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Futuristic ᴇɢᴏ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ

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I.III - Home Is Where the Heart Is New
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    • Helen held her breath for a moment, her heart squeezing painfully,
    as her brained searched for the right way to interpret the picture in front of her. In a flash, she consider whether to pretend to be asleep or to stand up and curse him—to curse the sonuvabitch who had just walked through the door for everything he’d ever done to her, to yell at Marie to go get Dad so he could finally show that the promise that he’d kill this asshole the next time he set foot in this house held any sort of water.

    But she realized, in another instant, as the man cracked his joints, that the voice wasn’t Deron’s, that this man had the face of her ex-husband but the body of a man—a man who himself dove in and worked and lifted and tore and ripped and shattered and carved callouses like trophies into his palms. She let out her breath, but her heart didn’t release its squeeze; confusion worked its way into her brow.

    What the hell was Rupert doing in her house…?

    She sat up slowly, with great effort, the baby kicking in her stomach.

    “Oh yes, you can wash up,” Marie said, surely as an answer to some question that Rupert had asked. “I won’t keep you from doing that.”

    "Deron had me ripping floorboards while he and the kid were going on about how this abandoned neighborhood was too 'quiet' and 'suspicious'. Can you believe that?" Rupert said.

    Helen’s ears latched onto the sound of her ex-husband’s name. The name—no, it was really more of a word, an insult at this point rather than a name—was taboo, muttered only in hushed whispers by Marie into the ears of Kurt like some sort of indecent conversation. It sickened her to her stomach, especially hearing it come from Rupert’s mouth.

    Again, what the hell was he doing in her house?

    Rupert made some comment to Marie about beauty sleep, his characteristic grin settling itself naturally on his face, but Helen was focused on his body language, on the movements that he was making, on reminding herself, as her heart still throbbed from the shock of it all, that this wasn’t—wasn’t him, wasn’t that bastard, wasn’t…wasn’t, wasn’t…

    Marie made some sort of gesture to show him Carter’s room, and then she smiled tightly—fakely; that bitch, everything was always fake with her. “Well, wash up and sleep whenever you please. I’m going to go to bed now. I do need that beauty sleep, actually, so I’m going to get right to it. I hope you sleep well, though, Rupert.”

    Marie ducked into her bedroom and shut the door, and for a few moments, the only sound that filled the air was the tick-tick-tick of the broken clock on Helen’s wall.

    Tick-tick-tick; she could see him through the doorway.

    With a deep sigh, her heart trembling in her chest, fingers sticky with sweat, she shifted to the end of the bed. Placing her hands on either side of herself and grunting with great effort, she pushed herself up off of her bed. It took her a long moment—much longer than usual—to find her footing; the baby kicked in her stomach.

    Goddamn it; she could cry now. Every time she checked, she could see less and less of her stupid feet—stupid, stupid, stupid.

    Breathless now, she looked out of her doorway at the figure.

    Rupert, Rupert—stupid effing Rupert.

    Helen, drawn by morbid curiosity and perhaps something else, sighed and crossed her arms over her stomach in an attempt to make her bump less obvious, squared her shoulders, and then padded across the floor to stand in the splintered doorway. Her lips alternating between a flat, unamused line and a reluctant smile, she asked, “Did you take the wrong turn, dumbass?”










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    • Warm candlelight brushed against Rupert's cheek.
    Its pulsating glow ignited a spark in his eyes that gleamed exuberantly as Marie took her leave. For a moment, he stood facing the end of the hall, perhaps deep in thought but more likely exhausted enough to zone completely for a few ticks of of the clock.

    Helen, in the process of heaving herself off the bed, was met with a quarter-turned glance, Rupert having failed to preemptively come up with an explanation for his presence. He hadn't really expected the need, nor want to, but one good look at the unease of the pregnant woman walking toward him slowly melted the eagerness from his eyes. Was he mistaken in assuming himself to be a welcome surprise?

    The doorway surrounded Helen like a picture frame. The woman's posture was better than his own, Rupert realized as his eyes swiftly bobbed up and down. “Did you take the wrong turn, dumbass?” she spoke at last, and it wasn't a joke. It was hard to ascribe a feeling to Helen's demeanor, though by now Rupert had to assume she wasn't thrilled.

    "Well, your stepmom says it's okay to sleep over and my mom always lets me stay out, so..." He punctuated his sarcasm with an innocent shrug. Rupert shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes searching Helen's face for any sign of acceptance or rejection. Now that they were face to face, he really wasn't sure what he was doing there anymore.

    And yet he didn't care. What is embarrassment if not a side effect of bravery? Assuming an immunity to the tension, Rupert advanced forward, placing himself in front of Helen so he could tower over her, but with a slack posture and a smile friendly enough to say "Hey, if I were Deron I'd be cross-armed and fretting over the vitamin D you're lacking, so consider yourself lucky." But that name had no relevance between either of them.

    He gave a small chuckle, first because of Helen's silence but then because of his own disbelief. "What, so you're mad at me now?" Beneath his breath was a smaller scoff that acknowledged the uselessness of the question's answer. Helen's eyes were looking puffy, but for all Rupert knew it was a pregnancy side effect. "What's the matter?"

    Tick-tick-tick...

    Rupert's brows creased suspiciously, Helen having already faded into a fuzzy blur as his attention latched onto the background of her bedroom. "Your clock isn't right," he observed, noting that the minute and second hands were mobile but the hour was far too early for what the bedside clock in the infirmary had stated earlier.

    With a pensive grunt, he slipped past the woman in the splintered doorway and toward the mechanical object. He lifted it with squinted eyes, its insides rattling from the disturbance like it had been roused from its dozing. "Working on a tight schedule these days?" he queried, willing her to laugh with an extended glance over the shoulder.

    Without asking, he popped the front and back off the clock, exposing the minute hands to the fresh air. "Here," he started, holding it at eye level while scrutinizing the placement of each hand. "The hour's caught on the minute. There's symbolism in that, pretty sure."

    Tough crowd.

    With a series of indelicate, but deliberate bends, twists, and turns, the clock was restored to some vague approximation of real time, as best as Rupert could surmise. Only time would tell if the clock would continue to behave, but the laborer was near-certain he had done something right. Held to his ear, the ticking sounded like it had improved.

    Having replaced the clock in its proper spot, Rupert took a shameless scan of Helen's bedroom. She was an enigma, that's for sure. His gaze lingered from object to object, memories flooding back of her tastes and preferences, and the people that had once filled her life like a colorful, crowded room. He met the woman's eyes once more, something else twinkling in his eyes and something more dancing on the edge of his tongue. "I like your jail cell," he said plainly, foregoing anything more provocative, "It's cozy."










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    “My stepmom?” Helen echoed,
    her brows knitting together in genuine confusion for a moment before she remembered: “Oh.” She clicked her tongue, adding a little “chh” sound afterward. “Mommy gave you permission? Good for you. Too bad it’s not kid’s school anymore. Sorry, buddy.” Her face and tone still found themselves lost at the intersection of Irritated, Confused, and Amused; under the gaze of Rupert—his intent gaze, focused on her face—she herself couldn’t settle on where to be, couldn’t decide on the answer to the question in his eyes.

    Rupert stepped forward, and she looked up at him. Instinctively, she straightened her posture into an offensive position, unable to shake her subconscious confusion of Rupert with someone else, someone too similar. She didn’t catch her subtle change in demeanor, only tucked the corners of her lips into themselves and pressed her lips into a flat line.

    Rupert chuckled. “What, so you’re mad at me now?”

    No response from Helen; there was a pause, a stillness in the air—a tension, some line stretched across the room around which scissors (which would have to go unused) hovered.

    After a long pause, Rupert: “What’s the matter?”

    What’s the matter?

    The question took her aback for a moment. She blinked. What’s the matter? he’d asked? You’re in my house. You’re in my house, and you’re stupid. You’re in my house, and you’re stupid, and you stink. You’re in my house, you’re stupid, you stink, and I want you out. You’re in my house, you’re stupid, you stink, I want you out, and I’m pregnant and I hate it and there’s a stupid effing baby in me are you kidding me you’re asking me what’s wrong seriously—

    Rupert’s eyes flicked to something over her shoulder, and his brows shifted into a suspicious expression; her brain tried to connect it to an expression of his twin’s, but she only momentarily played with that idea. “Your clock isn’t right.”

    “It’s fine,” she said instinctively; the baby kicked her stomach, and she realized that she’d at some point uncrossed her arms; she, with a distasteful expression, recrossed her arms over her stomach as though cradling herself.

    Helen made to step in Rupert’s way, but he quickly made it past her and into her room.

    “Hey!” she hissed, stepping after him and grabbing his shoulder, but he’d already taken the clock from the wall. She stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest now. “Didn’t the old hag tell you not to touch other people’s—“

    “Working on a tight schedule these days?” he asked, glancing over her shoulder.

    She cocked up an eyebrow. “You’re so silly,” she said sarcastically, but she cracked a small smile in spite of herself.

    Pop! Though the clock made a soft sound, the noise echoed in the still air.

    “Rupert,” she said—and saying his name made her halt for a moment— “Rupert, seriously? Are you just going to?”

    “Here.” He lifted the clock up to eye level. “The hour’s caught on the minute. There’s symbolism in that, pretty sure.”

    She raised her eyebrows and let out a chuckle. “Wow, someone’s been learning new words. Did you finally learn to read something without pictures in it? You know…”

    But she trailed off as she watched him work. Expert hands, though they seemed clunky, chunky, and oafish, found the delicate parts of the clock, turning them with a gentle sort of care. She didn’t know what a single one of those parts did—she had never been mechanically minded—yet Rupert twisted, nudged, and adjusted with his bare fingertips as though the clock were as easy to fix as shoes were to untie.

    His muscles…

    She blinked when he moved to replace the clock. She stepped back, startled from the spot in her mind, and watched him carefully replace it—before taking a scan of her room, his eyes jumping from object to object.

    She tensed, a scolding hesitating on her tongue, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she watched his eyes—watched them jump from her jar of buttons to her stack of dusty books to the World Atlas splayed out on her floor to her pile of dirty laundry to the paintings she’d done on odd objects to the paint with which she’d made them, around to the other clutter here and there, a million dirty clothes, a thousand tiny trinkets, all stacked in odd places and hanging on and off of each other like a mosaic (or a hoarder’s home, whichever one you would prefer).

    She felt a slight embarrassment for the mess for the first time. She opened her mouth to apologize.

    His eyes caught hers; she quieted.

    “I like your jail cell,” he said. “It’s cozy.”

    She cracked a grin. “Like what I did with the place?” She gestured particularly to the dirty laundry, then she gestured aimlessly at the air. “I figured that it was my personal hell, so why not make it…personal?” She shrugged. “I’m nothing if not optimistic, right?” She grinned. “Well, realistic—…“ Shake of the head. “Well, pessimistic…but same difference, right?”

    She paused to chuckle a moment, then sighed deeply, lowering herself on the end of her bed; the baby kicked again, and she grimaced, but she quickly tried to play it off. “Splinters in the effing bed,” she said, again trying to cover up her stomach. “This whole house is so…”

    Her eyes fell to Rupert’s shoes. A smile spread across her lips. “Damn, kid,” she laughed, her eyes moving up to his face.

    Her joke was lost on her lips.

    Tick…tick…tick…

    Symbolism. Tch.

    She broke eye contact. “Thanks for clock,” she said to fill the air, drawing in a deep breath, and then she shook her head, closed her eyes, tried again, “Fixing my clock. Damn thing broke this morning. Or maybe it was yesterday. I dunno.” She opened her eyes, but she didn’t let her gaze meet his. “But seriously, Ru—“ But that nickname felt too personal, brought up too many memories. “—pert…”

    She looked up at him, cocking her head, a melancholy, long look in her eyes. “What are you doing here? It’s not like you want to check on me. Why are you here?”










