Venator Chapter 2

Chapter Two

A New Day

 

     I opened my eyes slowly as Latro shook my arm and prodded me in the ribs with her other hand. I didn’t want to get up. I was so comfortable, warm, and safe feeling. Safe. The word tingled through my mind. It was my turn to stand watch.

     My eyes popped open and I sat up as quick as I could.
“Sorry, I forgot about the watch. Am I late? Did I sleep too long?” My voice was whispered urgency.

     Latro yawned, looking unaffected by my sudden mood swing. “You didn’t miss it. It’s been six hours. It’s your turn now. I’m exhausted.”

     I tossed some of the blankets off of my legs and crawled to the end of the bed. I eyed the cold floor reluctantly, but knew I couldn’t neglect the watch. Things like that could get you killed.

     “It’s been quiet,” Latro said between yawns. “There hasn’t been so much as a scavenger up there all night. It’s the damndest thing.”

     “Well, that’s a good thing,” I said, copying her yawn and sliding myself onto the cold tile below. I crossed my legs and straightened by back.

     “Hey, there is one thing though,” she added as she closed her eyes.

     “What’s that,” I said as I closed my eyes but opened myself to the night.

     He has nightmares, her mind told me. They’re bad too, horrific, but I guess you’ve seen what he sees already.

     I nodded though I knew she couldn’t see me. I had indeed. I let my conscious flutter away from me and explore the house, the stairs, and the grounds above. Everything was just as she’d said, quiet except for his dreams. I blocked them out. I didn’t want to watch the girl burn again.

     She slept for six hours and he slept for three. I watched him get up, stretch, and take off his guns. He’d slept with them strapped to his thighs, fully dressed, and without a blanket.  I wondered silently if we should have given him one from the bed, but he hadn’t said anything.

     He put the guns on the kitchen counter, poured himself a glass of water, downed it, and grabbed some clothes from one of the shelves. He took off his gun holsters and put them with the guns on the counter, removed knives from sheathes I hadn’t noticed before on his ankles, and started to pull off his shirt.

     I stopped watching him and let myself drift up the stairs and back outside to the wasteland above. I did not want to watch him undress. The idea of it scared me a little and excited me at the same time. Though Latro had slept in the bunkers with the other clones before she’d met me, I hadn’t ever seen anyone but her without their clothes. It seemed wrong to me, an invasion in a way to look without consent.

     I was sure she would have looked though. She would have laughed and told me about it afterword and I would have laughed with her to humor her, but I wouldn’t have really known what she was talking about.

     Her hand grazed my neck and my eyes popped open, dragging my consciousness back into my body.

     “Morning Ven,” she laughed. “Interesting thoughts you were sending out.”

     “S**t,” I whispered.

     “I won’t tell,” she laughed. “What’s he doing now?”

     “I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “I quit looking.”

     “You did?” she teased and hopped off the bed. “Oh the floor is cold!” she hissed through clenched teeth. “I can’t believe you didn’t put a blanket down or something.”

     “I’ve sat on worse,” I said.

     She went suddenly quiet. We’d both sat on much much worse before. A vision of cold lifeless bodies dragged though my mind before I could stop it and I shivered involuntarily.

     “You’re cold,” she purred in her sweet sultry voice. She grabbed a blanket from the bed, made me stand, and wrapped me up like a burrito.  “There, you look warmer now.”
     “Yeah, but I can’t move,” I protested.

     “No?” she asked, her eyes going all innocent.

     “Don’t you dare-“ I started but it was too late already. She’d pushed me backwards and I’d landed on the bed with a flop. “You suck,” I growled.

     “Yeah, think I ought to tell Alex?”

     My face went white and I held my breath.

     She slapped me softly on the head, the only part of my body sticking out of the blanket. “I’m just teasing silly.  Well, sort of, but I wouldn’t dare. He’s a human remember.”

     “You’re a human,” I reminded her.

     She scrunched her face at me and started pulling on her pants. “A genetically engineered human,” she said under her breath. “I’m much more advanced.”

     “Uh-hu,” I agreed. “Can you unroll me so I don’t have to rip through his blankets?”

     She paused and I could see her weighing the possibilities. She didn’t want to let me out, it was too much fun, but she didn’t want to tear up his things either. In the end her valor won out and she lifted me back up and took the blanket off.

