The Broken Healer

Chapter 14: We're All Mad Here

Evelyn and Newt stood in the middle of the dry dirt path intersection; they stood hand in hand looking back and forth. 

"Well...I guess we just keep to the main path..." Newt said eyeing the smaller road with suspicion. 

"Good enough for me." Evelyn shrugged. 

The lay out of Crank Palace was easy enough to follow, everything the lay of the land didn't take a genius to figure out. The entirety of Crank Palace had been designed in a pattern of circles. Sections of rings, bordered on both sides with circular roads or dirt paths. They grew smaller as they walked, gradually.

"Hey, Evey..." Newt suddenly said looking up towards the cloudless sky, "imagined an astronaut up there and he's looking down on Crank Palace... it must look like a giant game of darts, and a bull's-eye in the middle." 

Evelyn giggled. She tipped her head back the sun shinning on her face. Her giggling was laced heavily with the madness of the Flare and the Crank in her mind. Newt gave her a lopsided twisted grin. He suddenly grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her rather harshly towards himself and kissed her hard. Forcing his tongue into her mouth. She yelped in surprise and then made a purring hum noise in her throat and melted into Newt. He kissed her so forcefully and deeply Evelyn forgot where she was for a minute. Newt only pulled away when a man stood in front of them, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. He had a glazed look in his eyes, staring at the couple wrapped around each other, but more like he stared through them, into some otherworldly distance that made him happy. He had a look of...

Bliss.

Evelyn's own mind did something like hiccup inside her skull. The memories that continued to strain against the dam of the Swipe bulged outward, for a moment, another memory flashed in her mind, a man, laying in bed, coughing up black...a woman crying at his bedside, a small child with blond hair huddled in the woman's lap.  Evelyn frowned, rubbing her sore head. The Flare was eating that chip faster then she thought.

Evelyn knew what the Bliss was. A drug given to the Flare-infected that was supposed to stall the effects and symptoms of the brain-destroying disease. Looking at this man in front of them, swaying on his feet as if to some unheard tune, eyes glossed over, an expression of delirious glee on his face. Evelyn's hand began to tremble. She remembered how the Bliss carried the pain away. She could just lay down and look up into the sky, floating away without pain.

"Don't you want some?" the man asked. "I heard they're gonna stop giving it out soon. Better get it while you can."

Without any shame, with complete awareness that she had experienced the way the Bliss worked and how amazing it made her feel, Evelyn said, "Yeah, I want some."

"Got any?" Newt asked, with some longing in his voice. 

The man made a weird noise that might've been a chuckle. "Now why in the hell would I have asked you that if I didn't have any?" Another chuckle, snort, whatever that sound was that came out of his nose with a little spray of snot. "How much you got to pay for it?"

"How much I got?" Newt sighed. "I got nothin'."

"How about a kiss from that sweet little thing?" The man said, his words slightly slurred, his lazy eyes slid to Evelyn, and his smiled spread on his face. 

"No." Newt snarled, suddenly tense. Evelyn growled, her finger tips feeling cold and tingly with her power. 

The man was too Blissed out to notice the sudden change in their behavior. The man took an exaggerated step toward the side of the path, squared himself on his feet, then swept forward in a ridiculous, grand bow, one hand crossed over his belly, the other rising up behind him.