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    There was no bite in Helen's words.
    Maybe there was supposed to be; in fact, Rupert had surmised that the intent of her remarks was to be cutting and distant. But she wavered. Her smile, though fleeting, shone through an exterior hardened by conditions that were more than just medical.

    She could fight it, but Rupert knew what he needed to know.

    Helen swung an arm in the direction of a laundry pile, that waggish grin back again. “Like what I did with the place?” Rupert withheld any nods, but he did smile. It was the open kind, breathily emitting a cross between a chuckle and a scoff. “I figured that it was my personal hell, so why not make it…personal?” The two shrugged at once, a strong air of understanding settling between them.

    “I’m nothing if not optimistic, right?” Rupert shrugged again. “Well, realistic—…“ No, not quite. “Well, pessimistic…but same difference, right?" The correction meant little. Perhaps Deron would have had a laugh at the distinction. Their banter, however feeble, served as a feeble diversion from the unspoken weight of the situation—the elephant and the unborn child in the room.

    Seated on the edge of her bed, red staining her outer eyes like a smudge of lipstick, she seemed to have totally succumbed to her melancholia. "Splinters in the effing bed. This house is so..." Morose eyes fell to the floor, then lifted back up to rest upon Rupert's unrevealing face. "Damn, kid."

    Rupert felt a pang of pain in his heart at the sight of Helen's lament, as did it sink as his understanding deepened. He had half a mind to bring up his own hardships, how his bedroom was definitely smaller than this and how, after all this time, she was still the only one between them with anyone to come home to—as if the life inside her wasn't enough company. But the inclination didn't surface, and he found no satisfaction in the idea.

    He didn't know this woman anymore. She was almost as much of a stranger as the child in that bump on her belly she'd been trying to hide, and chances were he'd be made to be even more of a stranger come a few months time. Against all reason, it tore at his soul. He had no right, and yet it was impossible to take. So he said nothing, thinking himself better off with a held tongue when Helen sat so vulnerable and uncertain.

    "Thanks for clock," she said to cut through the silence, her eyes darting in another direction. Almost immediately, she drew a breath, shook her head, and corrected, "Fixing my clock. Damn thing broke this morning. Or maybe it was yesterday. I dunno."

    Was she anxious? Rupert shook his head and raised a hand, feigning ignorance to it. "Don't mention it." About a thousand things weren't being said. And it wasn't because Rupert didn't want to, but because he hadn't a clue where to start. Intermittently he found Helen's gaze, which seemed to be searching for something in his own—an answer, a connection.

    Again she spoke, "But seriously Ru...pert..." Blinking twice, swallowing his shame, Rupert looked her head on. Worn and beaten-down and unmistakably hopeless, there remained in his unflinching surface a twinge of give, like a house of cards standing tall but just as easily dismantled by a gentle breeze.

    "What are you doing here?" Helen continued, not a hint of chill or warmth to be found, "It’s not like you want to check on me. Why are you here?”

    Rupert took a long, quiet breath. "You wouldn't believe me if I said that's why." There was evading the intensity of the look Helen was giving, not for any amount of desire to do anything but meet her sincerity with everything he had. Her sadness compelled him, pleading for the honest answer her pride wasn't willing to cry for.

    Instinctively he glanced at the bedroom door, stepping back with a creaking footstep to slowly, gingerly shut it. And then their staring contest resumed, the lump in Rupert's throat swelling while he ran his tongue over his teeth, ruminating. Voice reduced to a gravelly murmur, he said again, "You wouldn't believe me. You'd probably tell me to go to hell and get out, and then I do, and you say I'm just like Deron even though you know I'm really not."

    Being around her, Rupert had come to realize, was exactly like opening an old bullet wound, except it couldn't be that old because there Helen was, leaning back with a swollen belly and cursing the condition she'd found herself in despite the so-called miracle it was. But it hardly seemed a miracle up close. There lingered all of their unspoken regret, embodying itself in a few muttered words.

    "I don't know why I came." Rupert's frustration began to seep through. He opened and closed his mouth, shaking his head, his body conveying more than any eloquent sentence ever could. He spun to face the door, hesitating. "Like it isn't complicated enough. I just—" Rupert was starting to get frustrated now. He would open and close his mouth then shake his head, his body telling more than any proper sentence available. "Marie invited me over, who fuckin' knows why, and I—"

    He let out a sigh, meekly returning his gaze to the owner of the room he had entirely invaded. "I wanted to see it myself, Hel." At this point Rupert had stopped facing the door, mere inches from the foot of the bed. He squatted down despite his achy joints and looked upward at her, something frantic and inexplicable in his clouded stare. He would only break eye contact to glance at Helen's stomach, the beat of life within somehow sending nervous waves throughout his body.

    "Did we do this?"










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    With the door shut, the only light left in the room was
    that of a flame flickering on the wick of a single lavender-scented candle and its reflection; it was enough to fill the room with a gentle orange glow. The shadows caused by the candle cut dark triangles into their faces now, giving both of them dour-seeming expressions. Rupert’s eyes glinted orange.

    “You wouldn't believe me,” Rupert said at last. “You'd probably tell me to go to hell and get out, and then I do, and you say I'm just like Deron even though you know I'm really not."

    A burning entered Helen’s veins at that name. There were several sentences that hovered on the edge of her tongue, but she bit her tongue, scrutinizing the details of Rupert’s face, though there was an angry sort of ache in her chest—coming from somewhere that she could not tell.

    “I don’t know why I came.” He made some sort of motion, a frustrated turn of his head, a turn around, an open and close of the mouth. "Like it isn't complicated enough. I just—" His body stammered for him; was he nervous? He paused. "Marie invited me over, who fuckin' knows why, and I—"

    None of those were answers; Helen’s veins felt tight in her wrists, and her lungs trembled inside of her chest. God, was she nervous? What was she nervous for?

    Rupert sighed, then turned his head to face her. For a long moment, he said nothing, and Helen said nothing, and with everything inside of her, she tried to read what was in Rupert’s eyes—read what he was going to say without him having to say it.

    She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to see him here now.

    And yet, everything within her anticipated his words—angrily, anxiously, impatiently, reluctantly, eagerly…

    What is it?

    “I wanted to see it myself, Hel.”

    Tick-tick-tick; she could not move.

    Rupert, near to the foot of her bed, squatted down; everything within Helen was frozen, her expression static on her face. Bile burned at her esophagus, threatening to rise higher. Her hand halted on her stomach.

    She could see herself in his eyes; she could see herself in his eyes—his begging, nervous eyes, his eyes that asked a million questions, a million questions that wanted to come out.

    Finally, one did.

    “Did we do this?"

    And all at once, she was back. Back to a few months ago, before she knew she was pregnant, being interrogated by her ex-husband as to why she refused to ever do this thing or that thing. Back to a year before that, talking to the same man as he put on his clothes, asking her what was holding her back, why she wouldn’t just come back to him, why they couldn’t just try again. All the times in-between, too; back to all of those times in-between—and before, all the way back to staring at her husband angry, screaming, demanding to know who and when and where—wanting a list, begging for answers, yelling that she was a whore, pleading with her to go and change the fact that she was, to reverse some sort of history, as though he gave a single shit about her; bending down to help him, having her hand smacked away, hearing him demand to know when it all started—when and who and how and what and did you and did I and did we and did and why and why and why and why and—

    “You’re just like him.” The words were hurt, but her expression was empty, unmoved, and there was an odd emptiness to her tone. “You want something out of this. You want some sort of answer. You want something from me to take back with you.”

    None of those sentences had been questions, but they hadn’t been answers, either.

    She drew in a deep breath, closing her eyes, letting the melancholy feeling of met expectations to wash over her. “Ru,” she said finally, and she looked down at him, “don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.”

    For a long moment, she closed her eyes, listening to the tick-tick-tick of the clock. Finally, she scooted to the very edge of the bed, letting just her bare toes touch the ground, then her soles, before putting her full weight on them and raising herself from the bed. For the first time since seeing Rupert, she fully uncrossed her stomach; for the first time since telling her father, she said: “I’m pregnant.”

    She caught a view of herself in the mirror to the left of Rupert, and she felt sickened. She looked like a phantom; long, messy hair in in her face, dark eyes glinting orange and underlined by sleeplessness, purple nightgown conformed to the shape of the lump on her abdomen.

    She let out a short, bitter laugh, her face still expressionless and unmoved. “This is what you came for, isn’t it?” She draped her hands at her side. “To see if the rumors were true. Well, they are. It’s not really all that exciting—or is it, for you to think that ‘we did this’, or that ‘we’ didn’t?”

    Tears pricked at her eyes. “I’ve turned into some fucking bug on a pinboard—you wonder why I lock myself in this room? It’s because of assholes like you—assholes who can’t just let me be, but have to ask and won't just stop fucking asking for once—won't put themselves in someone else's goddamn shoes and shut the hell up.”

    She shook her head, looking down at Rupert. “You say you’re different, Rupert. Different than…” She shook her head again, unable to bring herself to even say his name. “But you come here, and you stay down there…” With pain and effort, she lowered herself to sit, one leg crossed, beside Rupert on the floor. She lifted her eyes to his, and, though she wanted to sound angry in her next words, she only barely managed to whisper, “And you prove that you’re the same.”

    Their bodies were so close. The baby kicked. The air was still.

    Tick-tick-tick…










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    Rupert stared at Helen, his eyes flickering with a melancholy, orange glow.
    Her gaze held a dagger against his throat, choking the air out of his windpipe as a rush of anticipation and anguish surged up his spine. "You're just like him." Her words cut deep, and Rupert could feel the weight of his own expectations crashing down around him.

    “You want something out of this."

    No, I don't.

    "You want some sort of answer."

    I didn't say that.

    "You want something from me to take back with you.”

    That isn't true, you lying...!

    Little by little, the strength in Rupert's knees began to dwindle, his eyes sinking from the woman in front of him down to his hands, and then the floor. He held his breath, his head pounding as the world was plunged underwater. The pressure was maddening, while only one sound persisted: the metronomic rhythm to his own insanity.

    Tick-tick-tick...

    “Ru,” she said, accompanied by the familiar feeling of eyes atop his skull, “don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.”

    He had no response, content to let Helen hurtle whatever finishing blow she had in store for him. Second by second, a clearer image was painted over the delusions he'd manifested before entering the godforsaken house. This house, he could see now, was no welcome place for him. Not in any realm of thought.

    "You don't know what I want," Rupert said, unsteady voice laced with quiet resignation. He peered upward to find Helen on her feet, feeling ridiculous to have been positioned the way he was now. Like some proud newlywed. Tch—as though he had any right to assume himself worthy of her. He could never have her. Heaving a sigh, he lowered himself off his crouch to the floor, elbows to his knees. Like a doll, his head hung low and lifeless.

    And then, just as the enduringly tense air urged him to excuse himself with the last of his dignity, the words finally left Helen's lips.

    "I'm pregnant."

    Obviously they had known at that point. Certainly this would be news to the whole group, but Rupert had his ways of knowing from what little bits of conversation he had gleaned off the others when he appeared too drunk to really retain a thing. But some things the man couldn't let go of. And wasn't that vague, inexplicable caring worth more than the nosy, calculating sense of duty that motivated Deron's actions?

    Couldn't Helen, of all people, understand the difference?

    Helen's eyes were across the room and her focus on another planet. Rupert's head, weighed down by the force of an invisible boulder, had managed to lift itself up and stay up. His eyes stayed fixed onto the woman's pregnant belly, devastation fracturing his face into a distant frown. “This is what you came for, isn’t it?” She let out a tragic laugh, arms dropped to her sides. “To see if the rumors were true. Well, they are. It’s not really all that exciting—or is it, for you to think that ‘we did this’, or that ‘we’ didn’t?”

    The shame burned in Rupert's stomach. He was helpless. His mouth, though hanging slightly open, failed to produce a sound, though the mere gasping croak sometimes breached the quietness between Helen's words. Words which had been stewing, if Rupert were to guess, far before he had ever stepped foot in that door.