     “Warmer?” she asked.

     “Sure,” I lied. I wasn’t warmer but I was more than warm enough that I didn’t want to contend with her blanket wrapping skills again.

     “I smell breakfast,” she cooed.

     “Me too.”

     “Put some clothes on and come eat. Unless you want me to go out there all by myself and see if he’s as warm as he can be too.”

     I swallowed, blushed, and threw my clothes on in record time. I liked this place. I liked Alex, and I did not want to subject him to her crazy thoughts on our second day here. I wanted him to ask us to stay again.

     On our way out the curtain she poked me in the ribs with her finger and I yelped like a frightened dog. Alex’s gaze flew to my face and I tried to cover the sound up with a fake smile, but I could tell he saw right though it.

     “Something sure smell nice in here,” Latro cooed. “What are you cooking?”

     Alex smiled and his whole face lit up the way it had when his mom had brought the cake from the kitchen on his birthday. I looked at the floor before he could catch my expression and righted my face back to its fake smile.

     “Bacon, potatoes, and grapefruit,” he said proudly. “I hope you like it.”

     “Where did you get bacon?” I asked, trying not to look directly at him.

     “Uh, I shot a wild boar a while ago and froze some. Is that ok for you?”

     I looked up, needing suddenly to see his face, to see if I’d insulted him, but I hadn’t. He was still smiling, though not as brightly as before. He wiped his hands on a towel as he looked at me, waiting for an answer. I nodded. It was the best I could do.

     He was wearing a black shirt, tight over the hard muscles of his chest, and sleeveless. It looked right on him, better than the brown had. It brought out the warmth of his skin, hair, and eyes better. I could tell he’d done something with his hair, washed it perhaps. It looked softer to the touch today, like if I’d run my fingers through it I’d find that it was actually cotton.  His jeans were blue, but they looked like they were in better condition than anything I owned at all. They fit him snug and I had to force myself from staring despite the idea of watching him turn round and round in them floating through my mind.

     “What’s wrong with you?” Latro whispered in my ear. “You’re staring at the man like he’s going to do tricks or something.”

     “Uh,” I managed.

     She elbowed me hard in the ribs and my breath whooshed out of me.

     Alex looked up at the sound, but Latro grabbed my arm to keep me from doubling over with the pain. “She just needed to sneeze,” she offered. “Sometimes it can be a real drag.”

     A drag, I thought to her. What does that even mean?

     Bummer, downer, pain, she thought. I read it last night. It’s a neat word.

     Jeesh.

     Don’t sound so self-righteous, she scolded. I know what you were thinking about.

     Oh, and I snapped my mind down as tight as it would go.

     She laughed out loud and Alex smiled up at her. I could see in the line of his mouth that he found her beautiful. I wasn’t surprised, everyone found her beautiful, even me.

     “Breakfast is served,” he said bowing after he’d put three plates of food on the table and waved us over.

     “Oh it smells so good,” Latro said as she rubbed her hands together. “You are a better cook than you let on.”

     I laughed nervously at the joke that wasn’t a joke and they both ignored it for my benefit. “Uh,” I said. “What are we doing today?” I suddenly wanted to be out of this little hole in the ground that felt too warm and too comfortable.

     “Checking the snares,” Alex said as we all fitted ourselves around the little table and dug into the delicious food. “Then, maybe wider patrols since there are three of us now.”

     Not three of us, I thought, two of us and one of you.

     Don’t be rude, Latro yelled in my head. He’s being nice, including us.

     What’s up with you? I yelled back making her twinge from the volume in her head.

     S**t! You don’t have to yell.

     Sorry, I projected at a lower than normal volume. It’s just that you’re acting funny today. I’ve never seen you like this.

     What? You mean happy?

     Oh? I swallowed a bite of food and managed another fake smile in Alex’s direction.  He’d been staring at us, oblivious to the conversation but concerned.

     Maybe he’s seeing it in your eyes, Latro thought.

     I tried to smile wider, hoping it would reach my eyes.

     “So Alex,” Latro grinned trying to draw his attention away from me. “Tell us how you’ve survived so long alone. I mean, we’re superhuman and all that but most of us can’t even manage such a thing.”

     “Really?” he asked. “Are there more of you?”

     “Some,” she said.

     “All women?” he asked seriously.

