The air was cool, crisp, deathly still..And yet, paradoxically, it had a thick heaviness to it. I noted the floor had a slippery film coating it, either som kind of slime or possibly suggesting it had been raining and right on cue, I heard a distant rumble of a thunderstorm as I very cautiously walked out of the door.
"I think it's clear." Triya stopped to pull it shut and she wedged the plank in the handle, barricading the door. I recoiled at the volume of her voice, for fear that it would alert all the horrors that were most undoubtedly hiding in all the dark corners.
Y-..you think?
"Fucking hell it's dark.." I hissed under my breath and stepped aside for Triya; I shivered as I looked out into the opaque gloom. I felt FUCKING uncomfortable being outside in the pitch black and I could hear scattered, faint, skittering noises that fucked with my nerves and threatened to trigger enough of a flight or fight response that I'd blindly run off down the road straight to the entrance of the estate and pound on the gates until someone let me in..But the swarm was definitely nowhere to be seen, well 'heard', which was a fucking plus.
A big bloody plus in a sea of wanky negatives..
Fortunately, Xno's spotlights had switched to a thin blue Majik laser that rapidly flickerd around, tracing our intended path and highlighting obstacles or gradient changes with excellent effectiveness. It was not only useful but it was also brilliant so that we didn't attract unnecessary attention to ourselves with spotlights. Smart. The blue laser tracing did make the path look surreal, like we were in a silent Tron themed rave, but I was grateful for the fact that it didn't light us up.
Anyone or anything looking from the outside would just see some everyday Majik shittery going on.
"It won't take us long, just an extra few minutes to go through the woods." Triya's faceless hushed voice released clouds of warm mist visible via the strobing blue laser.
"Right, okay. Woods way because of..the danger at the gates, right?" I replied quietly as I stepped over a curb that was kindly highlighted with a chevron laser pattern.
Good Daemon Xno.
"Yes. Front gates are totally not safe. There are some of the bigger bugs stalking that area..And it wouldn't have been manned anyways. So we'll need to use the uhh, secret way..."
Secret way?
"Xno says that they are suprisingly shit at climbing for arachnids so we've got that going for us..low mag level, so they apparently don't have the ability yet. Those walls are very effective against holding them off, at least for now."
Fucking crawlers.
"Great..Uhh and what's this secret way??" I asked, looking in her general direction and tilting my head, which was pointless in the dark since she couldn't see me, but still, reflexive behaviours and all that shite.
"Um yeah. It was actually for us getting out, if things went bad. It's just a rope ladder hidden on the inside of the wall, but Xno can grab it and then throw it over. After what happened at home…I needed to make sure we had escape routes…" she trailed off into silence as our footsteps tapped on the wet tarmac ground.
"Oh right, fair enough, smart thinking." I didn't know how else to respond. It was sobering and frustrating to hear about escape routes, since I had not thought about such things myself and it felt like something I should have considered.
Note to self, start doing that.
We stayed silent as our feet reached soggy muddy ground and blue lines started outlining tree boughs, a clear sign we were walking in the woods.
I hope Marri and Lone are okay..But I am really starting to worry about what happened back in the pumphouse..What actually happened?
It was baffling that everyone had disappeared, but the state Tanner had been in was brutal.
He looked like he had been butchered! The knife being a pretty fucking obvious sign..But why would anyone want to do that to him? Was it someone or just some abomination?..Could Triya-
It didn't help that I couldn't see Triya, so my thoughts were free to contemplate that she was getting Xno to lead me to my death somewhere.
Could she do that? What would be the purpose?..EXP?..No way. Surely not.
I didn't like where this train of thought was going. My expectations for humanity had always been low, but holy fuck that would be some new depths of depravity and selfishness if it was true.
"Hey Godu." She was trying to whisper, but it came out as an ear tickling hiss, and it was much closer than I was expecting like an ASMR experience I had not consented to, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
"Argh! Chhhhrist that scared me.. Ahem. All good?" I whispered back.
