Into the Void

Chap #10 - Expressing Demons

"~ A message written in blood-red ~"

Around two hours pass in uneventful walking. A soft breeze brushes loose strands of fiery red hair into my face. Our steps are muffled by a damp layer of leaves resting on the ground. An earthy smell reaches my nose and I inhale deeply.

We have been silent the whole time. Ella and I are used to silence. It's always been how we worked, as not to attract unwanted visitors. So we're both startled when James makes an attempt at conversation.

"So... what's your story?" He seems uncomfortable with the quiet. I glance at Ella questionably. Should we tell him our backstory? She looks as unsure as I feel, so I decide to learn more about him before I reveal anything about us. I turn to him, raising my chin and fixing him with the most contemptuous glance I can muster.

"What's yours?" He doesn't seem fazed, but nods silently. His lips are pursed. My eyes hesitate on them a beat longer than necessary.

"How did I know you were going to demand something of the sort?" His mouth quirks in half a smile.

A minute of silence passes. Just as I don't think he's going to actually answer, words begin to spill out of his mouth.

"I come from a big family. All brothers but one." His head is down, his chocolate-brown hair hanging down so I can't see his face. "They were all younger than me but Alec, the oldest.  He's, was, twenty-six. Mom and Dad had been together since they met, and mum only had one ex. He watched our family a lot but otherwise stayed to himself. Mom was pretty distant, never really all there. She used to burst out with random Italian spouts of language - most of my extended family's Italian," he explained. I can almost hear the smile on in his voice, the remembrance. "But my siblings and I are all from further South.

"Anyway, Dad was the level-headed one. The family pretty much fell apart entirely when he... When he left. One night, all of us had just gotten home from school. The outbreak had just happened, and we were among the few who still ventured out of our houses during the day. We came through the door, locked it like we were supposed to, and only opened it at five o'clock to let Mom in when she got home from work. Then she locked it up again.

"We all thought that it was kind of strange that Dad wasn't home from work yet. He usually got home around seven, but by eight o'clock there was still no sign of him. We had rigged a special knock, to make sure we weren't letting in just anybody, and it was a really long one. It took me about a full minute to knock. By the time Dad got home from work, it was late. It was around nine, but everyone had stayed up, waiting and worrying. I saw him first, through the window, and ran to open it. It was already dark by then, though, and Mom was paranoid. She wouldn't let me open the door. She insisted we wait for the long knock, but somehow I knew that Dad didn't have enough time for that. Sure enough, I heard a scuffle outside and the next time I looked out the window I saw nothing but the swirling snow." He takes a deep, shuddering breath, craning his neck to look up at the dull grey sky. Clouds are gathering overhead, clumping together in swirls and dark, chaotic shapes. It matches the mood of the story perfectly.

"I was going to be an engineer," he continues, after a brief pause. "I had just figured out what I wanted to be when the outbreak started. When we saw the reporters out in the streets, we all thought it would be over by the end of the month. It was Science class. It was a dark day, a storm was rolling in. That was when the voids broke in." He pauses and I'm not sure if he'll continue.

"How did you get out?" I whisper tentatively, prodding a little. He has his head lowered and his messy, unruly hair falls into his face.

"Not my school..." he trails off, and his voice cracks. "My siblings elementary school. The teachers wouldn't let me go help." He lifts his head a fraction and I realize that there are tears dripping down his cheeks. It's not judgement that makes me surprised, but I haven't been around boys much in the past few years, and the ones I have haven't been anything like him. "Their school is right across from ours. Literally across the road. About five steps to the door of Science class, ten to the exit, another ten across the yard, ten across the road... I could've gotten there in a minute." He turns to me and gives me a wry smile, "I was on all the sports teams, the Cross Country team. It would've been just like the fifty-meter sprint. I could've saved them.