     She laughed but my guts clenched nervously. Something was sending my anxiety through the room and I needed to know what it was. I dropped my fork and it clanged against the plate, the sound echoing through the room.

     The two of them stared at me, puzzled but I didn’t have the words to explain. I needed to get outside, see the real world again. I needed to know I wasn’t just dreaming this sudden change of events. I needed to remember who I was.

     I jumped from my seat and sprang for the door so quickly that Latro even had trouble seeing me go. As I sprang up the steps taking them three at time I heard her telling him to relax that everything was fine.

     “She’s just quirky like that,” she’d told him. 

     Quirky, I’d guessed that was another one of her new words.

     What the hell is wrong with you? Floated through my mind and I slammed the barriers down so tightly that when I finally emerged onto the barren ruins above I’d disconnected from any extra sensory perceptions. I pulled deep lungful of air and nearly gagged on the taste of ash in my mouth. 

     “Demon,” I whispered but there wasn’t anyone to hear me.

     Dipping into a crouch as fast as I could, I yanked my gloves free and pressed both hands to the ground. Cold shock reverberated through my arms but I blocked the memories away with less than a thought.  I’d seen them already; there was no need to play them back again. My awareness rumbled down my arms and through the ground, spreading like a wildfire over the stones and away in every direction.

     Find it, I screamed at myself. Find it!

     I knew it was out there, and I knew it was close. I could smell the beast, taste it on my tongue, but where. I searched, my aura turning green with flecks of gold like my eyes and arcing a circle around my body, following my awareness. I pushed harder, further, but there seemed to be only emptiness.

     I would have give up then, but I knew and I was never wrong. I pushed harder, straining myself and pressing my consciousness too thin. I knew I had to stop soon or it would hurt me, cause me real physical pain, but I needed to know.

     Then I bumped against something that tasted like fire and death. It was hunched over a small animal, laughing like a frightened child. It was happy. The rabbit wasn’t moving, but it wasn’t dead. It was simply too scared to move. Its black eyes stared unblinking at the beast above it.

     I pushed around them as far as I could go and tried to sooth the frightened animal so it could run, but the face of the beast stopped me. It looked so different than the others, more human. Its face was black with a high forehead and wide nose. The jaw was angular, but no more than any humanoids could have been. Its shoulders were hunched forward, but I could tell by the way it laughed that it could stand up straight.

     It terrified me. It looked like a man, but it didn’t. Its red glowing eyes beamed down on the helpless creature and the smile that split its face would have been more at home in a shark’s mouth. It had row upon row of razor sharp teeth, some protruding a little too forward to be anything other than monster but I had a good imagination. I could picture it with its mouth closed.

     I tried again to shoo the rabbit away but to no avail. It was at the end of its life. I could hear its heartbeat slowing as it waited. It was ready. It had accepted its fate.

     No! I yelled at through my mind. Don’t just lay there, run!

     A gnarled hand, all claws and scales reached for the bunny and snatched it from the ground. It squealed once, a loud painful sound that nearly broke my heart, and then it moved no more.  The creature laughed again, the sound like children screaming, and stuffed as much of the animal into its mouth as it could.

     I waited, frozen in my own kind of terror, as the bones crunched and snapped between the rows of sharp teeth. Blood wept freely and poured down the monsters chin and onto its bare chest. I cringed and remembered myself. I wasn’t actually there. I could go away.

     I pulled myself back across the fields of ash and let my aura dim to a lazy white before I sucked what was left of my soul back into my body and fell to the ground hugging myself.

     Why had I stayed and watched? I couldn’t answer myself. Why had I wanted to see such a horrible thing? Tears poured down my cheeks and dripped from my face to the parched earth below them. I knew the answer, I’d always known. I was a monster, something not human but created by humans, by war. In them I saw parts of myself, my hunger, anger, and strength.

     I had to see them. I had to know that I wasn’t evil the way they were evil. I needed to know that I carried on, not out of some sick need to hunt, but to learn. I needed to see how utterly bad they were so I could feel good.

     Behind me I could hear Latro joking with Alex as they came up the stairs. I jumped from the ground, wiped my eyes, and righted my thoughts before they made it to me.

     “Hey, Ven,” Latro laughed sounding both sexy and amused at the same time. “Tell this human that he should stay home where it’s safe and let us do what we do best.”

     “And that is?” I managed without so much as a wave of emotion in my voice.

