May 24, 2019 - O2 Remaining: 12.01 Hours / 0.50 Days - 11:39 PM
Eury Morrissey
The dark came suddenly and completely. The rain had let up as the twilight turned to night, but resumed after it was already pitch black. We had no water, no food, and worst of all no light. The river had seen to all of that. All that we had was the dark forest in front of us.
At first, the winding, back tracking, and trudging wasn’t so bad. The effort was nice, in a way, it got my muscles moving and warmed up. But it wasn’t long until all the warmth I worked up began to leave just as quickly, and everything started to feel cold and numb. Every sensation at my feet felt dampened, yet each step was like frozen pins and needles. I wanted to sneak a peek over my shoulder, to see if the rest were still following me on this blind climb over a mountain. I couldn’t bear the sight I might find so I didn’t. From what I could hear past my own grunts and laboured breathing, it was not reassuring at all.
My lungs were sore from all the frigid air I sucked in. The temperature must’ve been getting close to freezing. Despite the rain, at least there was a little bit of heat during the day until the sun set and we started gaining altitude.
As I continued to make my way up the mountain, I gulped another breath, but this time, there was no relief. The O2 had stopped flowing through my cannula.
Oh god!
I took another deep breath before the tank was completely empty.
“I need the concentrator!” I blurted out in a panic, looking for Kelly. He had started the hike directly behind me, but Boyde’s silent insistence had forced him and Alaska as close to the front as possible. Even in the pitch darkness, I could see faint outlines of Boyde and Alaska in front of me. Alaska’s pale skin stood out in the. Another painful breath and Kelly still hadn’t made it to me. “Jesus! Hurry the—” Then, out of nowhere, the bag was in my hands.
I flipped open the bag, pulling the concentrator out, thankful for all the times I had to do this in the dark. I had separated the batteries from the device to save the charge, so there was even more work to be done in the dark. I was involuntarily beginning to hyperventilate. There was next to nothing I could do to stop it, and with every breath, it only got worse. After attaching the cannula to the concentrator, I pressed the start button. After a few seconds, the small readout on the top of the concentrator should’ve lit up in the dim mono-chromatic blue. Except it didn’t. I tried to calm the panic growing inside by pressing the button again, this time holding it for five seconds.
Still, nothing happened.
Oh god.
It’s broken. Dropped in the river, drenched in rain, bashed around, what did you expect? Of course it’s broken. You should’ve just carried it yourself, but instead, you pawned it off on him and he broke the damn thing. I hope that you enjoyed what little pity you managed to garner by giving it to him to hold, because now it’s your turn to pay the piper.
Panic.
I’m going to die. This is it. Oh god what the hell did I do to deserve this?
My short breaths devolved into strained choking sounds, like a fish gasping for air as my body involuntarily grew more desperate. I had no time for this, I needed to act fast. I slid out the second battery, and with a few practiced movements, I took the broken one out and replaced it. I held the button down, and silently prayed to whatever deranged god was doing this to me for a little relief.
But there was no relief for me. There was nothing for me. I stood there soaking wet, trying my best to take in the most basic of all necessities and I couldn’t. Kelly was saying something, but the sound was drowned out. All at once, everything became incredibly loud. It was like the rain was crashing down on cymbals. Thunder ripped across the sky with a deafening boom. Yet somehow, my useless rapid breathing was the loudest.
Suddenly, my prayer was answered. The darkness was broken by the small blue screen on my concentrator lighting up. It immediately kicked into its highest setting, blasting O2 into my nose and down my throat, faster than I could even breathe it in. I allowed myself a few moments of proper flow, before my breathing had returned to normal. The burning sensation that had grown, however, did not subside. Neither did the fear that held my entire body hostage. Without even really realizing it, I sat down on the base of a tree.
“What happened?” Kelly asked. His even tone was reassuring amongst so much uncertainty “Did something go wrong with the concentrator?”
It was weird to hear his voice. Other than that single defeated word, I hadn’t heard him speak since we left Sheridan. I wish I wasn’t so angry at the moment to appreciate his return to form.
“The battery—”
“Was it dead? Didn’t you charge it?” I didn’t think Kelly meant it in an accusatory way, more so out of worry and concern, but it still didn’t help the frustration that fattened inside me.
“I charged it. But it’s broken, or dead. Whatever it is, it’s fucking broken.” I was trying to keep my nerves in order, but looking down at the small readout, it was impossible.
Flow rate - 1 L/min - Time remaining - 6 Hours
Can I even last that long? There was no way to know how much further it was to the road, let alone how much further it was until we reached my parent’s house. For all we knew, it might as well be light years instead of miles away. Kelly stood over me, watching me override the safety features, the automatic flow adjustment, and finally the flow rate itself.
Flow rate - 0.8 L/min - Time remaining - 7.5 Hours
Only seven and a half hours? That was it? I had been suffering this whole week at eighty percent and that was all it got me? Another hour and a half? God damn it.