    “I’ve turned into some fucking bug on a pinboard—you wonder why I lock myself in this room? It’s because of assholes like you—assholes who can’t just let me be, but have to ask and won't just stop fucking asking for once—won't put themselves in someone else's goddamn shoes and shut the hell up.”

    Rupert had stopped flinching at this point, as hard as it all was to take. “You say you’re different, Rupert. Different than…” She wouldn't say his name. What was her aim? To erase him from her life? To erase everyone?

    “But you come here, and you stay down there…” Gradually she lowered herself to sit beside Rupert, causing him to recoil slightly. Weakly, she whispered, “And you prove that you’re the same.”

    He felt sick. Probably not as sick as Helen was, but it was making him dizzy. Already stupefied by everything else, he shook his head, as all he had to offer her was speechless desperation. Whatever part he had in this—which is really what he wanted to know—none of it was good. Though he felt all the more blind to the circumstances, that end he understood.

    And, unfairly, he was angry. He was hurt, and he was forlorn, and he was angry at the role he was in. His existence amidst this, to say the least, had managed to complicate a relationship and a situation far beyond the scope of his own pathetic life. And how the hell was that fair to anyone?

    The only time Rupert and Deron had ever been compared was to point out a flaw, to give another reason why the twins were such a uniquely strange case. Why they were both broken, and yet how Rupert was the greater of two evils. He had no doubt in his mind that Helen knew her saying it would hurt him.

    "Deron," he murmured blankly after a considerable pause. A low chuckle rumbled from his chest as he gave an incredulous look at the woman whose body very nearly sat against his own. "Deron, Deron, Deron, Deron, Deron..." He started with a trancelike rhythm, gradually leaning into a more coarse, resentful tone. "Say his name. At least say his godforsaken name."

    Tick-tick-tick...

    Helen was misty-eyed. Her voice was silvery as it was caustic, and it continued to replay in his head. He had to speak over the voice. "Say whatever the hell you please, but don't you try and tell me I'm anything like him." There was a sorrow to his ire, and a hint of pleading to the sad look he gave her. "I can't let you have that. I won't let you take from me the only thing he can't." Rupert found no pleasure in bullishly contradicting her, despite the millions of things he wanted to interject while she spoke.

    Rupert's breaths were heavy, the air around them inert and lifeless. His headache was back. "You're still miserable, Helen. And no one can give you what you want," he said with a hushed voice as the realization dawned. "And, you know, I'm an asshole for being here. Well, fucking alright then."

    As his face hardened, a newfound shakiness found its way into his speech. "Keep on hiding, but if it's one goddamn thing I know," he said, voice cracking, "'We' is real. What we did happened, and it's happening, and you can tell me anything but I know it's real." He reached a trembling hand to his forehead, scrunching his face while sucking in a breath. He whispered, "It's real."

    Tick.

    Tick.

    Tick.

    The more he focused on the clock's ticking, the less his skull throbbed and the clearer his thoughts became. Helen had made herself clear, he decided, and he wouldn't drag this out any longer. "I don't know the right fuckin' thing to say to you. Everything feels like a dream these days." Indelicately, he clasped Helen's hand between both of his own. He gave it a firm, desperate squeeze. "Don't tell me this isn't real. That the only thing that gives my life any meaning is his."










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    Rupert shook his head, then paused a long time.


    Something quivered within Helen. Closing her eyes, she braced herself.

    Yell at me. Curse at me. Get the hell out of here—but please stay.

    “Deron,” came a mutter, and Helen’s eyelids flinched at the sound of his name. “Deron, Deron, Deron, Deron, Deron…”

    Stopstopstopstop—

    “Say his name. At least say his godforsaken name.”

    Helen drew in a sharp breath, opening her eyes. An angry tear threatened to jump over her lower lid, but she refused to allow it. She opened her lips to say some sort of response, but she found herself unable to speak.

    “Say whatever the hell you please, but don’t you try and tell me I’m anything like him.” His voice was angry, but his face seemed sad. “I can’t let you have that. won’t let you take from me the only thing he can’t.” He was breathing heavily. “You’re still miserable, Helen. And no one can give you what you want. And, you know, I’m an asshole for being here. Well, fucking alright then.”

    His face hardened, his voice beginning to quiver. “Keep on hiding, but if it’s one goddamn thing I know. ‘We’ is real. What we did happened and it’s happening, and you can tell me anything but I know it’s real.” His hand was shaking; God, his hand was shaking.

    He whispered something to himself; the clock ticked.

    “I don’t know the right fuckin’ thing to say to you. Everything feels like a dream these days.” Almost roughly, Helen’s hand was pulled up and clasped between both of Rupert’s; her heart skipped a startled beat and did not settle back into its normal rhythm. She felt him squeeze her hand.

    His voice was almost desperate. “Don’t tell me this isn’t real. That the only thing that gives my life any meaning is his.”

    For a moment, she thought about it—thought about what would happen if she said the words that he wanted to hear. It wouldn’t be difficult—a few simple words, maybe a small smile—and that would be it; words would be said that could never be taken back. Would that mean some sort of ending where her hand was always warmed, always squeezed with desperation? Her world would melt into sticky-sweet again, there’d be some sort of neon filter on everything?

    Her stomach and her soul knew the answer to those questions before they even fully formed: nothing would be better. She could say all of the words, do all of the things. At the end of the day, even if she said some lip service that, hell, she could never really know was true or untrue, no matter what she said, no matter what she did, it would all happen like it always did: she would feel some sort of short-lived joy, she might even fool herself into feeling some sort of love from it, but then he would leave the room and then the house, and it would all come crumbling down, and whatever weak fantastical structures she built would fall to the ground and make their homes among the dirty laundry piled around her room. It was inescapable, unfixable, unchangeable. It was clockwork.

    Tick-tick-tick.

    Helen drew in a deep breath through her nose, her dark eyes searching Rupert’s gaze. Though it was stupid—idiotic, foolish, imbecilic, childish, naïve—she couldn’t help but search his face for some sort of hint that maybe she was wrong—that maybe her cynicism was getting the best of her, that maybe saying what he wanted to hear would be the best for everybody involved.

    He looks so much like Deron…

    His eyes—Deron’s eyes—wanted something from her, but if she looked at them harder, squinted a bit, it kind of looked like maybe, it wasn’t an answer from her that he wanted—not peace of mind, not confirmation of suspicion—but it was her, and this was something in the way of that. It wasn’t true—that wasn’t how it worked, she knew—but Rupert—Deron—was here in front of her, breathing here, his heart beating in his fingertips, and she…who was she?

    She looked down at their hands. Rupert’s hands, their worn-in, blackened grime, covered her hand completely; her heart quickened, her stomach sickening. The baby kicked; was it real? She moved her hand, taking in the sensation of it rubbing against his rough skin.

    Her eyes trailed up to Deron’s—Rupert’s face. “Everything has felt like a dream for years,” Helen said, her voice catching up in her throat, “and I don’t know if it’s real or not.” The laugh lines—the deep circles under his eyes; whose were those? “You really are an asshole for being here. And maybe it’s true that no one can give me what I want—I don’t even know what I want.”

    She drew in a deep breath, studying the face before her. Who was she looking at? Who was she speaking to?

    Who was he looking at?

    “But I’ll say it,” she said, “and you can…you can think whatever you want to about this. Maybe I’m lying to you, maybe I’m not. Believe what you’d like. But I’ll say it: we did this, Deron; it’s ours.”










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    Rupert's grip on Helen's hand tightened, his heart pounding in his chest.
    It was in her hands. What did he have left at this desolate camp but a mattress and a faint delusion? For all that the woman beside him saw in his gaze, eyes squinting to glimpse an elusive truth, it was pity that Rupert prayed she found for him.

    “Everything has felt like a dream for years,” she agreed, "and I don't know if it's real or not." Those were dangerous words in these times. Hearing them back sent a sharp chill down Rupert's spine but, as tormented as Helen was, she wasn't in danger of those things anymore. Not locked away in her room, or so he'd thought.

    She continued, “You really are an asshole for being here. And maybe it’s true that no one can give me what I want—I don’t even know what I want.” Rupert seemed to recall Deron griping about something of the sort, that Helen was as hard to please as she was vivacious and self-motivated. It seemed a callous thing to say at first, but ornery sees ornery and Rupert had quite the understanding of it.

    Following a deep breath, Helen lifted her chin to face onward. "But I'll say it," she started, “and you can…you can think whatever you want to about this." Her shrewd way of staring into a soul seemed distorted, like instead her focus was on something she shouldn't have been looking at. Like she'd been reading a note from a private diary. Rupert didn't like it. He was exposed, and there was nothing one could do to hide the fact.

    "Maybe I’m lying to you, maybe I’m not. Believe what you’d like." The suspense was agonizing. "But I’ll say it: we did this, Deron; it’s ours.”

    Tick.

    His breath caught in his throat. Rupert opened his mouth to speak, but the words caught in his chest, choked by a surge of emotions. The words hung in the air, heavy with confusion and mistaken identity. He stared at Helen, his eyes filled with a mix of pain, longing, and disbelief. Her final line echoed in his mind, piercing through his thoughts like an arrow.

    He wanted to immediately and vehemently correct her, to tell her that he wasn't Deron, that he couldn't be the person she was mistaking him for. But the weight of the moment, the intensity of the situation, held him captive. For a while, captive he remained, as dumbfounded as he was wounded and betrayed and horribly, terribly misunderstood. And for a second, he almost believed her. Escaping from the fog that plagued his mind was the budding notion that all she said was truer than he had ever imagined.

    But no, he remembered in an instant, he was Rupert. Whatever was going on, he was just Rupert, and Rupert alone.

    "Okay, Helen," he eventually managed, picking himself up off the floor. He released Helen's hand, his touch retreating as he straightened himself, his movements deliberate yet tinged with a hint of uncertainty. He stepped back, creating a bit of distance between them, as if the physical space could somehow protect him from the toll that mother and baby took on his mind.

    An eerie composure hit his aura while the rusty gears in his head worked overtime to catch up with this strange moment. "Okay, Helen," he repeated, his voice steady, "If he's what you see, then I won't argue with you." His eyes met hers, searching for understanding, for a glimpse of the woman he thought he knew. But she seemed distant, lost in her own world of uncertainties.

    He reached out hesitantly, his fingers brushing against Helen's cheek, a gentle gesture that spoke of a connection still lingering beneath the surface. "I still love you, Helen," he confessed, his voice filled with a raw sincerity, "Which makes me as selfish as that... prick. Probably fuckin' more." He looked away. For some reason, it felt like the baby was listening. Like the two of them weren't really alone in this room.

    With that, Rupert slowly withdrew his hand, taking a step back, creating more distance between them once again. His eyes held a mix of regret and acceptance. "I'll keep my mouth shut," he offered softly, his voice carrying a weight of resignation. It wouldn't be fair of him to bargain for much else. "But I can't change what I know. I guess I don't need you to tell me any of that. Or Ethan, or Deron, or anyone else in this fucking..." He waited a beat, words escaping him. "Pur-ger-tory."

    Tick-tick-tick...

    As the sound of the ticking clock filled the room, seemingly from a far, far distance, a profound silence settled between them. The truth had been spoken, and the consequences of their shared illusions hung heavily in the air. Rupert turned away, his shoulders stiffening slightly, a flicker of sadness in his eyes. "I'm going to leave now. You can tell Marie I left in the night."










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    The silence that followed her words hung heavy
    , and as it dawned on her what she had said, she was unable to take her eyes off of Rupert, who now seemed to struggle to catch his breath. His eyes read hurt; she recoiled slightly, shaking her head, but she was unable to speak.

    She didn’t know what the fuck to even say.

    After an hour-long moment, Rupert lifted himself off of the floor. “Okay, Helen.” The warmth of his hands was taken from hers, and the hot atmosphere took the warmth’s place, reminding her of what was now lost. She clutched her hand to her chest, watching him step back from her, like she was a blood-soaked rag, like she was a rabid animal.