     “Hu?” She glared at my back. I could feel it. “Hunt of course. He wants to check his traps for small game. I say we can do it in half the time and be back before it’s time for lunch.”

     “She’s just trying to make me a houseman,” he laughed heartily.

     Didn’t they know the world was dying? I couldn’t keep the thought from my mind. I couldn’t make myself laugh with them. I couldn’t smile. So, I didn’t turn around. I kept my back to them, my voice steady but uninterested. “Whatever you decide.”

     “See, she agrees with me,” Alex teased. “She thinks I’m right.”

     “That’s not what she said!”

     “Is too.”

     They were fighting like children. If I hadn’t known the world’s pain, I’d have smiled at them. Something in the way the were, arms lighting bumping one another, huge smiles, relaxed shoulders but raised heartbeats, made me remember something I’d read before.

     They were falling in love, or something like it.

     My face fell and I didn’t bother to try and school my muscles to do what I wanted. “We’ll make a circle. I’ll take the right half and you two take the left. We’ll meet back here. Check all your traps but be careful. I’ll contact you if anything goes wrong.”

     Latro tensed and stopped moving. “What? We all go together. We always travel as a pair.”

     “A pair is two,” I said a little too harshly.

     “Then I’ll go with you,” she offered but I could tell she didn’t mean it. She wanted to go with him but she didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

     “No, you’re better with weapons than I am and he’s more fragile. If you go with him, you can show him how to use those daggers he has on his legs. Besides, it’s not like anyone can sneak up on me.”

     I could hear her swallow and the world seemed suddenly too silent. I needed her to believe me. I dropped my shoulders, forced a smile on my face, and swung around. She was standing next to him, and they were both staring at me.

     “Hey did you bring my pack up?” I asked. “All my weapons are in it. I don’t want to go running around without them. I mean, even though I am ‘quirky’.” 

     In truth I didn’t really need weapons. I was the weapon. I could do more with my mind and my body than she could do with her sword, and she knew it.

     “I guess you’re right,” she finally gave in matching my smile and tossed my pack from the top of the stairs to me. “You’re better equipped to patrol on your own than either of us. You just make sure you’re back here in time so I don’t have to come looking for you.”

     I knew she would too. She’d do it because she felt obligated to stay with me. I’d saved her life dozens of times after she’d accidentally saved mine. I taught her to fight, hunt, and kill. I taught her ruthlessness and patience when it most counted.

     “Yes ma’am,” I said as I saluted her cheerily.

     She laughed, he laughed, and I hefted my pack up on my shoulders. It wasn’t heavy. It didn’t have much in it: one change of clothes, a few knives, a cup, canteen, notebook, pencil, blanket, and an extra set of gloves.

     They went east, waving as they walked away.

     I headed toward the creature. Its location seemed to beckon to me like a beacon of evil luring in its prey. In my head I could hear its ragged breathing, feel the stench of its ash breath on my skin, and smell the blackness of its soul. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to crush the life from its scaled, blackened body. I wanted to hunt.

     I closed my eyes and centered myself. I had to commit every part of my being to the hunt or else I would find myself the hunted. I knew better than to rush headlong into anything unknown without a solid plan, so as I walked I began formulating one in my mind.  Every step I took was one second closer to the realization of what I was about to do. I knew I had to succeed; I didn’t have it in me to fail. I couldn’t fail. In some small way I knew that my sanity depended on whether or not I could contain the scream of madness lingering in my guts just waiting for the opportunity to jump free.

     I opened my eyes and plunged on into the flat grayness of the morning. The air was warm and dry on my face and the sun was just nearing the top of the trees. It was early for a hunt, but evil didn’t have a time of day when it was desperate for food, and if it didn’t have a time of day I certainly didn’t have one either.

     Before I realized it, I found myself going up a rise that was once a lovely tree covered hill.  Now barren and scarred like the rest of the world, its dullness brought a kind of depression to me. The bleakness, that’s what the others had called it when they’d seen all they could stand of the slaughter and waste. It was a creeping sickness that infected your soul and killed your will to live. I thought it aptly named.

     At the crest of the hill I looked down into a great pit where bombs had carved out the ground and left a smooth round bowl in its wake. The stench of the long dead burned my throat and I pulled my scarf over my mouth and nose despite the growing heat of the afternoon. I knew the smells were phantoms and the bodies had been burnt to ash so long ago that nothing of them remained, but it did nothing to settle my stomach.

