Falling Skies

Twenty Four

The night sky floats above the meager group as they continue their trek through the cloak of darkness. The blank, starless atmosphere rippling across the horizon ever stretching before them.

The blues and blacks muddle together crashing upon one another like waves, a faint yellow-white haze peeking out of the shadow of the trees, illuminating the endless depths of the sky above them.

Staring into these waves, tracing each stroke of color with trailing red eyes, its the one minuscule task that keeps Wren calm, grounded as he leads the way for the group. There's still a slight ringing in his ears, a dull pain thumping in the back of his skull where December had crashed a rock upon him. It was quick thinking, and enough to get Wren to detach from Ryder's thigh, but that doesn't make the residual pain hurt any less.

The calm that rides the night air shifts with the sound of a body drawing near. The comfortable silence that had snuck upon them now feels foreign in wake of Ryder's voice pressed to Wren's back.

"You know you can't avoid me forever." Ryder sighs, matching his limping strides to Wren's quickening pace.

They haven't seen much of each other since the incident. Yet then again, they haven't had much time to. December had insisted that the group keep moving, the natural leader within him awakening from its short-lived slumber to keep the lives of all four boys in tact.

If something were to happen between Ryder and Wren the balance of the group could be tipped too far to straighten out again, leaving nothing but a bloodbath in its wake.

Wren merely tilts his head towards the night sky, the act small and serene as the remnants of moonlight cast a bright glow that illuminates his features. "What do you want me to say?" He chokes out, eyes never leaving the depths above.

Absentmindedly, his hands find their way to the back of his hair, a finger twirling around a white-blonde curl as an excuse to avoid further contact. "I wanted to kill you, Ryder. And not just that, I wanted to destroy you. All I could think about was your blood on my body and how I wanted more of it-" Before he can continue his eyes hastily squeeze shut, weakly attempting to force out the thoughts he still struggles to keep at bay.

"You couldn't control it." Ryder's hand falls on Wren's shoulder, the material of his sweatshirt smooth against the bandages wrapped tight around his palms. When Wren doesn't respond he merely sighs, pulling his hand away and sticking it deep within his worn pockets. "I'm not going to let you tear yourself apart over something you can't change."

Wren carries on in clouded silence, the sound of his feet landing against the grass the only sign that he's still with them in the blinding night. "You know I used to watch the moon when I was a child?" His voice pipes out of nowhere, Ryder's head snapping to attention at the frail chime.

"I would stare at it outside my bedroom window and listen to the woods coming to life. I thought being out here would bring me that same peace." By now his words are hardly heard, just a whisper struggling to escape his lips as he draws his waif body in on itself, holding himself close against the slight breezes. "But now it just reminds me of everything I had and lost. I had a whole life, Ryder."

He turns to face the boy beside him, plum eyes becoming lost in the cimmerian night before falling towards the forest floor. Even if only for a short moment Ryder can feel the pain that radiates off of him. Small tears threatening to well at Wren's eyes though he hastily wipes them away before Ryder can notice.

"It's painful..." Wren sniffs, wiping away a stray tear that manages to escape. "and did you know that in my world time is different?" He sarcastically laughs the sentence away but the pain remains, a bitter residue caught on his tongue as he forcefully shrugs it away. "I was gone for three human months but over there?" He gestures ahead of them. "Over there it could have been fifty years that I was gone."