    Don’t look at me like that; don’t look at me like that.

    “Okay, Helen,” he repeated again, seeming oddly—stiffly, unnaturally—composed. “If he’s what you see, then I won’t argue with you.” His gaze met hers; the baby kicked; the clock ticked.

    Don’t look at me like that; don’t look at me like that.

    Slowly, he reached down to her and, with a sudden gentleness, brushed his fingers across her cheek. She turned her head away, her heart giving a painful throb.

    Stop it, stop it, stop it—come back, come back, come back.

    “I still love you, Helen,” Rupert said—of course he said that. Her eyes flicked back over to him. His expression was so…genuine—painfully genuine. He was serious—he was being honest. “Which makes me as selfish as that…prick. Probably fuckin’ more.”

    Rupert’s eyes darted away, and he took a step back, as though he only now realized what he’d just said. “I’ll keep my mouth shut. But I can’t hang what I know. I guess I don’t need you to tell me any of that. Or Ethan, or deron, or anyone else in this fucking…pur-ger-tory.”

    Tick-tick-tick…

    The baby kicked.

    Rupert turned away. “I’m going to leave now. You can tell Marie I left in the night.”

    Helen stiffened. Leaving? He was leaving?

    Would she be alone again?

    Don’t go, she wanted to say. It’s so lonely—I can’t stand it. She wanted to reach her hand out and grab him, snatch him back, curl up to him—to take his shape, to not let go until morning light shone through the rickety blinds. To wake up to the warm indentation where his body was, to snuggle into the lingering warmth, to breathe deeply of the scent of…

    “Rupert.” Her voice came out weak, but it seemed to resound in the silence like a pin dropping in a cathedral. She peered through her doorway, standing herself back up with grunts of effort. She froze, her gaze on Rupert’s silhouette, and for a moment, she saw only the differences that he bore from him: a slouching posture, shoulders that heaved with heavy breaths, a brutish way of holding his jaw.

    Her lips pressed together in a firm line. At the end of the day, no matter how similar they were—no matter how inseparable Rupert’s personality was from Deron’s—age had had different effects on both of their bodies, and the different body in front of her reminded her of the million secrets that she would take with her to her grave.

    “Ru,” she said again, her voice gentle. She reached out, nearly brushed the skin of his forearm. She could reach out, snag him, pull him back in—he was only an inch away now.

    But at the end of the day, Rupert was always only ever mean to be a secret.

    I still love you, Helen.

    I don’t know anymore; are you even real?

    She let her hand drop. “Be careful. It’s night time. I don’t want you to wind up hurt or anything.”










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    As Helen reached out towards Rupert, her hand almost touching his forearm, he felt a surge of hope.
    Maybe there was a chance, a glimmer of redemption in this tangled mess. But her words, her hesitant and gentle tone, reminded him of the reality of their situation. They were bound by secrets, by unspoken truths, and their connection was destined to be shrouded in darkness.

    She said his name. Rupert's heart skipped a beat. It didn't really feel like his own anymore—it felt like some relic from a past life, a name that belonged to a person he could barely recognize. Helen, even wrapped in all her usual mysteries, felt more familiar than any of the traits ascribed to a so-called Rupert Frazier. What now, he had to wonder, and what remained for him?

    Helen's arm dropped to her side, the woman's fiery resolve long extinguished. “Be careful. It’s night time," she advised, her soft whisper an inadvertent taunt toward Rupert's wounded heart. "I don’t want you to wind up hurt or anything.”

    He gave a solemn nod, his glassy, crestfallen eyes unwilling to tear themselves away for the last time. Again Rupert attempted a response, but not a sound made it past his barely parted lips. This was silly; he was still stalling, perhaps for no other purpose but to remind Helen that this was their foolish farewell. Savoring just a moment longer as he inhaled a deep, rugged breath, Rupert stepped one foot forward.

    The moment stretched on. It wasn't like the stories shared at the campfire, where every second was brief, exciting, and fleeting, leading on to the next like a burst of chain lightning. Rather inexplicably—and the undisturbed ticking of Helen's clock was enough proof—the two were crystallized in the moment, almost transfixed in a way as time marched on without them. Rupert's mind raced and, though it would long continue to do so, their story needed an ending.

    So he leaned in and kissed her, savoring the moment's finale as his torso brushed against Helen's and, by extension, the life she carried within. Against all odds, Rupert hoped that his presence, his love, had reached the child, leaving an imprint in their detached worlds.

    As their lips lingered together, time slowly started to march alongside reality. Rupert could feel the warmth of Helen's breath against his skin, the delicate touch of her lips, and the faint taste of salt from the tears that threatened to fall. It was a stolen moment of solace, but one he couldn't live without.

    Reluctantly, Rupert pulled away, his eyes locked with Helen's. He held her gaze for a persistent moment, imprinting the memory of her face in his mind and his in hers, before he turned away. The sound of his footsteps echoed through the quiet room.

    With a heavy heart he pulled the bedroom door back open, a heavy, dissonant series of creaks following as he stopped at the front door. There was a final instant of silence before the door groaned on its hinges. Finally, Rupert's sturdy form slipped out into the night.










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    • Into the night—they always worked into the night.


    ”My legs hurt”—but nooo, they just had to keep pushing ahead. But his legs fucking hurt, and so did his head, and he felt like he couldn’t even walk ten steps, and if he was being honest, he just fucking wanted to go home. But they didn’t stop—they never stopped. Dad had said—told all of these assholes, “Hey, don’t walk in the night, it’s dangerous,” but stupid fucking Lionel insisted that he knew the way, and everyone else didn’t want to admit that their legs were hurting, too, and everyone wanted to be there sooner rather than safer.

    His dad had warned him—his uncle, too—but they really were all fucking idiots.

    Except for Tai, sometimes—but right now, Tai was one of the fucking idiots, too.

    “My legs hurt,” Ethan complained again, slumping against a tree for a second and closing his eyes, his lips forming a pout as his hands searched for his canteen. “Let’s just stop for the night.”

    Someone punched his shoulder, causing him to spill water on his shirt. He cursed beneath his breath and smacked the wet spot on his shirt in anger, then glared up at the girl in front of him.

    She was already walking away, flippantly saying, “Thanks for sharing, but we heard you the first fifteen times. Now shut up and keep walking.”

    Ethan clenched his jaw, cursing again beneath his breath. “You shut up, Bee. Your legs hurt, too.”

    “Maybe,” she said with a sigh and a roll of her eyes as Ethan caught up to her, “but I’m not a piss baby about it.”

    Ethan blinked hard, shaking his head. “A piss baby? I’m not a piss baby—I’m a fucking
    MAN I’M A MAN
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    MY HANDS MY HANDS
    FINGERS—TEN
    NINE OF THEM
    EYES EYES EYES

    WHY ARE THERE NINE OF THEM
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    A MAN HUMAN ALIVE
    BREATHING LIVING EATING TASTING

    WHAT IS THAT TASTE IS IT
    METAL
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    FINGERS—TEN
    NINE OF THEM
    EYES EYES EYES
    WHY ARE THERE NINE OF THEM

    BREATHING
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    I AM A MAN RIGHT
    AM I

    I AM A MAN
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    ALIVE

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    ♡coded by uxie♡

     
  • New
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    • Mold and decay flooded Tai's nose.
      Dust drifted a gentle course right before his eyes, exposed by beaming light trickling through an old, dirty window. The air was still, stagnant, and sour much like every other room in a fifty mile radius. Crusted blood stained the wall, and the floor, and Tai's forearms, and his palms, and the cracks in them, and the cracks in those cracks.

      It belonged to a friend.


      Foreign thoughts filled his head. The red burned. It burned like a bucket of chemicals, leaving his skin marred with guilt and sin and anguish cried into a boundless void. Scrub as he may, Tai understood that to cleanse himself was futile. They were coming—or he was going. Either way, he wouldn't be here soon. Neither would the one across the room, slumped over and still with some warped version of serenity.

      Leon and Juliet, it had occurred to him, had never returned. Did they join the others?

      Groaning from sore legs, the ragged, heaving young man lifted himself from the dirt-caked bookcase he laid against. Sleep had come and gone in the remaining hours of the night, though as vivid as the dreams were, it was difficult to be sure. Unless Cara was there, which she often was. Then Tai knew what he saw wasn't real. Her ghostly, blonde waves seemed to consistently flicker at the corners of his vision, a comforting yet unnerving sight.

      Now his feet trudged along the floor, dodging piles of rubbish despite his dazed, lumbering gait. His body had little left to push forward and while his head was swimming, it was very active, almost intensely so. Observing. Wondering. Conspiring.

      It was time to dream again.










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    Everything was well under control.


    This morning, as he did now every day, Deron awoke to an empty space beside him. The sky was turning lighter shades of purple-gray and now sat at a muddy, soupy sort of white-blue-gray mix; it was probably around four in the morning. The house was the same sort of melancholy still that it had been now seventeen days ago—and certainly, there may have been a bit of an off sort of feeling with that in the last three days, some sort of eerie tinge to the air, but Deron, logical, pragmatic, and rational, did not acknowledge it; unlike his brother, he refused to let his mind play tricks on him.

    He had managed to force-feed himself four crackers before the thought of even putting the thing in his mouth made his stomach sick, which was more than he’d been able to eat at one time in the last 120 hours, and he celebrated that small victory by brushing his teeth, lugging himself out of his shack and to the center of the compound to his building, and setting straight to work.

    That left no room for other thoughts—until the meeting late morning.

    Someone—Jesse O’Malley, to name them by name—had incessantly bothered him for a meeting regarding the team that was running behind. ”They’re just running late,” Deron had insisted—yet the kid had shaken his head and wouldn’t leave him the hell alone until he agreed to call a meeting with the families and those close to the ones who were on that team.

    But now, they were here, and it was silent—tensely silent. Deron stood beside the couch, arms folded, and his twin stood to the other side of him, his arms similarly crossed. The air was thick; Deron knew that they had a million questions, but it seemed like none of them wanted to start.

    And then, finally, clearly and directly, Cara, seated on a chair from the dining room, broke in: “So what do we have to go on?”

    There was a break for mutters. Deron drew in a deep breath.

    Then spoke Do-yun. “The weather has been beautiful. Can't have been a storm. They'll turn up tomorrow."

    More mutters, but everything seemed strangely silent.

    Georgia turned, catching Deron’s gaze for a moment before her eyes turned to Rupert. "I'm sorry about Ethan," she said quietly; at his son’s name, Deron’s shoulders tensed, and he blinked hard . "We're all hoping my uncle is right. He's a tough kid. I know we'll see him soon."

    Rupert shook his head, and Deron looked over at his twin. He wanted to be angry at Rupert’s flippant response, but something in him kept his demeanor stiff and his voice and face entirely unemotive. Deron stilled, drew in a deep breath.

    Georgia offered tea to the room; Ava, who sat beside Cara in another dining room chair, raised a finger. From his spot on the floor beside Ava, Jesse let out a huff of air.

    Jesse paused for a moment, looking around the room, and then finally, with a shake of his head, asked, “What?” He scanned the room; most eyes turned to him. His eyes caught on Deron’s, and he maintained eye contact. “What, Deron, so is that all you’re gonna do? Stand back and let us be served tea? While none of have an idea in hell what’s going on—you’re just going to act like this is just another building project to be addressed?”

    Deron worked his jaw, his eyebrows lowering over his eyes, his face setting itself in stone. “Everything is under control.” His tone was cold, his eyes icy. “I told you, we don’t need this meeting. Angelo is transmitting shortwave signals as we speak with instructions for everyone. Their emergency radios should be picking up the signals, and if they aren’t, regardless, they’ll be home before we know it.” His eyes shifted briefly to Georgia, who was scuttled around dealing with the tea. “Min is fully capable. I wouldn’t have trusted her otherwise. She’s handling them well, I know—and Lionel, and Leo, and Juliet, and—“ And here, his eyes turned back to Jesse and Ava. “Bianca, too. And my son. If I thought that they couldn’t handle it, I wouldn’t have sent them in the first place.”