     I heaved, tasting my own bile and swallowing before turning away. The creature was gone and all that remained of its prey was a dark stain on the rocks below. I scuffed my boots over the gravel as I walked, hoping it was still nearby and would hear. I needed to hunt. I needed to kill.

     The breeze brushed a stray strand of my hair from my forehead and something sent tiny shocks though my flesh, raising bumps along my arms. I paused, shaken by the unexpectedness of the feelings. I knew the creature was gone. I could feel its fleeting hunger disappearing into the rubble across the huge pit. This was something different, something more akin to dread.

     My eyes fluttered as a breeze blew past carrying with it the scent of fresh blood. I turned, looking back at the stain on the dirt.  It was the wrong direction for the wind to bring the scent to me. It was coming from somewhere else, somewhere back the direction I’d come from.

     My body went rigid with realization. “Latro,” I hissed through the scarf and broke into a run before I knew where I was going.  Just back, I told myself. Just go back the way you came and then you can stop to find her. She’ll be fine; it’s just one of those things. You just feel bad for leaving her, that’s all.

     But, I knew better. I knew deep into the parts of me that had traveled with her since our emergence that something was very very wrong and that I was going to be too late to fix it.

     I sped past the rubble that used to be a home, through the ash and gravel that used to be a lawn, past burnt husks that used to be trees, and into a field where flowers used to grow. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I knew I had to go, had to go fast.

     Faster, I scolded myself. You’ll be too late.

     You already are another voice, harsher but still mine laughed into my head.

     “No!” I yelled as loud as I could.

     I darted through the field, not slowing to check my direction, knowing only that I need to run. Just a little further, the voice urged me. You’re almost there just keep running.

     My legs burned as I found myself in an old grove of trees still mostly intact. I was built strong, able to do things no human could, but I wasn’t impervious to exhaustion and pain. Lactic acid roared through my muscles and cramps threatened to overtake me, but I pushed on. I forced myself to dart around the trees, leap small mounds of rocks, and block the low hanging branches from swatting me in the face.

     “Please, help,” a voice suddenly carried on the breeze, and the sadness resonating from it stopped me cold. The voice didn’t really need help. It knew there was no help to be had. It called out in desperation.

     “Please, someone,” it called again and I managed to move one leaden leg forward toward the plea.

     I picked my way slowly through the mostly barren trees and thick scrubs not feeling the stings of the thorns as they tore into my clothes and scraped my flesh.

     “Please,” the voice was louder but less insistent.

     My heart threatened to stop and tears threatened to sting my eyes. What had I done? I’d left them alone to fend for themselves. I’d been selfish, wanting to be on my own and knowing I could take care of myself, but I hadn’t thought of them, of her. I hadn’t considered what would happen. I’d thought they’d be fine.

     I came upon the prone figure of my friend, lying unmoving in the dirt beside a huge boulder. Her blonde hair, once the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen was ravaged, ripped away, and matted with thick dark blood.  Her eyes were open and staring at me, through me.  There was no life left in those beautiful skies.

     I fell to my knees by her side letting my weight pull me to the ground with a thud. My pack tumbled to the ground behind me raising a dirt cloud that threatened to choke what little air I felt I was getting.

     “No,” I whispered to the air, but he thought I was talking about her.

     “It was hiding and we didn’t know,” he tried to explain beside me. “We didn’t know it was there. We were talking. We should have been paying more attention, but I told her it was safe here. It’s always been safe here before.”

     I didn’t look at his face, his hands, but I knew the hot tears that ran down his cheeks and the shaking he tried to hide by clasping his hands together.

     Was there blood on his hands, I wondered but didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to blame him, and surely if he had her blood on his hands I would. I would kill him.

     “It was behind the boulder,” he tried to explain without voicing his tears.

     “Shhh,” I ordered. I didn’t need his words. I needed to see.  I pulled first one and then the other leather glove from my hands and tossed them on the ground by my side. I leaned in, over her, and searched for someplace to put my hands that weren’t ripped to shreds.  It was difficult. There was nothing left of her chest but meat. Her rips were broken and gleaming dull reddish white where they showed through what used to be her flesh.