"Sorry, yeah. Xno says there's nothing around so we should be okay to talk and we have a bit of time before we arrive..Soo.."
I heard her swallow nervously before continuing.
"I um, want to tell you a bit about what happened back there. I don't know how to explain everything and I’m not sure how much you were conscious for, so I'll just start from when we first escaped the swarm by entering the room."
"Okay sounds good, I’ll listen and hold questions until the end." I replied softly.
"Oookay. Umm. Sooo..we all got in and we got rid of those crawlers that came in and then I bolted the door shut. Once we were good, we all started to grab boxes and stuff to make a barricade around the corner in case anything was still inside or got in."
Yup. This all correlates with what I remember.
“A few people dragged all the wounded into one area, including yourself and Tanner, and then we rested for sometime, sticking close to the entrance for a while until we were ready to continue exploring the room further in..um-” She started to choke up, so she coughed into her sleeve to clear her throat.
“And uhh, they found that nest..with the people..inside the sacs. And um..oh god it was horrible. They were still alive in there but they had horrible swollen bodies and they were slowly growing legs and there were girls that were..…all those monsters…they’re…they’re fucking people Godu!”
The penny dropped as it all clicked into place. The adult skull wearer's behaviour, the skulls for heads, the nest sacs and their contents, and the swarm. They were all people..once.
One of the reasons we weren’t seeing many people, was because the nightmares ARE people. Are we just incubators for them to be birthed into, or are they direct mutations?
“So um, people started freaking out when they saw this and someone tried your last bit of healing water to see if it would fix them…”
I checked and sure enough, my leg pocket was empty.
She sniffed in the way that people silently crying would.
“It…didn’t heal them at all, it frickin’ melted their throat and mouth…and the thing was just gargling and screaming..ugh it was too horrible so I came back to sit with you guys.. Tanner was recovering well and he was awake so I told him that the others found the nest..And that was when the screaming and shouting started."
She paused for a few moments before letting out a nervous sigh and continued with a shaky voice.
"A-and um, we rushed back o-over and on the way Xno, he um, h-he was telling me to stay back and that we needed to go because he could s-sense corrupted negatives. Damn I wish we had left right then.."
She took a deep breath in and out.
"Tanner…...." She paused and took a deep breath. "Um, he shouted something and then some of the others ran out of the dark and attacked us. They were going completely berserk! Like they were the infected from 28 days later or world war z or something. We tried to fight them off but I couldn't do anything and Xno was screaming at me to run and, and-"
Xno made two low chirps.
"It's okay Xno, you don't need to apologise. You were trying to keep me safe. If it wasn't for you I'd be dead.” She took another deep breath and regained herself.
“Um, so yeah, we ran off and Xno turned off his lights and led me with his laser thingies. I ran in circles and around the pipes for ages, until we found a safe hiding spot. Then I waited until Xno gave the signal and we made a break for the exit. Along the way we found Tanner and..oh god..he...If we had MORE healing tonic maybe I could have..removed the knife..or something?" her voice cracked and she whimpered. "I don't really know much but apparently stomach wounds are slow killers..Did you know? Sylvie taught me that..even though his g-guts.....ughh it was that fucking knife that killed him..I couldn't..I didn't...I'm sorry!" She let out a pained sob and then covered her mouth to muffle further uncontrollable sobs.
I reached out and patted her on the back.
"It's not your fault.."
"Oh god..Um, he was gone before I could wake you." *Sniff* " and I nearly thought you were dead by how silent you slept." *Sniff* *sniff* "But, ugh bloody nose, I..well, I managed to wake you by slapping you..Sorry about that. But I couldn't leave you there to die. Plus, I was too scared to go back alone..Honestly I don't know how those psychos didn't find you.."
This was a lot to take in.
Xno made a long series of hushed whirring noises, like a disc being read in a game console.