    “The expedition was far away, Deron, right?” Jesse asked, surely mostly rhetorically. “Even if it wasn’t that dangerous or whatever—you sent them far away. And now, where are they, huh? If you have all of the answers, where are they at?”

    Ava, who had at some point somehow gotten a small cup of tea that she now poised elegantly in her hand, shot a look of warning to her son. “Jesse,” she said sternly, and Jesse looked up at her belligerently, his jaw still clenched in irritation. For a moment, there was a stare-off between the two, before Ava, clearly the victor, looked to Deron. “I think we understand what’s being said, even if the word choice leaves a bit to be desired,” she said coolly. “Min is capable, and Lionel, and Leo, and Juliet and…Bianca, and Ethan, but no matter how capable they are…it has been well over 72 hours now, and we’ve seen no signs of the team—and need I remind you that we’ve sent rescue missions out after less time before.”

    Deron didn’t waver. “And we usually find them uninjured and delayed only because their team leader has poor time management.”

    Jesse cut in again. “Yeah, or we find them an inch from death. Whaddoya gotta say about that?”

    Deron’s throat ran dry, his lungs quivering. A suffocating silence fell over the room.

    Ava shook her head. “I spoke to Eloise this morning,” she said. “It breaks the spirit of the compound to have the team gone.”

    Deron’s voice was strained when he spoke again. “She’s not the one in charge anymore.”

    “She’s the reason you are,” Ava said sternly. “Send a team, Ronny. Ru. Georgia. Anyone. Stop waiting. The longer we wait, the worse off all of us will be.”












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    Georgia's heart raced as the tension in the room escalated.
    Excusing herself to the kitchen while keeping an open ear, she plugged the hot plate in and got to work boiling water. One cup for Ava, since she'd asked, one for Do-yun, because he was going to ask where his was, and of course, one for Georgia, who desperately needed something to keep her hands from stress fidgeting.

    Jesse's voice reverberated throughout the quiet house, striking a familiar but uncomfortable feeling in Georgia's heart. She lingered a little longer in the kitchen, hesitating with a plate of steaming cups until Deron was almost finished speaking. Her reemergence into the room may have been a little too well-timed, with many eyes finding her as soon as she set the plate down on the coffee table and began distributing the tea.

    “Min is fully capable. I wouldn’t have trusted her otherwise. She’s handling them well, I know—and Lionel, and Leo, and Juliet, and Bianca, too.“ Deron's manner of speech had such an impersonal, political sense to it. Georgia didn't know whether to be inspired or a little bitter. Maybe both. “And my son. If I thought that they couldn’t handle it, I wouldn’t have sent them in the first place.”

    Cara cleared her throat, a swift flash of indignance crossing her face. A pang of sorrow hit Georgia as she watched the girl's fiery gaze soften and sink to the floor. "And Itai," Georgia interjected, shooting Deron a scolding yet forgiving glance.

    But there was little time to dwell on the names of their missing members as Jesse continued firing more admittedly warranted slights at their group's de facto leader. Even with Ava's counsel added to the mix, the room still felt so small. Rupert, staring at the wall, seemed miles away. Cara, though visibly prepared to jump in at any moment, took caution in stepping between her adoptive family's quarrel. Georgia, in her quietude, could hardly find the thing to say.

    As a somber hush fell over the room, Ava and Deron's voices sounded so much more mellow, like there was a sleeping baby in the other room.

    “Send a team," Ava concluded, reflecting the unspoken yet unanimous attitude of the room, "Ronny. Ru. Georgia." A chill ran up Georgia's spine as her name was called. The idea of going out on a rescue mission was daunting, especially since she had distanced herself from such endeavors in recent years. Yet, she couldn't ignore the call to action, knowing that their friends, including Min, were out there, possibly in danger. "Anyone. Stop waiting. The longer we wait, the worse off all of us will be.”

    Ava's stern and unflinching wisdom sunk into Georgia's stomach like a rock. This was happening. Seven people missing, missing enough to send a team out to recover them. This wasn't the first, nor was it Georgia's first, but that familiar feeling of dread was a new accompaniment to this scenario. Last time she'd gone out like this, Angelo had fitted the team with a radio and the team was found running late a day later.

    But that was years ago. Georgia had given up on being a regular member of these things. Even so, all of the eyes flitting between her and the twins filled her with equal parts of resolve and nervousness.

    "Yes, I'll volunteer," Georgia said softly, catching Ava's eyes. Though she tried not to look, she could easily see Do-yun shifting uncomfortably, like he, too, had his own reservations about the whole thing. It was more than a gut feeling. Everyone seemed to be experiencing this dread, even Rupert, now rubbing his chin pensively.

    Cara, still with that waiting around look on her face, finally spoke up again. "I'm coming. When do we take off?" Georgia stopped to think if the teenaged girl had ever gone as far as the city, where the team was supposed to have been on the outskirts of if they'd followed Deron's instruction. And knowing Min, that was almost surely where they'd gone. She looked to Ava, saddened for the woman and her position. What would she have to say, one of her girls chasing off after the other?

    Cara turned her gaze to Deron, an intense look in her eyes. "Will that be alright with you, Deron?" She didn't really look like she was asking.

    Waiting not a moment, Georgia started, "Before we all jump—"

    "Oh, and Jesse wants to go, too," Cara volunteered, seizing hold of the man's arm and raising it up from his spot on the floor.

    Do-yun, wide-eyed and reeling from the pace of the conversation, raised his arms in the air, one palm beckoning to pause and the other holding a quarter-filled mug. Drops of runaway tea splashed onto the floor. "Hold it, hold it!" he boomed. It was startling to see the man sober and yet still uproarious. "You can't send these kids out after them!" He jabbed a finger in Deron and then Ava's direction, to which an outraged Cara scoffed at. "And Georgia, she hasn't gone out there in... in..." He paused. "A long time!"

    The room seemed to have erupted in emotions, all murmuring now converted to full-scale arguments and louder asides. Speechless and red in the cheeks, Georgia watched as Cara snapped back. "What, are you gonna go out there and find them?" She gave a confident smirk to Jesse, having mirrored a bit of his hysteria. Georgia's head fell into her hands, utterly mortified.

    "You watch your tone, kid," Rupert snarled, venom dripping out of his cold, hard glare. Cara returned his glare back tenfold. His ire was charged with something, but Georgia hadn't a clue where it came from. It wasn't a surprise, if she was correct, that the two were on bad terms.

    There wasn't a point in apologizing for her uncle anymore, though Georgia's eyes said it all. "Deron, I'm fine going, if you think we should," she said, placing a hand on the twin's upper back. "I'm worried about my mother."

    Georgia's eyes moved to the other half of the room. "And Cara, I'm grateful for your courage, but going out there without a plan is risky." Then Jesse. "We need to be organized and strategic, and not just throw around blame because we're scared!" Her heart sinking again, she nodded to Ava. "Right?"

    It was awfully quiet. Georgia's stomach churned.










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    Ava’s words shocked Deron’s system like cold water.
    Her tone, her words—it was as though she saw him as four foot tall; it was his mother’s voice in Ava, saying, You’re going to have to be a big man and take care of your brother, as she slung her gun over her shoulder and tied her boots.

    The cold feeling in his chest was the same pain as always—he didn’t break eye contact, and his throat burned with stifled irritation.

    Georgia spoke up softly: “Yes, I’ll volunteer.”

    “I’m coming,” Cara followed. “When do we take off?” Her eyes caught Deron’s; Deron remained cold, stone. “Will that be alright with you, Deron?”

    Georgia started in again, as though realizing her mistake. “Before we all jump—"

    "Oh, and Jesse wants to go, too," Cara volunteered, raising Jesse’s hand for him, which earned a nod from Jesse.

    "Hold it, hold it!" Do-yun cut in, and all eyes in the room snapped to him; Deron watched him warily. "You can't send these kids out after them!" Do-yun jabbed a finger in his direction, and then at Ava, whose brow poised itself upward as though to ask, What did you say to me? "And Georgia, she hasn't gone out there in...in…a long time!"

    As though Do-yun’s words were a match thrown into gasoline, the room ignited into loud arguments.

    Deron watched for a moment, standing back and hearing and seeing the chaos as though listening to one of Angelo’s catastrophic “music” broadcasts, his ears registering only the occasional word from the wall of sound, his eyes catching this nasty expression or angry glare or flustered glance.

    He felt a hand on his upper back. Suddenly made aware of his physical presence again, he looked down to see Georgia peering up at him. “Deron, I’m fine going, if you think we should. I’m worried about my mother.”

    He remembered, as she looked across the hushing room to Cara, that he was the one in charge of this all—that the cacophony was his to handle; he shook his head slightly.

    “And Cara,” Georgia continued, “I’m grateful for your courage, but going out there without a plan is risky. We need to be organized and strategic, and not just throw around blame because we’re scared!” Her gaze turned to Ava, whose face was cold and skeptical. “Right?”

    There was a silence that fell over the room—a blanket of tension so thick that it was hard to breathe.

    Finally, with a deep breath, Deron stepped forward, walking toward the center of the room, and employed his diplomatic persona. “Georgia is right about that,” he admitted. “Let’s all be logical about this.”

    Jesse snorted. Ava’s shoulder tensed, and Jesse’s lips pressed into a flat, apologetic line.

    “I think that each of us in this room—“ Excluding myself. “—may be driving themselves into hysterics a bit,” Deron began carefully, trying to catch the eyes of everyone in the audience at least once as he made a slow circle, “and the last thing that we need is to send out a room of emotionally volatile…” He searched for a less insulting word than the one on the tip of his tongue, but none came, so he resorted to a simpler word instead: “People into the wild, as has been suggested.”

    His words were purely logical, absent entirely of any emotion, and he willed himself to maintain a set expression. “Each one of us has someone who we haven’t seen in seventeen days. That’s a fact. Another fact is that each of those people can absolutely handle themselves in the wild.” He paused a moment to let his words sink in. “But,” he continued with a start, “you all have pointed out that it would save us all a lot of energy to send a team out to find them and drag them back, and…” He nodded his head toward the left and then toward the right right. “I suppose you all might be right about that.”

    He drew in a deep breath, making strong eye contact with those in the room as he delivered the hardest hitting of his words: “However, sending people from this room…emotions would get tangled up in the mix of things. After all, you all are all so close to—“

    “You’re trying to tell me I can’t go after my sister?” Jesse interrupted.

    Ava hissed, out of the corner of her mouth, a short, “Jesse.”

    Deron swallowed, maintaining his shell of pragmatism. “I’m not saying that,” he said. “I’m saying that it might not be the best…course of action to send a group so connected to the team members—“

    “So you’re trying to tell me I can’t go after my sister,” Jesse stated.

    Deron shook his head slightly. “I’m not—“

    Jesse interrupted again. “You ever think about the fact that, I dunno, people who actually give a flying s-h about the people who are gone will do the whole find them and drag them back thing a lot faster than the jerkoffs who are just being told to do it because you want someone to boss around?”

    Ava was silent; Deron clenched his jaw tightly, drawing in a long, deep breath to control himself.

    In the silence that Deron allotted himself, Jesse continued. “Do you want them to be back here fast or not, Deron? You want to waste more time and energy sitting around arguing about whether or not we’re going to go get them, or do you want us to go, get the job done, and be back before dinner tomorrow?”

    Deron shook his head. “It wouldn’t be that fast.”

    “If you let me go, it will be,” Jesse said.

    Deron sighed, less angry and more…agitated at the kid now. “I meant that that is physically impossible.”

    Jesse’s brows furrowed. After a moment, he said, “You still get my point.”

    “Respect,” Ava warned beneath her breath.

    Jesse turned his eyes to Ava. “But he gets my point,” he said.