     I shuddered, searching. I had to know. It was my fault and I had to see. I hugged myself, looking for her arms but finding only one.  Where is the other, I wondered uncomprehending? She is supposed to have two.

     As if finally sensing my confusion he spoke again, quieter this time. “It jumped us so fast I barely saw it come. She shoved me out of the way, saved my life, but it grabbed her arm in its teeth and ripped it away.”

     I cringed.

     He swallowed the lump in his throat and continued. “It barely slowed her down. She ripped the sword from her back and attacked the beast. She cut it so many times I couldn’t count but it laughed at her,” he sobbed suddenly and I almost looked at him.

     “It laughed at her,” he started again after he collected himself. “It had been toying with her all along. She’d barely hurt the thing.”

     “Shh,” I said again and the harshness of my own voice made even me quiver nervously.

     I leaned across her body being careful not to touch the gaping hole that used to be her stomach, and put both hands on her other arm.

     Nothing.

     I waited. It had to come to me. It always came to me. I’d seen the visions of the past as long as I could remember.

     Nothing.

     I choked on a scream and pressed my hands against her arm so hard that I was afraid it would bruise her.  Bruise it, I corrected myself. She’s gone. She won’t feel it anyway. 

     “No,” I hissed over the mount of flesh that used to be my only friend. “It doesn’t matter if you’re dead or not. I won’t hurt you.”

     I pulled my hands back and pushed them into the soil around her body but still nothing sprang into my head. There were no pictures, no smells, no feelings, and no past. It was empty.

     “It happened here?” I asked trying not to sound accusing.

     “Yes.”

     He didn’t seem to want to elaborate so I pressed him. “Right here?”

     “Yes, it was behind the boulder. It jumped out at us. She shoved me- so hard I ended up way over there.”  He pointed to a place in the rubble that looked disturbed. “I couldn’t get back to her in time. It did this to her, then it ran away.”

     “It didn’t come for you?” I asked.

     “No, it just ran. It tossed her arm back there,” he pointed again away from us. “I picked it up, brought it back. I thought maybe since you heal so fast, but her chest-“

     He left it at that and I was glad that I didn’t have to hear it.

     I ran my hands along the ground all around her and over as much of her as I could without staining them in her blood. I found the severed limb and touched that too but still nothing came to me.

     “I need to see,” I whispered to myself but he heard me.

     “See what?” he asked. “Everything is here.”

     I shook my head. It wasn’t his business to know my business.

     “Where did it go?” I asked, sliding my gloves back on. “Which way?”

     “There,” he pointed and I noticed his hands were indeed covered in her blood.

     Revulsion rolled though me like a storm and I snatched him from his place by her feet and clutched his neck with both hands. “You did this!”

     “No,” he managed to rasp though my grip was becoming steadily tighter. “No.”

     I looked down at her, fought off a bout of tears and stared into his eyes. “You did this,” I accused again.

     “No,” he managed to choke out as my thumbs started pressing into his windpipe.

     His eyes said he was scared and that he wasn’t lying but I didn’t want to drop him. I wanted someone to pay for what had happened.

     “F**k!” I yelled into the air hoping something out there had heard me. “F**k!”

     I dropped him to the ground and he fell to his knees, both hands touching his neck as he sucked in a deep breath and winced in pain as it burnt.

     I took my canteen from my pack and tossed it at him. It landed on the ground near his knees and raised the dust into the air around him. “Take small sips.”

     He picked it up and scooted himself away from me and from the body. I hefted my pack onto my back and forced my legs to take me back through the trees. “Wait here,” I ordered as I strode away.

     A million thoughts echoed through my mind as I walked back toward the basement the man called home. Why had I left her with him? What had I been thinking? Why hadn’t I seen the other monster when I’d scanned the first time? How could I have messed up so badly that she’d been killed? Why had I thought she’d have been safe with him? Was I mad?

     Question after question pummeled me but I couldn’t find any answers. I felt numb by the time I walked down the real wood steps and into the place we’d thought paradise just hours before. I slid the huge door to the side just as I’d seen him do it, went in, grabbed a shovel I’d seen on one of the shelves, and made my way back to the surface.

     When I emerged again into the daylight my mind had gone blank and I’d forgotten why I’d cared if it had or not. I had a job to do and it had to be done before dark. I had to bury the body.

     The body, my mind repeated. Not her anymore, it’s just a body now.