"Yes, don’t worry, I just wanted to explain everything else first, um..” She spoke with a slight hint of irritation at the orb.
“So um the final thing I have is Xno’s suggestion on why we were attacked. Xno was watching over the group after I left, providing them with light, and he witnessed ‘negative corruption’. Basically the others um, they put the people in the sacs out of their misery, and when they took the shimmer..Well, basically, it is REALLY bad for people to kill other people and then absorb each others EXP. Xno said he observed the EXP corrupting the second it touched the recipients..infecting and damaging the person's mind until that person loses all control..There's no coming back once it overwhelms you. So yeah..Basically left for fucking dead except they are on Majik steroids..”
For fuck sakes..
“Seriously? You mean like EXP cannibalism turns people into the infected?! Can we get infected? Can others??” My voice came out a little louder than I wanted, but this was really bad. We could not cope with some kind of Majik zombie virus.
“Shhh! Jeez, keep it down! Uhh I don’t know, we didn’t stick around to find out..but we just need to be careful and NEVER open that door again..It is horrible to say, but we can’t risk it. And we must never kill infected people and absorb the EXP...Or people in general for that matter.."
We walked on in silence as I digested her horror story.
Just when I think I’m coming to terms with this hellhole, a new layer of horseshit gets dumped right in…
All those people..gone.
Sylvie..Gone.
Steve..Gone.
Tanner..Gone..
“Ughh this is so fucked up..it’s all just horrible Godu, I don’t want to stay here anymore, I don’t want to see anymore people die right in front of my eyes! Like college was shit, but it was better than this crap..” She let out a big sigh and quietly whimpered.
“Yeah tell me about it…but I don’t know where to go. I don’t know if there’s anywhere safer right now...we just have to stick together and keep fighting. There may be somewhere safer out there..but I don’t think we’ll survive the journey...” I let out a puff of air, vibrating my lips.
“Christ, I hate that I’m saying words like ‘survive’ and ‘fighting’. Makes me feel like a right twat.. ” I grumbled.
Triya giggled “Heh! oh heck, sorry, this isn’t the time to be laughing I know.” I heard her cup her hand over her mouth to try and muffle the sounds of her further giggling.
The sound somehow lifted a huge weight off my shoulders just for a moment and I smiled into the darkness.
“Hey don’t worry about stupid shit like that, we are allowed to laugh no matter what. Hell, I think it’s our duty being British to laugh even in the direst of situations. Right? Keep calm and carry on..Ugh, actually now I feel even more of a twat..”
She burst out laughing and gasped, covering her mouth again.
“Okay. That was a little bit too loud-oh I think we’re here.” I pointed into the darkness where Xno was laser disco highlighting the wooden wall and then made a tut noise at myself when I realised she couldn’t see my hand.
“Oh yes, phew! Xno just needs to go up and release the rope ladder. Go on little guy.”
We waited, and a minute later, the rope ladder came tumbling down.
“Ladies first..” I absentmindedly offered, looking back around into the darkness anxiously.
There's something fucking there..I know there is..
“Thank you, kind Sir.” She replied politely, and I was sure she did a curtsy in the darkness. She scrambled up quickly and hissed down for me to come up and as I put my foot down on the first rung, I heard a twig snap behind me.
“Fuck!” I hissed, spun round, ready to fight as I nearly soiled myself. I still couldn’t see shit, but Xno had already begun his laser dance show, scanning the area. Nothing was outlined, so I turned back and hurried onto the ladder and climbed up. Once I had crested over, we rolled the ladder back up and climbed down one of the diagonally leaning poles that were reinforcing the wall.
We’re finally inside, should be safe..now..fuck.
I face palmed, hoping that mentally saying 'safe' did not count towards triggering whatever jinxing mechanisms ruled this forsaken universe..
