FREEFALLING

14

I kept my head down, looking at the intricacy of my rifle as I did anything in my power to keep my eyes off the rest of the world. I was sitting in the Cafeteria, and I was waiting quite frankly for the next Charleston boss with a gun by his side to come tell me that no weapons were allowed out of the armory except for missions, but I didn't care. I couldn't find it in me to care for much of anything anymore, because everyone was still thrown off by the controversy of the new alien landing. They looked different, and I hadn't heard anything through my spikes which meant that they were most likely unrelated to the Skitters. 

I was terrified to admit that I was afraid of anything, and still find it funny how such a controversial statement can be so true. 

"You alright, Fae?" Ben asked as he slid onto the bench beside me. 

"You can't play that card, Ben." 

"What card?" he furrowed his brow, keeping his expression even. 

"The card where everyone's supposed to be alright. There is not only one, or two, but three species of aliens on this goddamn planet. It's sickening, and I don't feel safe here anymore." 

"As opposed to feeling safe before?" he inquired. I shot him a look in response to that comment, and he quickly raised his hands in surrender. "Just playing Devil's Advocate."

"Part of me thinks the Devil just materialized, Ben. Do you know what the rest of camp is saying?"

"Well the 2nd Mass is still an outsider here, and Charleston is still living in a state of daisies and butterflies. This sure as hell shook them up, and it had every right to." 

"I just need this to stop." 

"Need what to stop?" A thick coat of worry was surrounding his words, because he knew I was referring to much more than the controversy of survival between the 2nd Mass and Charleston. 

"A lot of things, Ben. The invasion never really caught up to me the first few months, you know. Now it's what, almost two years? We don't keep track of the months anymore, time was the only thing we knew as a constant but when's the last time you saw a working clock? We've been thrown back into so much less than who we were. Electricity isn't a prized gift anymore, it's a red flag to get yourself killed. At least once a day there's been a do-or-die moment for everyone. I lost my boyfriend, I lost my sister, and I've almost lost you more than once. It gets to be a lot, is all, and I don't know how much longer I can handle this until I break." 

"Break?" his voice cracked, and I felt the tears near my eyes. 

"I'm like this glass vase. I've been kicked off the counter and saved so many times but I'm still left on the edge of the table, and eventually things will catch up to me. When I finally do fall, it's the drawn out end that you know is coming. You know that you're going to shatter into a million pieces, and you also know that once that happens, the only thing left is to throw you away. But you watch that vase fall anyway, you watch it fall to its imminent ending, and that's where the pent-up anxiety hits the hardest. We're all glass vases, Ben. Some of us just fall faster to the ground than others." 

"You're right." He kept his gaze ahead at the bustling cafeteria, but I knew he was deep in thought.

"I am?" I asked.  

"You're always right, Fae, I can't think of a time when you haven't been. But think about it. When that vase falls, there's that 2% chance that it won't break. You hope it will land on the carpet instead of the hardwood floor, or that there will just be a chip in it but the entirety will still survive. That 2%, that's what we are. Hope is so much stronger than fear, Fae, you should know that by now. But you are right. You can choose to accept the fact that one day, you will crash and shatter into a million pieces, or you can hope to land on carpet instead of the hardwood floor." 

That night, I slept on the carpet.