The Shelter

Part 2 - The Black Canvas

oo-oo

A black canvas. A brand new black canvas for Karma to splatter her colours on.

She chose a neon palette. The vibrant colours called to her as if to celebrate the fact that she could live a bright and happy life. She'd recently had gotten an invite to a nearby art school through a showcase and she couldn't believe her luck. It felt as if her heart was being squeezed too tightly as if her excitement was coming out of every single pore on her body. She felt invincible, a bird flying through the sky, free to choose any direction she pleased. She couldn't believe someone had seen her black canvas dotted with paint and hours of dedication, had seen into her bare soul through her painting and decided she was worthy enough, that she had enough talent to make it in the real world. She couldn't believe that her six-year-old self had managed to go from stick figures to being invited to an actual art school.

This was proof that it wasn't just a hobby. She could actually get into a good school, find a job, and use her passion as her career. She was so lucky. And so incredibly happy. She had proved everyone who believed in her that thanks to them, she finally did it.

She grabbed the brightest yellow paint she found and let herself go wild.

xx-xx

Pandora eventually soldiered on.

She locked herself in their bunker's bathroom for a day, until they had to break it open because she had to eat and they couldn't let her be selfish when they also needed to use the space. She'd gone mute for days, not speaking to anyone. They'd assigned someone to her when she'd tried to go back to the Ghost town the morning after they came back. She'd thrown a tantrum and had almost caught the attention of an X, but luckily Oberon had managed to drag her back in quickly, and they'd brought her to the furthest room underground, praying that the X's wouldn't hear her scream murder.

Spencer had slapped some sense into her, literally. Out of all of them, he understood how losing a brother felt. Karma had left them alone to talk it out, and when Pandora came back out, she had bloodshot eyes, but she was silent and she immediately asked Oberon to switch to helping the medics instead of going on scouting missions.

Spencer never left Pandora's side after that, except for missions. It seemed he'd forgiven her for the knife wound, and she'd latched onto him after she lost Hail. Karma could only wish that she had anyone left that she loved. The Shelter was the closest thing she could call a family, but it wasn't the same. No-one would die for her. Just as she wouldn't die for anyone. They were all scared to death, hoping that they would still be breathing in a few hours, and they all wanted to make it out alive.

Karma threw herself at any and every mission. She just wanted to find a portal and go far, far, away from here.

They lost one more person in two weeks.

And in the month after that, three.

They lost three of the bodies to the X's and managed to salvage one. The last one, they found in the bathroom, gun laying innocently on the ground surrounded by a puddle of crimson, a note left on the counter reading 'SAVE ONE PERSON: YOURSELF'. When Karma heard the news, she laughed at the irony. That same girl had been rescued a few days earlier from an X's grasp. She'd complained about her System malfunctioning since the experience. Karma guessed she couldn't handle the trauma and had left the world of the living by her own hand. How Karma wished her spot could've been given to one of the others that had fought to their last breath, someone who had actually wanted to live, to survive, to make it through that goddamn portal.

Even when Karma laughed hysterically, she wondered why it still hurt. Why after everything that happened, she was still feeling. She wished she could fall asleep and wake up the next day in her own bed, with her mor singing loudly in the kitchen, her brother jumping up and down on her bed, too hyper for seven in the morning, and her momma opening her curtains, laughing at the two siblings.

But they were all dead, and she was left here, alone and afraid. And she was standing there, watching as they threw another limp body into the garbage dump they'd found, the smell burning her nose, and her heart heavy in her chest, still not ready to say goodbye to the dead.

Karma always thought they called towns infested with X's Haunted towns because the machines roamed the streets with their moans and groans, but Karma realised they called them Haunted towns because the dead never really did leave. They stayed, what was left of their decaying bodies and lives forever in that small corner of the world.

She told her momma that, the next time she visited her, and when she got no reply, she knew she didn't need one. Karma knew that her mom's ghost was going to wander here forever, endlessly bemoaning what happened to her, even though Karma couldn't see her, and that was enough of an answer.