The sky was clearing up to the point that starlight was starting to illuminate surfaces, but I was very appreciative when Xno put on his spotlights and started leading us towards where they were staying. The estate was ghostly silent and I couldn’t see any lights on at all, which was unnerving, but it wasn’t too surprising considering it was probably gone-midnight.
I hope they didn’t send anybody out for us.
“Hey Godu, I’m guna’ grab Syrin my brother and then maybe we can stay with you if that’s alright?”
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“Uhhhhh sure I don’t think Sy-...shit...I don’t think Erza will mind…I dunno..” I cursed under my breath and exhaled.
I wasn’t looking forward to having that conversation.
“OH um. Ohh shit I forgot...okay um yeah..actually maybe it’s best if we just meet up tomorrow?” She understood it was probably not going to be a good idea.
“Damn it..Yeah I think that’s probably best. I don’t know what's going to happen or what to say..but, I’ll figure it out, don’t worry.” I gave a reassuring nod.
No point in both of us worrying..I’ll just deal with it and tell it how it is. Honesty is the best policy..even when it's to do with death.
She reluctantly waved goodbye and went inside the block of flats. I turned around before realising I had forgotten to ask for a candle lamp to help me navigate in the dark. Balls. And so I stood there awkwardly, shifting from one foot to another, waiting for my eyes to adjust, wondering if it would be a nuisance were I to go knock and ask for a candle or lamp...
Wonder if Xno has any friends..
But after standing there for a solid minute like a weirdo, I decided to quit being a wuss and just hurry back; there was just enough light to figure it out..and it ain't the dark I should be afraid of.
It had been an emotional rollercoaster these past 24 hours, but I was surprisingly feeling very stable and collected, which was potentially an after-effect of leveling up one of the attributes.
Or maybe it is because I have powers and abilities, I have nearly died several times AND I have a new part of my mind that can seemingly talk to me in my dreams..Who knows!
But what I did know was that taking things as they came and being as flexible and adaptive as possible was working, if only just, and so I would continue to do so.
Embrace it all.
The ground was illuminated enough now for me to jog, so it was barely a minute before I reached the door and went to open it.
Clunk.
It was locked.
Of course, I'm an idiot..
I patted myself down for my key.
“Where the pissing hell…did…I put that…thi-AHA!”
I found the key in a lower leg pocket and went to put it into the lock, but I froze when I heard a rapid click-clacking noise from the other side of the door. My blood ran cold.
NO! DON’T TELL ME-
I took a few steps back, and was just about to torpedo through when I saw a glow shine through the doors small window and the handle turned.
A brown..glow?
The door opened, and stood in the doorway, dimly illuminated by a little golem..
"St-..STEVE?"
Was Steve.
“Oh thank the gods! You are alive Godu!” he wore a strained smile, his eyes glinting with moisture.
Hearing his voice hit me like a truck, making me dizzy and causing me to stagger back a step.
“St....Steve?” I just stood there in complete shock.
He sniffed and gave me a bear hug with some slightly painful enthusiastic pats on the back, before releasing me and grabbing my shoulders.
“Y-you’re..alive..How-” I stuttered.
“Not just me buddy, come on in.” I wandered inside and he shut the door and led me to the living room.
How the bloody hell-
Laying on the sofa was Sylvie, looking comfortably fast asleep.
I put my hands on my head and smiled, welling up with tears of relief and salvaged happiness.
“Oh man…haha ohhh man.." I turned to face him and patted his shoulder in a very-well-fucking-done manner. "If there was one person that could cheat death AND cheat it on another’s behalf it would be you Steve! I don’t know how you did it but, damn nice job!” I sniffed and wiped my eyes with my sleeve.
“I...I don’t suppose-” I started to say and glanced at the door hopefully. It's impossible..I know..But so is Majik and-
Steve shook his head and looked down. “I’m so sorry mate…I couldn’t save him or anyone else...just barely managed to get Sylvie and Catara…”
“Oh..Okay..it ain’t your fault mate. We didn't know.." I was running out of comforting words. There was a solemn moment of silence before Steve rubbed his face and moved to the kitchen.
