DUSKLIGHT ODYSSEY

Chapter 5

Naim mumbled in her sleep. Ion couldn't help but observe this as he laid silently across the room from her, pretending to sleep himself. He wasn't altogether sure how they had agreed to travel together—perhaps it was simply that they hadn't yet agreed to part ways. The room was pitch dark, and all was quiet, save for her. They had decided to take refuge that day in the subterranean bunker. Most of its many dark halls remained unmapped to them; replete, maybe, with boons untold.

"Vio..." Naim softly spoke as she rolled over in her sleep.

Ion studied the darkness, too full of bitter memories to close his eyes. In his mind's eye he pictured the face of a woman—sweet and tender at times, though always tinged with fear, it was the only loving gaze Ion ever knew—it was the face of his mother. Ion wished so badly for that feeling of love to pervade his soul as he pictured her, but it brought only sunken solemnity, a raw recollection of hurt and pangs of icy fear. A profound sense of loss desecrated his mind's picture of her. It was a desecration itself to remember her the way he did, the way she died; but try as he might, Ion's every attempt to recall her sweetish half-smile twisted into the malformed image of her wild eyes when Ion last saw them.

Ion ran his fingers over the lighter, feeling its smooth plastic exterior. He clicked its trigger. A faint, tempestuous glow lit the room as amber. He let it go. Darkness again. Ion flexed his aching right hand and felt the rough cloth which bandaged it. Click. In the light, he saw it, drenched in dried reddish-brown blood. Ion carefully unwrapped it and winced in a wave of nausea when he unveiled the wound—a nearly circular hole in the center of his palm. He could have easily fit a finger through it without touching flesh. He held the lighter behind his hand and watched the small flame flicker through his new pore.

Ion knew it would be unwise to reuse the bandage; he needed something new.

Naim shifted and muttered again, still fast asleep.

Ion slowly got up from the floor. Surely, among all the forgotten supplies which littered the place, there would be something to sanitize and dress his injury.

Dark halls gave way to darker chambers, crumbling with age. Ion wondered just how many rooms there were in the bunker, and wondered more at the eccentric mind he imagined must have designed the refuge. His goal of finding aught to tend to his hand was displaced, almost, by curious exploration. In some rooms were rotted furniture and faded paintings lining the walls. Others were filled purely with shelves of rusted cans and dusty remnants of provisions. An enormous number of resources went to filling this labyrinth—so many of them untouched except by entropy.

If the food were fresh, Ion thought, I could live easy the rest of my days.

Ion picked up an old wooden box. He unlatched it and peered inside. In it were medical supplies, including rolls of bandages and a small bottle labelled as isopropyl alcohol. He opened it and poured some onto his hand. It burned. Ion fumbled in the dark as he wrapped his hand in the coarse cloth.

Click. Click. Click. It seemed to take more clicks of the trigger to spark the lighter's flame each time he used it. I need to be frugal with this, thought Ion. He emptied the wooden box of its contents and pocketed them before positioning it beneath his boot and brought the back of his heel down upon it with all his strength, splintering it into a few large pieces. Ion took the largest, wrapped it in bandages, and doused it with a bit of the rubbing alcohol, which he then lit aflame.

Ion's new makeshift torch brightened the room tenfold. In the new light, Ion noticed something he hadn't before—there appeared to be a door in the corner of the room which blended almost seamlessly with the concrete walls. Its handle—or lack thereof—was merely a shallow impression with a lip for pulling. Ion tugged at it—once, twice, thrice—but it would not budge.