Ardor

Six: Darkness Always Has A Way Of Catching Up With You

My head hurts like all hell. I don't complain because I doubt Kobe will care--well, he probably will but that's not relevant--and he's still spooked from that guy's body. I keep telling him we should stop, but he is past listening.

Cerebral thunder rages on in my throbbing skull, an earthquake of its own. Thoughts and feelings keep stabbing at my raw mind, prodding a sleeping lion I would rather remain dormant. The stupid, brave gladiator in my brain takes another jab at the beast and is swallowed whole without another thought.

Suddenly I feel sick. My mom, my dad, my sister, my dog, even the poor guy we found in the video store; they're all too much. Everything is just too much. My stomach hurts. My head hurts. I'm absolutely beyond tired. 

I bend over and toss my lunch in the middle of the street, for all to see. And they do, disgust plainly written on their features. I cringe and try to keep down the next wave. I rest my hands on my knees, mouth gaping, stomach heaving.

Hands grip my shoulders and pull me into a standing position. My shoulders are still hunched over, caving around my now-empty stomach. Tears run down my face, but I'm not crying. "Calm down," Kobe says, supporting my concave figure. I shake my head. My stomach lurches forward and I heave, but I have nothing left to give. Kobe firmly guides me over to one of the few standing buildings, a short, squat structure with plain gray walls.

Salty, bitter.

Cold, empty.

Dark, unfeeling.

My mind swirls with incomprehensible thoughts. My chest shudders with unstable breaths. I'm embarrassed but powerless. Kobe ushers me into the building and pushes me down into a sitting position so that I am leaning against an important-looking desk. He sits down next to me. I can't even see, my eyes are so blurry with stinging salt. 

The blinders came off. 

They are only so kind for so long.

Because eventually they have to come off. 

And nothing can prepare you for that.

Kobe digs through his backpack and gives me a bottle filled with water. "Here," he says. I grab the bottle and clutch it with both hands. "What happened back there?" I just shake my head. 

He nods confidentially, like he's my psychiatrist or something. I don't tell him the whole truth, that I never really felt all that sad as my family was literally ripped apart. That I haven't felt sympathetic for any of them, except Buddy. 

My mom may have been freaking insane, but she was a person.

My dad was even crazier, but he was also a person.

My sister was definitely a whore, yet she was still a person.

So why don't I feel bad? I feel guilty about not feeling bad, but I don't actually care. Not really. That's what sickens me the most. Nothing can describe the absolute disgust that feels like it's literally eating through my soul. My insides churn, an intestinal hurricane. I wish I had more food left in my stomach so I could just throw up and be done with it.

I lean my head back against the plaster of the tall desk looming above me. Deep breath. I close my eyes. Deep breath. I wait another moment before daring to take a sip of Kobe's water. Deep breath. I swallow hard and try not to focus so much on breathing. The worst that I can do is maybe pass out, which sounds pretty good to me. 

Kobe is watching me carefully. He hasn't left my side for twenty minutes. I don't know what he's worried I'll do; I'm not moving for a while. I'm so tired but sleep evades me every time I close my eyes. So I sit. I sit and stare at one of the now-blank walls. There used to be pictures decorating the harsh grayness, but they lay in a mangled heap on the floorboards. Kobe tries to make small talk, but he only seems to want to talk about how everything was before. I nod politely along with his conversation, but I don't feel like digging the knife any deeper into my chest. 

"I was always super jealous of you. That's why I never tried to hang out with you and everybody. They all wanted to follow you around and do whatever you were doing. It was sad really, but I got jealous anyway. I hated you for a really long time," he says. This gets my attention. "Are you serious?" He shrugs. "That was a little bit of an exaggeration, but everyone always seemed to have plans with you." I shake my head. They way Kobe talks about me and my former 'friend group', you would think we were were the cool kids. (Okay, they were, but I never felt like I was.) I find this hard to believe, but I don't try and argue. Even if he is saying all that just to humor me, I let him because it feels good. 

"Rhys! Wake up!" I groan. The inside of my mouth tastes like, well...something I would never want to taste and don't feel comfortable describing. I wipe at my mouth, where dried puke still remains. Cringing, I splash a little water on my face and in my mouth. Kobe appears right in my face, dark eyes huge and glinting. "I think it's happening again," he says around heavy, ragged gasps. From the looks of it, he must have just woken up as well. Panic pierces through my sleepy haze. "Then we gotta go," I shout. 

"Where, genius?"

"I don't know, just not here."

"Look, if this building already survived the first wave and the aftershocks, I'd say it's probably got a better chance of holding up than anything else we might find on such short notice."

"Or it could be weaker," I say, but my protests are doing me little good. I honestly don't feel like running around, dodging fault lines and falling buildings. Plus it's dark out now, so we'd probably be dead within minutes. Kobe starts to roll his eyes but freezes, cocking his head like a curious animal. "Come on," he says, dragging me up from my sitting position. I scramble to get my feet beneath my rapidly moving body. With most of my clothes (including my shoulder) and both of our bags gripped in his fists, Kobe drags me along. "I found this earlier, not long after you fell asleep," he says, ducking down through a small door. 

I follow him down a short staircase, shivering as a cold blast of underground air bites through my thick layers of clothing and straight through to my bones. "What is it?" I ask lamely. Kobe shrugs. "I think a cellar or something. I have no idea what this place used to be, but it looks kind of like a zombie bunker or something," he says. "I'm going to go with 'or something'," I mutter.

The basement cellar-thing is actually bigger than the building up above, a big sprawling expanse of smooth white concrete. There are no windows. Actually, there's not much of anything. It's just a big empty room that's cold as hell. Well, not actual hell, but you know what I mean. Kobe kneels down on the cement and starts unpacking both of our belongings. Luckily we were both smart enough to bring sleeping bags, although I doubt they'll do much good in this cold. But it beats sleeping on the floor. 

There's a large shelter-like structure in the darkest corner of the room that's also made out of concrete. Kobe shuffles everything into the little cave thing, minus any sharp or potentially sharp objects. Those he leaves far away in the opposite corner. I just kick off my shoes and socks (because who the heck sleeps in socks?) and crawl into my chilly sleeping bag. If death were a state of living I'd certainly qualify at the moment. I'm starving but scared to eat and waste any more food. So I just wait it out. After a while I hear kobe join me in the shelter. He sits on his own sleeping bag in the farthest point away from me. Probably worried I'll puke again. 

Not that I can blame him. I feel as disgusted with myself as he does with the thought of me spewing all over him. 

Some people find comfort in darkness. I am not one of those people. In fact I feel more terrified than ever because the obsolete dark reminds me of hiding under my bed. 

Worrying about my family. 

Worrying about them dying.

But they're dead now, and I'm still worrying.

For completely different reasons.