“Ughh, I need a drink, want one? Don’t answer, rhetorical question.”
He grabbed three beers from the fridge before sitting down and motioned for me to join him. As I sat down, one of his golems waddled over and opened up the beers and Steve handed me one.
“This ones for Tanner.” He slid it over to an empty chair. “Here’s to our fallen teammates. It is the least we can do.” He toasted with a sour look on his face.
I nodded with a tired face and took a sip.
There was another period of silence before I couldn’t suppress a yawn and decided I should head to bed very soon, briefly pondering if I should wake up Marri and let her know I was okay, or if it was better to let her sleep.
Probably best to let her know, else she’ll kill me herself… poor woman was probably worried to death about me..But before that..
“So. Go on then, I’m looking forward to hearing how you gave death the finger several times.” I put on a forced smile and nodded to Steve.
He chuckled and gave a shrug while peeling the label off his bottle.
“Ah well you know…it wasn’t anything too special..” He shrugged to himself. “What do you know about golems?”
“Golems? Uhhh…” Tilting my head, I paused and searched my memory for information about golems. “Hm. Well obviously they used to be purely fictional, until Majik. But all I know is that they are usually made of rocks? and are not really alive? More like nature's robots or something, right?” There wasn’t anything in particular I could think of. And now I was extremely curious..My first guess was that Steve was going to say he had made lifelike golems of himself, Sylvie and this Catara, and had sent them instead.
Who is Catara even..
“Ah well yes, that’s the more common understanding." He leaned in. "A more official description would be ‘An animated anthropomorphic being consisting entirely from inanimate matter.’"
Nodding with my full attention, I took a swig and waited patiently for him to continue.
“But!" He held a finger up. "The original word was also used as a term for amorphous, unformed material. Essentially, think of glass in its liquid form or plastics. ”
“Uh okay…soooo, amorphous probably means something like you can change its shape..Right?” My confusion showed itself on my face.
He chuckled.
“Sorry mate, no. It essentially means ‘shapeless’. But the reason I’m explaining this is because of an interesting hidden feature, or exploit, if you will, that I discovered during my moment of desperation. Much like how your shields don’t just defend, but you can use them to attack, I too can do some crazy stuff, with my majiglyph skill [Golemic IV].”
“Let me start from when we formed the circle…”
Steve gave a recollection of his version of the events, and I stayed quiet. He started back when we were in the circle..
“So I knew I’d made a mistake when I saw the mobs just keep pouring out. The circle strategy would have been fine if we were against similar numbers, but we were fully outnumbered and we had little energy left..we should have gone to the building first but something told me it was a bad idea..Turns out that feeling was wrong..” He sighed.
“Anyways. After Tanner, yourself and the others made it to the door, I was protecting Sylvie and got tripped up. I was dragged down to the ground and I really thought that was it. That I was going to die, heh..” He scratched his head awkwardly. “So as I’m struggling on the ground, I had an epiphany moment where I thought ‘damn I wish I could make a golem out of the tarmac’..then I thought, why not try?” He waggled his finger. “Of course, I’m redacting the screaming, crying and swearing parts but..” He turned his hands over, slightly lifting them, and tilted his head in a ‘conceding’ expression. “Overall I’d never really thought to activate a patch of matter rather than an object entirely..And the results were astounding, to say the least!”
He placed a finger onto the table and a thin line of neon brown Majik traced around the surface in a coaster-sized circle, he proceeded to push his finger smoothly into the table as if it was clay, the area shifting like putty as he pushed his hand through.
“W-Holy shit!” If I was a cartoon character, my eyes would have jumped out and my jaw would have slammed into the ground with an anvil clang. He pulled his hand out and the neat circle popped out and he placed it onto the table as the neon brown Majik returned to his hand and the mass solidified. I picked it up and stared at it in awe. It had returned to a solid state, but you could see where the wood had impossibly been moulded, giving the fibres a plasticine-smeared look.
