less if he is desperate for us, but maybe more if he isn't." he continues. We nod our head. "We have a hotel room close by so let's work on getting King discharged and go back there" Tyro says before sending Bes to go and ask the doctor to discharge king. It's a quick and smooth process but because we aren't legal residents we had to stow away before the doctor could call the police or ask for our documents, which again was surprisingly easy.