Wolf Heart

Chapter 42

JAMES

White noise danced in his ears. It sang with the endless pain in his chest. It intensified with meaningless moments. He coughed. Once. Twice. Unending. He rolled over onto his side, head burning when he brushed his fingers across the pillow, using his other hand to rub his chest to soothe the sensations. He shivered when the coughing fit subsided, and listened to the voices below. Words he failed to grasp through the walls.

He meant nothing.

James sat up and held his stomach. He sat there in silence and fought to ignore the hush of heat whispering through the shutters of the window. If I open them... Buildings crumbled to dust. Trees, crisp and burnt.

He never opened his window or the shutters. He left himself to the gentle light of the room which failed to calm him. Under the covers, he fiddled with the corners of the fabric, waiting for another unwanted visitor. She's going to resort to checking up on me more. What's the point?

His datacam collected dust.

His notepad, unwritten in.

All his stories. All his dreams.

Gone.

Warmth washed through his blood, and he shivered. Nausea blasted against his temples. She's going to give up sometime, right?

Nothing but a tree turned fireball, crumbling to wood bone, whose skin sizzled, blistered, and burned. Bloody moments frozen in his mind. James crawled closer to the edge of the bed, where Mrs. Falae placed a bucket after his last expulsion of seared images.

It never came back up.

He slumped into the pillow with a huff. He rubbed the bones in his fingers and pressed his cheek further into the mattress when footsteps sounded outside the door.

"James?" Mrs. Falae asked.

He found no strength through his pain to answer her call.

"Your condition is getting worse."

He ignored her.

"I'm having a doctor pay a house visit and to talk to you," Mrs Falae said. "James, I don't want to force you to take Medis, but it's gotten to the point that you're hurting yourself." Her footsteps inched closer to the bed. "I suggest you listen to what they have to say."

"There's no point," he mumbled, hoarse. "What would they talk about with me?" Embers laced through his throat and lungs. "Eastpoint? Don't care. Feelings? Don't care. Pain?" He turned over to glare at her. "You should've left me underneath that tree, and then I wouldn't be feeling it."

"You would've died, James."

James tucked into the blankets. "It's better than what you've left me."

He sat there and recalled every moment of his friends and classmates.

Jon. Katie. Yvonne.

His family.

Mom, Janie... Ava...

Tears swelled in his eyes.

Rayan.

Gone, save for Meryn, who refused to leave him too.

He took deep, pained breaths through his nose and waited for nothing. Stomach overturned, he flattened himself onto his back and returned to his staredown with the roof. Everytime he blinked, time sped past. James scowled and choked his blanket shield. Hands on his chest, his ribs caved in.