“Crazy right? With whole objects, the process seems to be much faster, but with surfaces or large mass objects where I’m only using a small portion, there seems to be a longer...cast time shall we say. And this is where the exploit shines! If I pull back the Majik and cancel the skill, I only lose a fraction of it. It is hard to say how much and the only reason I do notice it, is because when I return a formed golem, the ‘weight’ of the Majik returning is noticeably less.”
Steve..More game references..Bah, too tired to fight it anymore.
A disturbing thought came across my mind.
“So uh, Steve, does this...work on organic matter?”
He frowned, deep in thought, before pulling a yikes face.
“Uhh..yeesh, uh I don’t think so and I’m guessing you mean flesh..not sure I want to try that. But a tree or a plant might be a safer trial case. A flesh Golem though..Yuck.”
I nodded approvingly. Ah good. He didn't melt himself and the others down to transport them then. “Sorry, please continue mate.”
And avoiding flesh amalgamations was probably a good thing. A slippery slope to avoid.
“No worries my friend. So, going back, I was being scratched, bitten and smacked and it was simply brutal and I really thought I was going to die..so I tried to make something like a suit of golem armour to protect me-”
Yup. I can definitely see Steve storming around in a Trash-Mecha at some point.
“-but it didn’t quite work. I sunk down into the ground and became buried as the top reformed, so I panicked and pulled the Majik back to try and reverse what I’d done but ended up going even further down. Here, I got..lucky, as I found myself in a drainage pipe. It wasn’t a huge pipe, but it was enough for me to catch my breath. So I used the previous process and tunnelled, following it until I reached a vertical drainage space. It was big enough to move around and there I managed to drink the last bits of my healing pot-”
Tonic.
“-and shortly after I sent a little marble golem up to head over to the building and find people. I feel a sort of magnetic ‘pull’ towards their direction you see, so I used that to guide me. Once I knew where to go, I carried on tunnelling until I was underneath, spending nearly all my energy stabilising the tunnel as I went.”
He picked up the table mass he had previously extracted and placed it in the hole in the table. It glowed neon brown again, spread out flat, and filled the hole, merging with the severed edges.
Once he was done, you could see it looked modified, but the surface was perfectly smooth.
Steve let out a big yawn and a sigh, which prompted me to also yawn.
“Ugh man I’m exhausted and you are probably as well..So I’ll spare you any more silly details and wrap up. Basically, I made it to the pumphouse and found Sylvie unconscious with Catara carrying her. She was terrified, telling me about people going insane and that Tanner was missing and that everyone was fucked...so I took them out via the tunnel and closed it up behind us, with the intention of coming back..” He looked down at his hands and gritted his teeth.
“Sh...said it was impossible that anyone was alive or sane..I could hear the insanity screaming in the darkness and I panicked...I’m so sorry Godu…I left you guys, again..” He finished his beer without looking up.
Admittedly there was a faint flare of ‘why the fuck did you guys just assume I was dead’ but the feeling didn't last long. From his point of view, he could either risk all of their lives searching for possible survivors in the pitch black, or, take the logical approach and head back.
Besides, didn’t Tanner and I run to the building the first chance we got?
“Hey, I suppose that makes two of us right? I mean, me and Tanner ran for the building. Look, if you had just ran off, maybe you could be hard on yourself, but you saved two souls. One of them being the lady who pretty much saved my family's life so I think you have no reason to feel guilty.” I cleared my throat and nodded with a smile. “Besides, this fucked up world is to blame, not us. Life is too short to worry about doing things right, it will be fine as long as we try and do the right things. I think that’s fair don't you?”
Steve chuckled.
“Man you should write that on a plaque or something. Very wise. But thank you, truly. You would have every right to be angry at me for not trying to save you..I just hope the others can forgive me for not trying to save their loved ones." He rubbed his face.