    Deron closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them to scan the silent, tense room, drawing in deep breaths and then releasing them very slowly. The people had said what they wanted, and even though every part of him wanted to save the resources for another, more important time—seeing as he was entirely sure that this was simply a cast of the team lagging behind...

    “I can’t send every single person in this room,” he said dryly.

    “Well, Jesse doesn’t need to go,” Ava spoke up, “and neither does Cara.”

    “I’m going, Mom,” Jesse said.

    Ava looked down at him sternly. “You don’t need to go.”

    “I’m going,” he said.

    “Jesse.”

    “Mom.”

    Deron held his hand up. “I’ll say who goes.” His voice was commandeering; the room hushed again.

    His eyes searched for a long moment. “Cara.” That was his first choice. After another few seconds of searching, his eyes caught on his brother’s. “Rupert.” He looked down next. “Georgia.” As he looked around the next time, his eyes latched on the irritating figure from before.

    He was a skilled hunter; fine.

    “Jesse,” he conceded.

    Looking at no one in particular, he concluded, “And I’ll go. That’s five.”










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    • Like thunder, Do-yun's voice charged through the first gap he found in Deron's public address.
      "Emotionally volatile!?" the older man exclaimed. His deep-set smile lines creased into something vicious and beastly, startling those like Cara who had seldom seen this side of such an unserious man.

      By this point, Georgia had become visibly sick of her uncle's antics. There was something in the reflexive reprimanding she doled out that reminded the room of her mother, sending ripples of anguish from the soft-spoken woman outward. This was enough to quiet Do-yun, for now.

      And since Deron still had the floor, Georgia gestured an arm out as if to say please, continue. Even before the meeting the community's patience had begun to run thin as a kale salad, Georgia embodying no exception. Not only that, but Jesse's constant interjections forewent Cara's typical rolling of the eyes despite the teenaged compulsion within her.

      "I'll say who goes," spoke Deron with a raised hand, and the finality of his words easily quelled further interruption. There was a certain cognitive dissonance between Ava's maternal regard for the young adults in the room and Cara's obvious affinity toward Deron's authority. It was enough to swipe all resistance from the girl's tongue.

      But there was more to it; Georgia was sure of it. Whenever Cara would figuratively step out of the conversation, her gaze would pan toward a corner between the walls. How could such a poker-faced girl be so inattentive at times? It was a feat in itself to mirror Rupert's irreverence and Deron's austere composure all in the same tick, but she pulled it off time and time again.

      "Cara," Deron named first as the primary pick flicked her head back with a triumphant grin. Rupert's was to follow, and he mustered no reply but a moody grunt. Most of the shock was to be found in Cara, who was both perplexed by his prior meltdown and disgruntled now that she had to venture out with her least favorite of the men in their settlement.

      The leader's eyes found Georgia's next. Before the final call was made on her addition, the gardeners' hand moved to rest on her uncle's shoulder, most of the fire in him snuffed into wisps of disappointment.

      "I'll be by her side," Rupert assured, to what little consolation a man like him had to offer.

      Then finally, Jesse and Deron. They would set off first thing in the morning.










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    II.I - Born in a Barn New
  • Index



















    • Minutes passed, or hours.
    His eyes were shut, or they were open. He was on his back, or he was on his side. He was conscious, or he was unconscious. Any of these things may have been the truth, or perhaps none. All that Deron was aware of was that he lay down sometime and he opened his eyes sometime, and somewhere in-between the sky had gone from dark to a hazy sort of bright in the light of a dawning sun.

    It was not hard for Deron to pull himself from his bed and get around. Twenty years ago—or even ten, fifteen—it had been much harder to get himself up. There had a young woman laying on his chest, or a little boy who had snuck into their bed because of a nightmare. But now, there was no one to keep him down, and so he arose each morning without any grumbling or ceremony. Today in particular, his work drove him to rise.

    The house was quiet. That would be fixed by the evening.

    Deron ate his breakfast of stale crackers. His eardrums vibrated to the shadow of his son’s snores. Damn kid was always running late, and now he’d gone and done it on his first big mission, too. Deron had warned that it wasn’t Ethan’s time—that his son simply wasn’t ready; Deron was always unfortunately proven correct. That was the burden of always knowing the best—people tended not to believe him, then hated him when they found out he’d been right all along.

    People hated when their egos were put to death, but that was simply the way of the world. The greatest minds commanded they be followed. The weaker minds may have tried, but their resistance always gave way—either because they realized they were simply too feeble and gave in or because their feebleness led to an uncontrollable fall.

    He left his bunker and made his way to the truck. Piece by piece, he removed the contents of the truck’s bed, then repacked them, then unpacked them again, double and then triple checking that each supply was in place. He checked the gas gauge, then reluctantly searched for a gas can when he found the gauge to be three-quarters until E. His worn leather gloves had gone on, a gas canister had been located, and the tank had been topped off before he’d checked the gauge again. His goings-about continued in such a way—doing and undoing and redoing and double- and triple-checking all provisions for the road and for the time in which they’d be gone for the next window of time—until the sun had peeked its way over the horizon.

    As he scribbled down some more notes on an already packed piece of water-damaged paper (these, about what to do in case of a fire emergency), Georgia arrived at the truck. He acknowledged her with a nod and little more. Several minutes later, Jesse arrived with Cara. To them, Deron gave a raise of a finger and a slight twinge up of the eyebrows as a sort of wave, though his eyes remained focused on his paper.

    Finally, Deron concluded that his writing was over. After retreating briefly into the main building to place the papers in a conspicuous place, he glanced at the sky, and then at the time on his watch. It was time to leave in five minutes, yet, as Deron opened the door to the truck and leaned against the doorframe, he found his brother to yet be absent.

    Though he heaved a deep sigh, Deron could hardly say he was surprised. The five minutes ’til moved into no minutes ’til, which soon made its way to past time, and Deron’s lungs were growing tenser and tenser by the moment in irritation at his brother, until—

    BANG, BANG!

    Deron jerked in surprise and looked around frantically for a moment, and then breathed out a deep, irritated sigh and muttered, “Goddamn it.”

    “Hello,” Rupert called. “Good morning, are we ready?”

    “You’re late,” Deron scolded in a flat voice, trying to make his irritation seem more light-hearted than it truly was.

    “Good morning, Ru,” Georgia said.

    “Mornin’, Rupie,” Jesse greeted; Deron wasn’t sure that was genuine, but he couldn’t keep up with the kid, to be honest.

    “So, am I early?” Rupert asked, tossing his things in the passenger seat.

    "Well…,” Georgia began, obviously trying to be polite.

    “Early as always,” Jesse said, sighing and throwing himself in the backseat as Deron climbed in the driver’s side finally.

    Deron’s gaze shifted over to his brother. There were several comments that he was tempted to make—none of them kind—but the one which he opted to ask in the presence of these others was, “I hope you at least brought your supplies. I am not lending you anything.”

    That comment was rather declawed, but Deron didn’t feel like bickering with his brother this early. He needed that energy for this “rescue mission” or whatever the preferred name was across the team.

    With no further comment, Deron turned the key and let the truck purr in park for a moment. He turned around to glance at the three people packed in the backseat. “We’ll drive as far as we can, but I’m sure we’re all aware and prepared to walk a few miles today. I have extra gas, but for scouting out where the team might have scouted, there’s no point in driving. Angelo has given me the place where he last had signal with them, and I have the original plans for the path which they were to take. This shouldn’t take very long. Worst case scenario, we’re back tomorrow night, or maybe the morning after that. Am I clear?”










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  • New
  • Index





















    • To no surprise on Rupert's end, it seemed the group's departure hinged on his readiness.
    Just as he liked it—no waiting, chit-chatting, prep work. Now in his seat with a hand hanging out the passenger window, it was no better time to ignore Deron's failed attempt at subtlety.

    "Early as always," Jesse chimed as Deron climbed into his seat, throwing a glance at his twin.

    “I hope you at least brought your supplies. I am not lending you anything,” said Deron. Rupert swung his head to face the driver as a form of response, cocking a brow. That wasn't very leader-like.

    In the back, Cara slid into the middle seat and delivered a jab of the elbow to Jesse, eyes accusing him for his disingenuity. "Do not engage," she warned, amused but ever serious.

    Georgia was last to board the vehicle, her attention set onto the knife in her lap. It was reasonable and common to start feeling the pressure at these times, but chance was often on their side. Most scouting missions went off without a hitch, especially in an area as quiet and open as the base's outskirts.

    As the car came into motion, its passengers settled in, surely lulled by the early hour and a sleepless night. Deron gave the spiel Rupert expected of him, which in turn gave Rupert a better intuition than expected of him. If all else fails, one asks what Deron would do. In... most cases.

    "Clear, clear, clear," said the group, and that was that.

    Rupert had stirred from his nap only minutes before the truck's stop, finding himself suddenly glued to the landscape outside. Cara, too, had her eyes trained on the adjacent field polka-dotted with goldenrod and dormant indigo. "This was one of their stops?" Cara asked as she disembarked, painting a picture in her head. The edge of the city was just ahead, and it didn't seem out of the question for the team to have stowed their supplies for the long haul a bit into the outskirts.

    "I've been here before," Rupert answered vaguely, starting off into the field without his bag. He'd been on enough of these journeys by now to dream up his prediction of their lengthy itinerary. This place was a small wildflower farm once, and it had a barn and farmhouse. Though by the pace of Cara's footsteps behind him, it seemed somehow she had her own inkling of the place's layout. Whatever intuition it was guiding her, it was no doubt strong.

    Flecks of gold swayed against their ankles along the remains of the path, though Rupert's lumbering gait seemed fit to clear a new one for the walk back. The sound of wildflowers crunching under their boots was a bit of agony for a despondent Georgia.

    Eventually Cara overtook Rupert as the line leader, her interest immediately seized by the cracked door of the barn. "Do you know where you're going, kid?" Rupert asked, making no attempt to keep pace with the much younger girl.

    "I know what I'm doing," she shot back belligerently.

    Not an answer. Rupert grumbled something incoherent to himself, refusing to find Cara's hastiness as eerie. She had the same audacity as Ethan, only there was no charm in her rough way of handling things.

    Though if anyone could mirror the kid's steps, it would have to be this one. Rupert gave a haughty sigh. If only Deron knew how much he kept in, too.

    And here they were, at the barn.










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    The cool air whipping through the windows was surely deafening Deron
    to the churning sounds of the engine and Rupert’s snoring, but it really didn’t do anything for Jesse except make his ears cold. At first, when he smelled the strong, heavy scent of exhaust, Jesse hacked loudly into his fist, jostling Cara’s shoulder (a bit more than necessary) and made a comment about the smell. But that got really irritating and taxing to keep up because it scratched his throat, and so he wound up just breathing through his mouth. After that incident, for a bit, the car was quiet except for the sound of the air against the rolled-down windows. Though Jesse tried to get something interesting going—he would have been fine with a conversation, argument, or monologue—no one else really paid him all that much mind, and he, withering from lack of attention like a neglected houseplant, closed his eyes, curled into a ball in his seat, and fell asleep.

    When he awoke, the vehicle was still rolling along at its same old pace. Groggy, he barely cracked opened his eyes. He was still in the same position in which he’d fallen asleep, with his forehead pressed against the glass of the window and his hands loosely holding his shoulders, and when he opened his eyes, he was met with the bleary image of some yellowing field. It smudged across his vision with soft-edged streaks of purple, brown, and gold like bruises on the earth’s skin.

    Confused for a moment as to where he was and how he’d gotten there, Jesse sat up, closed his eyes, and pressed the butt of his palms against his eyelids. He yawned, then stretched, and then, oddly, he stopped moving.

    “We’re stopping here for a moment,” came a voice, and Jesse straightened, blinked, yawned again, and slowly remembered his situation as he watched Deron and his brother drop out of the vehicle and onto some sort of rustling ground.

