The City of Wanderers - No Peaceful North Part One

Chapter Three

Wes couldn't tell if he was dreaming or not. Every time he opened his eye all he would see was a blur in a different location. He kept having visions where he was back on the ferry reliving that fight, though the outcome was different each time. Sometimes he would die, sometimes Niamh would or they both perish. Eventually all he saw was light before it faded to black again. Though Wes could still hear voices but couldn't understand what anyone was saying.
Wes finally woke up and saw he was in a darker room that wasn't familiar. The left side of his face was numb and he had a bandage around one of his wrists. He sat up and tried feeling the numb side of his face, feeling what seemed to be stitches.
"You're awake finally, you were out for a while." Wes heard Aditya, who was sitting on a chair next to him.
"Adi..." Wes tried to speak but didn't know what to say, his mind was still trying to process waking up.
"Whatever happened to you freaked you out real bad, I don't know if you were all there for it." Aditya told him as he asked "What is happening?"
"Oh, a group of people attempted to sabotage us for some reason, claiming there was a terrorist on board. Then we found you lying in a pool of your own blood. I assume you were attacked. Once we made it to shore we brought you here to the hospital. But on the way you were kinda fading in-and-out of consciousness and going on about if someone was alive or not." Aditya explained to Wes before asking him "Did you mean the kid who was hiding in your truck?"
Not yet knowing if what he witnessed was real or not, Wes nodded in response. He did also want to know if they were okay.
"He is, told me his name is Knox. Hope it's alright I'm letting him stay with us for a while." Aditya answered his question.
"That's... fine..." Wes rather quietly responded, he was still trying to process everything going on. He started feeling the side of his face again where his eye was but it didn't feel like it was there. Wes asked "My eye... I can't feel it. Is it gone?"
Aditya was quiet for a moment as if he was hesitant to answer that question. Eventually he responded "I'm sorry, there was no way to save it. Whoever did this to you cut ya real deep."
Wes didn't say anything else. Part of him still wanted to believe it was just a really bad and weird dream he had. Though the stitches were very real. It wasn't until Wes finally saw himself in the mirror when the realization fully dawned on him.
Finally out of the hospital, Wes stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. His left eye was gone and eyelid sewn shut. Wes hated how it looked and styled his hair to cover it, though it could be easily uncovered and he kinda looked ridiculous. Instead, he found an old black shirt in their room that he wasn't using, tore it up and tied the strip around his head, covering his eye. He hid the rest under his hair as Aditya seemingly appeared out of nowhere to ask "What are you doing?"
Wes turned to look at him to see he was standing by their doorway.
"Just covering my eye, that's all." Wes replied as he wandered closer to his husband.
"If there's anything I can do to help please tell me and I'll do my best." Aditya told Wes as he asked him "You're not gonna send me to work tomorrow, right?"
Aditya answered "Of course not, Wes. Someone ripped out your eye, you need time to recover."
He then added "Speaking of, Knox mentioned he knows the person who did it. She seems to have vanished though. She was nowhere on the ferry and she couldn't have just swam away. Real mystery."
Wes froze up, he knew he was likely in trouble if there was an active investigation about what happened. Though knowing how law enforcement was in Pacifica, they likely weren't going to look into it further unless it affected a notable person. Neither Wes or Aditya were notable in the slightest. Just common workers like everyone else.
"She and the other people with her were from Calgary, or Paradise, whatever name that city goes by now. Which makes it weirder, why did they come all that way to sabotage a random ferry and attack you? Must be something bigger going on." Aditya started rambling, which happened a lot. Wes always thought Aditya was neurodivergent in some way but he would deny it every time Wes brought it up.
"Maybe they have plans to expand their empire and they want this region." Wes suggested to Aditya as he made his way past him and out of the room. Aditya responded with "Possible, but you'd think they would start with somewhere closer, like Kelowna or somewhere in the States."
"Didn't Kelowna burn down?" Wes asked Aditya as they both entered the living room of their home. The two lived in an older house in Surrey. Wes would've preferred to live anywhere else in the Lower Mainland but Aditya still wanted to be close to his family.
"Not all of it. My sister still lives there and says it was only the west side and a bit of the south end that did." Aditya explained in response. Before the outbreak, the two used to visit Kelowna somewhat often. Wes would've preferred to have lived there but not much work for piloting ships in the Okanagan for his husband.
"Maybe we should go there, haven't seen Riya since before all of this. Hopefully visiting family in a somewhat nearby city is a valid reason to leave this place." Aditya suggested to Wes before adding "That's only if you want to, of course."
Wes wasn't sure if he wanted to travel outside of Pacifica while in his current state. He did get his wish from earlier, though he didn't think it was worth losing an eye over.
"Whatever, I'm gonna go to bed, unless you don't want me to." Aditya said as he started slowly backing out of the room. Wes told him "It's fine, I'll wake you if I need something."
Aditya gave him the thumb's up in response and went back to their room. Once he was gone, Wes sat down on the couch and just thought. He wasn't tired, still felt a bit weird from the anesthetic and didn't realize it was already passed midnight. Wes also hadn't seen Knox anywhere so he assumed Aditya gave him the guest room in the basement and not the other free one upstairs. That one was better suited for a much younger child.
After a few minutes of dozing off, Wes got back up again and headed to their garage. It's where they stored their alcoholic drinks along with Aditya's car. They didn't use it often as gas was harder to come by and it was a hybrid. It was a shame, they got it just a few months before everything changed.
Wes went back to the living room with his can of beer, bumping into doorways as his spacial awareness was thrown off by the loss of his left eye. He knew it was probably a bad idea but anything to silence his brain for a few minutes.