“Yeah...shit situation all round.” I looked out the window and grimaced. It felt like a bitter end to the conversation, and we sat there in silence, contemplating everything that had happened, until I remembered there was more good news I hadn't shared in that Triya was alive too.
“Oh Steve. Shit I almost forgot, I wasn’t the only one that survived, in fact she pretty much saved me..Triya and Xno led me back here, she's at home right now, safe and sound!"
He gave the biggest grin I'd ever seen. “Man! That is bloody good to hear! Well and truly! Ha! Oh Man..You know, I feel like she is going to be one of those legendary hero's, spoken about throughout the ages The great Ryngyr Triya!"
He pronounced a word I’d not heard before. It sounded like Rain-jee-ear. Noticing my confused expression, he spoke. “Oh you don't know? that’s her class. I've spoken to her about some of her choices and what she should go for ecetera.”
OH shit, the garden of growth! I haven’t mentioned to Steve about my… well, her.
But when I went to bring it up, a terrible feeling rose in the pit of my stomach when I thought about mentioning her... like it was not a good idea. So much so I decided to not say anything at all, plus I was also incredibly tired and needed to let Marri know I was okay.
Slapping my knees, the universal sign for closing a conversation to haad off, I got up and started making my way towards the stairs. “Right mate, best be off to the other half and all that.”
He chuckled “Yeah no worries, I'm going to stay down here and watch over Sylvie so take the night off guard duty..It was good to talk man..I’m glad you’re alright..I think Marri would go on a crusade if anything ever happened to you.”
"You've got her down to a T. I'm really glad you guys made it as well mate." Chuckling, I waved goodnight and headed upstairs. I made a pitstop to remove my filthy clothes and wipe myself down before pulling on my pjamas and continuing to the top floor.
Lightly tapping on the door, I tiptoed in, Marri was awake and looked up at me.
Erza and Lyra were asleep on the double bed and Marri had a corner setup with a mattress on the floor, looking extremely comfortable with Lone in a small travel bed. She had been so chuffed when Sylvie gave it to her, she had told me all about how safe it was for co-sleeping, how she could feed Lone to sleep whilst he was in there and how she could still snuggle next to him without worrying about rolling onto him in her sleep.
You are both safe and cosy...
When she saw me, she smiled a deep, beautiful smile as she started to silently cry. I rushed over for a cuddle and I held on tightly as I treasured her warmth and her existence. She had been in my life for so long, ever since we met each other as reckless young teenagers in the child care system, and we had always had each others back. No matter what. We had always picked each other over anyone else. We had always chosen what was best for each other, even if it was not our personal favourites.
I loved her so much.
And in the ensuing silence, all the hellish memories of the day plagued my mind, and it was my turn to silently weep as I came to terms with what I had nearly lost. \
Everything.
After some time, Lone started stirring and chomping, so I wiped my snotty face and scooped him up. I gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead and passed him over to Marri so she could nurse him. When she lifted her top up, I couldn't help but silently and dramatically gawk at her boob, covering my eyes but peeking inbetween the fingers jokingly. She responded with a snort and rolled her eyes.
She patted on the mattress next to her.
"Care for a sleepover tonight, stranger?" Her whispering voice was like velvet. It gave me soothing goosebumps as it echoed around in my mind. My eyelids started to exponentially increase in weight and so I smiled sleepily and lay down beside her as she stroked my head, comforting me and softly humming. I squeezed her leg in affectionate response, feeling nothing but pure love and adoration.
She was too good to me and I marvelled at how much of an amazing mother she was in these apocalyptic times.
I can't keep making her worry about me. I need to give her more support..Tomorrow, we'll talk and figure out what we should do next...Tomorrow we’ll have to talk with everyone and figure out what we all should do.....next...
It didn't take long for me to fall into blissful sleep.
...
..
.