    It still took Jesse a moment to regain full control over his limbs, and another moment before he could will himself to move completely out of his comfy spot and into the unforgiving world.

    “This was one of their stops?” Cara asked as Jesse piled out of the side opposite of the door that he’d slept on.

    Yawning once more, he gave the door a weak shove to close it, and it gave a half-hearted clunk, certainly indicating that it did not, in fact, close. “Why the hell would they stop here?” he mumbled, scratching his back.

    From his pocket, Deron produced a folded piece of paper.

    “I’ve been here before,” Rupert said.

    At this point, Cara and Rupert were too far ahead of Jesse for him to easily catch up. Curiously and tiredly, Jesse fell back a couple of paces to stand beside Deron, who held out and studied the now unfolded piece of paper.

    “What’s that, Chief?” Jesse asked, craning his neck to see the piece of paper.

    Deron seemed to be in thought and offered no acknowledgement of Jesse. Deron glanced up, then back down at the map, and Jesse followed his gaze toward a barn in the distance.

    Jesse cocked his head at Deron. “What’s so special about the barn?”

    Deron finally moved the piece of paper enough away from his body for Jesse to get a good view. It took Jesse a moment to realize what exactly it was, and when he did, he remarked, with knit brows, “That’s a weird looking map.”

    Deron pointed to the star in the center of the weaving lines, from which extended numbered arrows drawn in spotty pen ink. He then followed an arrow out from the star and traced a U shape across all of the points to which the arrows indicated. “This,” Deron said, and he looked up toward the barn, “is the central location.”

    Jesse blinked. “Still don’t get it.”

    Deron tapped the star again. “This is a temporary store house for their mission. Important emergency supplies got stored here. This is where they set up shop first, since the other destinations surrounded it in a U for several miles.” He traced one of the arrows out from the start—the arrow numbered 1—to a point labeled with poor cursive handwriting. “And then, they were supposed to head to point one.” He folded the map, looking pensive, and tucked it back into his pocket. His eyes scanned the area. “They were to head back to here and regather before they made it back to base.”

    “Well, they’re not here,” Jesse said, “I can tell you that.”

    Deron paused, and then sighed through his nose. “So it seems,” he said.

    Underfoot hissed blades of half-dead grass and brightly colored wildflowers.

    The group of five soon came to the large barn door on the east side of the weathered barn. The dismal greenish-brown barn loomed over them like a petrified giant, a foreboding relic from a time long-gone. Near the door, it smelled like fresh earth.

    Jesse halted. Fresh dirt…

    Deron, however, without hesitation, reached for the door and began to tug it open. His hands had somehow become gloved between when he’d been holding the map and now. His face was contorted with great effort; the door whined on the hinges as though it hadn’t been touched in years.

    Years…?

    The door finally began suddenly sliding back with great ease, opening wide as something gave way.

    Inside, there was an empty truck.

    Deron stopped in the doorway; Jesse stood entirely still.

    Nothing moved; nothing at all.

    Finally, Deron turned to the group behind him. His face was serious, his body commanding attention and his eyes declaring that everything was under control. “Look around,” he commanded. He turned first to Cara. “Cara, search the exterior of the barn.” Georgia. “Georgia—look in the fields.” Jesse. “Jesse, search the interior of the barn.” Rupert. “Rupert, search the loft. If the ladder isn’t secure, find another way up. And I’ll search the truck.” He addressed them as a group once more. “Make quick work. They’re not here, so we don’t need to spend long here.”

    But Jesse’s heart was beating quickly in his chest. Something about this didn’t feel under control to him.

    But that really didn’t matter. “Aye aye, Boss,” he said, saluting sarcastically, and he stepped into the barn to begin his survey of the area.










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    The team stood before the man addressing them with folded arms and an attentive gaze.
    The towering doorway made the barn look like a giant doghouse, especially the way it framed Deron like he was a little dot in the foreground of a painting.

    Cara nodded at once as she was addressed, emulating a soldier's obedience. Though tempting, she refrained from letting her eyes lose focus from Deron. He seemed the kind of man to notice those things, and it reminded Cara often of her late mother's immutable vigilance. Sometimes, it was fun to fantasize that she had four, six, or even eight eyes so that nothing would ever leave her hyper-focused sightline.

    "Holler if you need me," she sang, a hand crawling up Jesse's back as she turned on her heel, "Don't step on a mouse."

    Cara's boots crunched on the gravel as she went to circle the barn, her eyes scanning for any signs of disturbance. The exterior seemed unremarkable, but her instincts were on high alert. Rupert lumbered past her, heading into the barn, unsmiling as usual.

    She followed his gaze and saw Georgia already venturing into the sea of wildflowers, her figure almost lost amidst the vibrant hues. The air was heavy with intrigue as she turned back to her assigned task. Deron's orders echoed in her mind, and she felt a sense of duty to fulfill them promptly. Yet still, her mind wandered into the field. The others couldn't know excruciating it was to have something near-invisible in the corner of her eye and nothing tangible to explain the feeling.

    With a grunt, Cara traced her fingers along the barn's rough surface, hoping for a clue. The silence was peaceful for her, broken only by the distant murmur of the wind and the sounds of the team's movements inside.

    As she reached the corner, Cara's attention was drawn to a peculiar spot near the foundation. A patch of soil looked freshly disturbed, as if someone had hastily covered their tracks. Cara crouched down, her bare hands brushing away loose earth to reveal a small hole. Half-buried in the dirt was something... squishy?

    Cara grabbed hold of a nearby twig and poked at the object, which she had to guess was the size of a tennis ball. Her brows furrowed as it oozed something dark and yellow. Was someone starting a compost?

    "Georgia!" she called to no answer, her voice carrying a mix of urgency and curiosity. "Come check this out."










    ♡coded by uxie♡

     



















    The barn was infused with the scent of rotten wood, almost as musty and earthy as the soil outside.
    Only it was much less fresh, and not quite as charming as the overgrown field blanketing all of the long-untouched sod.

    "If the ladder isn't secure, shove it up your ass," Rupert said defiantly once the group dwindled to just the men. He slipped past Deron through the door, narrowly avoiding a shove out of courtesy for how seriously his brother took his leadership.

    Rupert placed a tenative step on the rickety ladder to the barn's loft, the wood creaking under his weight. It definitely wasn't secure, but the risk of injury was a lesser evil compared to the work it would take to find an alternative. Carefully, and with a little bit of luck, he heaved his body up onto the loft.

    The air up there was thick with dust and mold. As he reached the top, he found himself in a dimly lit space, the sunlight filtering through the cracks between the wooden boards. Old hay bales were scattered around, and there were remnants of what seemed like an abandoned nest in one corner. It looked like no one had been up here for years but as the decades wore on, that became a harder distinction to make.

    His thoughts were interrupted by a distant noise, a muffled conversation perhaps, trickling through the gaps in the barn's walls. With sufficient disinterest toward the others, Rupert paced back and forth, eyes scanning the creaking floor, until he was sure any more movement would bust a hole in the bottom. The air was stagnant up here, and the dust motes danced in the sparse sunlight.

    Over the edge of the wooden rail, Rupert called out Deron, "I can't see shit!" He leaned his elbows upon it, causing another loud creak. "And just a tip, 'make quick work' makes you sound like a damn librarian." He released a disgruntled puff of air.

    Rupert continued his exploration, his boots echoing softly on the wooden floor. The abandoned nest caught his eye again. He crouched down, examining it. Whatever creature had made it was long gone, leaving behind a fragile structure made of twigs and straw. If only birds could talk.










    ♡coded by uxie♡

     



















    There was something strange about this place.
    That sense was a tight feeling in his chest, a tick in the back of his mind, but it was there and it was gnawing. It pulled his muscles taut, lumped in his throat—that feeling that there was something especially…not right about this place.

    Deron could see the same sense in the face of Jesse. The boy’s face read like a book: I’m uncomfortable. The boy nodded and marched forward to go about his assigned duty, brushing past Deron in the doorway. Deron waited, watching everyone else go to their assigned places, before he himself turned and walked toward the truck.

    He breathed in the scent of fresh earth mixed with something sour or rotten (perhaps spoiled milk or rancid food), and his nostrils flared in displeasure. To his left, Rupert grasped a ladder and tugged it over to the barn loft; to the right corner ahead of him, Jesse kicked at a wooden plank. The tight feeling in Deron’s chest wasn’t subsiding. As he stepped onto the truck’s foothold and then hefted himself over the closed tailgate, he could feel it growing stronger.

    There were nearly half of the boxes for the mission left in the back of the truck. Pressing his lips together into a firm line, Deron searched for the goods chart he’d taped to the inside of the tailgate. When his eyes found it, he slipped off his worn gloves, stooped, and gently removed it from its place.

    “I can’t see shit!” Rupert called over a chorus of wooden squeaks.

    “Squint then,” Deron called back, squinting at words on the chart.

    "And just a tip, 'make quick work' makes you sound like a damn librarian,” Rupert continued.

    “Then don’t make me say it,” Deron muttered. 

    On the paper, nothing had been marked out as being used up, but Deron could name several things that he could tell from just his first glances should have been. “Damn it, Ethan,” he muttered under his breath. He knew that he shouldn’t have trusted his boy to be the one in charge of logging.

    Deron turned back to the supplies. The boxes remaining were various kinds of large, taped with duct tape of assorted colors that Deron was fairly certain came from a fairly recent looting of an appliance store. As he approached them in the rattling truckbed, the only fault which he saw in the boxes was an oily-looking spill in the bottom corner of a box on top—likely the small box of spare fire starting liquid. He stood beside the boxes for a moment, seeing what other details he could make out. He noted a gray, soft glaze over the top of the exposed boxes. Drawing in a deep breath, he extended his pinky and ran it across the top of the box.

    He came away with a finger covered in dust.

    “Georgia!” Cara’s voice called outside.

    Deron lifted his head in time to see Jesse wander outside. Deron paused for a moment, looking up toward where his brother was, then out toward where Cara’s voice had come from.

    He folded then pocketed the list of supplies and hopped out of the side of the truck, landing heavily on the ground. His hips groaned slightly, and he was reminded of the fact that he wasn’t as young as he still was in his head.

    Continuing his search of his area, Deron popped open the driver’s side door and peered inside the interior of the truck. It seemed entirely undisturbed, and also entirely spotless. The keys still hung in the ignition. He opened the back door and looked at the back. There was a threadbare sock on the floor, but nothing beyond that.

    Relieved to have found nothing of interest, Deron closed the doors again and wandered outside.

    He found Cara, Georgia, and Jesse standing in a sort of circle around something which Cara prodded with a stick. The spoiled scent that he smelled within the barn grew stronger as he grew closer. “Have you found something?” Deron asked as he approached.

    He discovered the answer by himself, and he covered his mouth in disgust, unsure as to what he was looking at beyond that a gut feeling that it was something that he shouldn’t be observing. He stared at it for a moment longer, and he leaned in slightly closer and uncovered his mouth, narrowing his eyes as to determine what the object was. He could make out matted, sickly brown fur, but the thing was large, strangely shaped, and unnatural. Slowly, he extended his foot and pushed it with enough force to get it onto its underside.

    When the thing turned, Deron’s stomach soured.

    The thing was a fat creature of some sort, entirely whole, with dull, grey-ish eyes and an open maw, revealing a row of almost entirely missing teeth. It looked rat-like—and was about rat-like in size—but the shape of the stomach were un-rat-like—and unlike anything Deron knew. Its stomach protruded far out at sharp angles as though something oddly-shaped was pushing against its insides, causing the thing to almost burst.

    But the strangest aspect—and somehow, the most gruesome, too—were the sharp citrine-like crystals of a sickly yellow color bursting from the lower abdomen of the creature, extending an inch or two out from the thing like claws toward the sky.

    “Shit…,” Jesse said, sighing. “That’s not good…”

    “You know what’s going on with it?” Deron said, his voice more of a statement than a question as he stood.

    Jesse squatted, taking his place. He scratched at a crystal with his forefinger, and Deron suppressed a grimace. “Some kinda weird disease I guess. Seen it sometimes,” Jesse answered vaguely.

    Deron, his eyes focused on the revolting thing, didn’t press further. “Rupert!” he called, taking in the scene before him.

    He waited until he heard his brother approach, and then he turned to face him. “Do you have your knife on you?” he asked, sure that his brother would understand what task he was getting at—and who was to be responsible for that task.










    ♡coded by uxie♡

     



















    After Cara's call, Jesse was the first to follow her voice.
    You could always leave it to one of Ava's kids to fold to the temptation of mystery. The greater annoyance in it was that both Jesse and his sister inherited the lady's audacity and, in many ways, Cara as well.

    Rupert was just as inclined to ditch work for conversation, but not with anyone Deron had so cleverly decided to appoint for the search group. As soon as his brother had inevitably left to barge in to the happenings outside, Rupert dropped to his butt against a lump of straw, caring not for the quality of it. Sure, the entire barn had already taken on an odor, but there was a reason it had been designated as a storehouse in the first place.

    It's dry enough, someone once said.

    Moments later in a feat of hypocrisy, a curious Rupert found himself scurrying down the rickety ladder. There was a spring in his step until he rounded the barn's corner toward the others, where his stride turned heavier, nonchalant, even. He heard his name called shortly thereafter.

    Jesse was poking at the dirt—nothing new—while Georgia and the others gazed downward, transfixed by something out of view. "You've seen this before?" Cara was saying, and when were her arms not crossed? Somehow, it seemed to wound her pride that the kid with four years on her had managed to know something she didn't.

    There was no denying that Cara, too, had her fair share of field experience. Rupert hadn't paid the girl much mind when she and her father were allowed in past the gate, but there wasn't a soul at camp without a comment on how frazzled she'd been. They noted her tentative footsteps, her initial muteness, and the long-forgotten father's obviously forced stoicism. Something out here had done that, and Rupert would have been stunned to find all the fuss was from this yellowing bundle of flesh and crystallized rot he at last laid eyes upon.

    "Oh," he moaned, failing to suppress a gag as the need to pinch his nostrils grew more urgent, "the hell is—god damn it, what are you playing with over here?"

    As usual, Rupert was answered with a request. Of course he had his knife and, for once, he had no objections to raise, morbid curiosity prevailing. In a split second he was brandishing the blade, though not quite able to tear his eyes from what he then recognized as something akin to a rat. The stench of it was overpowering, but its grotesque condition was what managed to faze Rupert himself.

    Everyone was looking at him.

    Oh, for the love of—

    "Can I see that?" Georgia asked first, and Rupert was naturally obliged to hand over the knife.

    With only a second's hesitation, the woman dropped down to the and assumed a surgeon's focus. The knife hovered over the creature's belly, anticipation building as possibilities of a freakish, pus-laden explosion ran through Rupert's mind. It was in those few seconds that he saw Georgia's fear, drawn out and multiplied by the task she'd kindly burdened herself with. She'd gritted her teeth, squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them wide.

    The wind slowed and breaths were held in as the knife finally sank down, entering at the base of the rat's neck and sliding downward. It gave hardly any resistance, minus the odd crystal in the way. The air soured tenfold, filling just as fast with the corpse's strange, pungent fumes as it filled with the squelching of a postmortem incision. It was organic in the worst way, tears filling Georgia's eyes while she carried out the procedure to completion.

    She pulled the knife upward, putting a frown on Rupert's face. A murky rainbow of fluids dripped off the blade, which she shook off, tainting the earth. But her work wasn't done.

    With a little more speed, she plunged the knife back in and dug around for a few overkill seconds. Soon after, the knife emerged with a dripping wad of something dangling from its tip, so big that the rat's stomach entirely deflated at its removal. Georgia dropped it to the ground, more unceremonious than her style but well-deserved in her book. In Rupert's, too.

    "It looks like cloth," Cara remarked, using her stick to spread the thing and confirm that this brittle, soaked curiosity could have once been softer to the touch, "a really big piece."

    Rupert appeared nothing short of floored, far more than even sheer amazement could tolerate. "Uh, I've never seen a rat call that dinner. And they don't bury themselves with it, neither."

    Georgia, still crouched, turned to look up at the four of them. "The poor thing didn't bury itself, did it?"

    Couldn't have. The behavior was just odd, and no animal would have done such a thing even on the brink of death. Georgia knew better, and the fact that she doubted that called for even more unease.

    "Well, go on, Deron. There it is, laid out all special for you," Rupert said, accepting his knife back with a grimace. It was still dripping a little, most of what was left on it the color and consistency of a real bad ball of mucus. Now Rupert was mad they had to use his stuff to cut up the creature.

    And what was he going to get out of it? Jack shit, as usual. Or a balled up slime thing this time, he supposed.










    ♡coded by uxie♡

     



















    Jesse curious watched every calculated movement that Georgia made
    with Rupert’s blade. At this point in his life, things like this didn’t phase him—dissections and the like—but it wasn’t usually ever something that he was jumping at the gun to ogle at. Except for now, he guessed. The strange crystal seemed to be rooted deep inside the animal, anchored somewhere in the abdomen, but Jesse couldn’t see its origins even as, in a way that even scratched at Jesse’s own gag reflex, the rat’s stomach was prodded inside.

    A strange object covered in stomach fluid hung from the end of the knife until Georgia dropped it to the ground. Jesse’s attention now focused on the object. He began to stoop down next to it, but the scent was too strong that he covered his nose and stood back up.
    
“The hell is that…?” he mumbled.

    “It looks like a cloth,” Cara said, “a really big piece.”

    “Cloth…,” Jesse said, putting a hand to his chin, his brows knitting in thought as he analyzed the object to see if it was true.

    “Uh, I’ve never seen a rat call that dinner,” Rupert said. “And they don’t bury themselves with it, neither.”

    “The poor thing didn’t bury itself, did it?”

    Jesse narrowed his eyes at the object, then reached out with his foot and kicked it a little. It didn’t move much. He kicked it again. It didn’t move much. He narrowed his eyes at it and managed to make out a fabric snag. “It looks like a cloth,” he concluded, “a really big piece,” not realizing that Cara had said the same thing moments ago. He looked back at Cara and Rupert. “That’s weird,” he stated, clearly having not paid any attention to the words that’d been spoken before.

    “Well, go on, Deron,” Rupert said, taking his knife back from Georgia. “There it is, laid out all special for you.”

    Jesse turned his head to face the leader and found him with an odd expression on his face. Deron’s eyebrows, relaxed, rested over widened eyes. His gaze, however, was not surprised, nor was it frightened—it seemed almost calculating, as though he were computing the image before him or thinking very deeply about something. His nostrils flared and unflared in a rapid, almost rhythmic way, and the forefinger of his left hand ticked at his side. His lips were pressed into the usual flat line.

    Deron’s gaze shifted between the crystals and the cloth as several seconds of silence elapsed that made Jesse’s stomach tick with the same, looming sense that something wasn’t quite right about this place. Finally, and very slowly, the man lowered himself down next to the rat. His knees let out several loud pops as he went down.

    From his pocket, Deron retrieved two worn, leather gloves and slipped them on. Then, very slowly, he picked up the cloth between two fingers and began to unwad it. The look in his eyes did not change as he slowly unwound the ball of fabric, but his mouth began to move and Jesse could hear distinct, sharp s and t sounds—he seemed to be speaking to himself.

    Deron held the fabric with one side in each hand, but he moved his head in such a way that Jesse’s view was shielded. The s and t sounds ceased, and for a long moment, Deron didn’t move and Jesse couldn’t see what was going on.

    Finally, Deron turned around to face the group and stood. The object was now in one hand, held between his forefinger and thumb. Jesse could clearly see what the thing was now:

    “A sock?” Jesse asked. “The rat ate a sock?”

    Deron dropped the sock to the ground, but his eyes stayed focused on it for several seconds. In a stern voice, after a long moment, he said, “Cara—you have the small containers for the samples?” Only after he asked this question did he look back at Cara. “Break off some of the…mineral and collect it.”

    Deron now addressed the group as a whole as he slipped his gloves off and placed them back in his pocket. “It’s clear by now that the team isn’t here, and hasn’t been here for awhile. There’s no reason for us to stay any longer.” He turned toward the barn again, in the direction that they’d parked. “Be back to the truck in five minutes. We’ll head into Haventon once we finish up the last of our business here. We don’t have any time to waste today.”










    ♡coded by uxie♡

     



















    Cara watched as Deron unwound the cloth, prepared to mobilize by the sheer weight of Deron's concentration.
    Her brows furrowed into a deep crease, one arm clutched her hip, and the other sat atop her stick like a makeshift cane. Her own focus, however, was as fragile as it was easy to mirror the leader's seriousness and quietude.

    Once the mystery cloth was revealed to be nothing more than a sock, the first to topple over was Cara's guise of solemnity. Next was the poor sock, doomed forever to be picked up, put down, and abhorred through its crusted casing. Bewilderment was all that came to mind as Cara grappled with how to receive the existence of the sock and the supposed rodent disease Jesse had neglected to bring up until now.

    Her mixed feelings about the lack of answers only grew as Deron issued orders to collect samples and prepare to leave. The abruptness of their departure left her feeling unsettled, but she knew better than to question Deron's authority and the daylight they were losing.

    Quick as a soldier, Cara dropped to her knees and set her backpack to the side to fish out a small, plastic container. She set it onto the ground, then pressed a hand onto the rat's belly while two of her free fingers snapped off a piece of its crystalline growth, emitting a dull, crumbly sort of crack. The yellowed crystals, to Cara's surprise, gave to the pressure of her fingers, deforming permanently like an ancient wad of putty. She then collected another, sealing the sample in the container she really hadn't expected to use.

    Eager to catch up to the group, Cara gathered her things, wiped her dirty hands on the barn's wall, taking a glance back in the field.

    That glance lasted about two minutes.

    Up ahead where they parked, much of the group was there, waiting to leave. Georgia and Rupert appeared deep in conversation, leaned over the back of the truck with their arms dangling inside. "Because you know he can't come back empty-handed, Georgia. And..."

    With a timely over-the-shoulder at an approaching Cara, Georgia placed a hand on Rupert's arm to cut their conversation short. The twin gave his own look back before pushing off the truck and stowing himself in the passenger seat. Cara made a move for the back seat, only to be stopped in place by Georgia. Her face, always filled with some obviously subdued emotion, hadn't changed since their encounter with the rat.

    "This is the furthest you've been out in a while, hasn't it?" she asked, searching for Jesse, who tended to skulk around the corner.

    Cara nodded, her expression hardening at Georgia's concern. "Yeah, it has been," she admitted, her voice tinged with the urgent need to prove herself. "But I remember a lot about life in the cities. Not enough, but..."

    This story, Cara realized, would take way too long.

    "But, a lot," Georgia finished for the girl, her eyes reflecting a sincere understanding. None could guess what horrors were waiting for them deeper in the wasteland, but Georgia chose not to. Not with her mother and the others somewhere out there. One way or another, the five of them were making the journey.

    Stepping aside to let Cara load herself into the car, Georgia added, "Just keep... keeping your guard up. Haventon was a sizeable town, once."

    Danger often preferred to lurk in the echoes of old civilization. Like mice, the human race had learned to adapt to making less noise, to not attract attention even in the most dire of situations. That's why the larger group lived so far out of the way.

    People like Deron must have loved the structure of urban life. Or, oppositely for his twin, the noise and hubbub of it all.

    Georgia, for one, liked to fantasize about a world where people didn't have to eat the same thing every day. Imported fruits, disposable bags, and laundry machines. Traveling in old towns was always a stark reminder that they had all been born into the unluckiest era.

    Pumping herself to raise her own guard, Georgia climbed into the middle-back seat, face forward, ready for anything.










    ♡coded by uxie♡

     
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