Flow rate - 0.6 L/min - Time remaining - 10 Hours
I sucked in a deep breath, and I could barely even feel the O2. My lungs immediately began to howl for more air, but I kept my breathing slow and steady. Ten hours. I had ten hours to get there. Before it was too late.
“Did the... battery get wet?” Like a remorseful child, Kelly’s tone immediately pissed me off even more.
“I think so.” There was no use in getting angry, I couldn’t and I shouldn’t. I just needed to move forward.
“Oh god no.” But Kelly’s tone, it was so empty. So defeated. So unlike him. “I’m so sorry, Eury.”
“Don’t.” Despite the futility of it, I kept trying to suppress the rage that was building.
“Don’t?”
“Just… just leave it.” I got to my feet, still gasping in what little air I could. “We gotta get going.”
“But I…” Kelly stopped himself. I suspected it was because there wasn’t anything that he could say.
I kept my feet moving in a straight line beneath me, but it wasn’t long before everything began to cave around me. My whole body was already numb, but now my thoughts were becoming fuzzy too. I pushed on, forcing my lungs to work even harder despite their insistence that they couldn’t.
The path uphill was steep and made up of slick mud and loose gravel. During the middle of the arduous climb, I stopped when I heard an odd sound. Metal clinking against metal. Up until that moment, all that I could hear—and what kept me moving—was the sound of grunting, people slipping against rocks, and worst of all the ragged sound of everyone’s breathing. But the moment I heard that sound, I knew instinctively what it was.
Kelly, with my oxygen tank.
Flow rate - 0.6 L/min - Time remaining - 9.75 Hours
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Midnight or-so
Alaska Bell
I couldn’t quite see her, but I did hear Eury stop. It was pretty dark of course, so I couldn’t tell what she was doing exactly, but as she partially slid down the path beside me, I had a good enough guess. She stopped about where Kelly was. Really, it didn’t take much for me to put two and two together.
Eury took a wheezing second to gulp in some air. “Why… are you… bringing that?” she said, her voice was barely louder than my chattering teeth.
“Because you need it. These things don’t just grow on trees, you know.” Kelly said, trying to be his same stupid jokey self. Given the situation, I could respect that.
As for Eury though, I don’t think she exactly appreciated the attempt. “Even if… they did, why… would I want you to carry it?”
“Because you need it, and… the battery.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Eury, I’m sorry!”
“I said, it’s not your fault.”
“But you’re mad.”
“I’m not mad at you, I just can’t waste any more time than I already have.”
“You’re mad, Eury. I can pretty much feel it radiating off of you.” I said. They’d be here for hours if I didn’t speak up. Kelly wasn’t looking to stop, and Eury—god bless her stubborn heart—wouldn’t let it go either.
“I’m not! I’m just frustrated… and I don’t have much time! This is just stupid!”
“Then can we get a move on! It’s fucking freezing, and if you haven’t noticed, Alaska isn’t exactly doing great either.” There was something to be said about Boyde’s way of putting things succinctly. But it didn’t seem like either of them even heard him.
“You need this, and I—”
“You want to feel useful? You want to make it up to me? Jeez Kelly, give it a break. Will you please drop the damn tank?”
“No! That’s not it. I…” This time, Kelly trailed off rather than getting interrupted. As much as Eury was being rude, she did have a point.
“What is it then? Huh? I know what you’re trying to do, and all that I can say is drop it. There’s no point in worrying about it, so don’t. What’s done is done, and you didn’t mean to do anything, so then it’s fine!” The disconnect between Eury’s words and her passionate tone was too much. She was pissed, but that was more or less par for the course, what was interesting was that she wasn’t really laying into him like she normally would have.
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She wasn’t wrong when she said that she had changed a bit, huh?
“Is it so bad that I want to help you?”
“No, but there’s not a damn thing I can do to make that battery get un-wrecked. And there’s nothing you can do about it either. So instead of letting that fucking tank get in your way, just listen to me. Drop. It.” Eury was really struggling to not be so harsh, yet she was rattling off like a machine gun, increasing in speed alongside her sharp breaths.
“Eury, I think you might need to calm down.” Now it was Davis’ turn to try and bring some rationality. Like Boyde and me though, it was like he wasn’t even here.
“I’m sorry that there’s nothing I can say that’s going to make you feel better. Because, the fact of the matter is, I’m mad. I’m furious even.” With every word, her breaths became even louder and more hectic. “But I’m mostly mad at myself, and if you’re feeling bad I’m sorry to hear that, but I don’t know what to do about it. But, a good start would be to drop that useless tank! You don’t need to… always... put me… first—”
Thunk.
“What was that?” It took a moment for me to register what happened.
“Eury?” Kelly scrambled over to her. “Eury! Please wake up!”
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Time remaining - 9.5 Hours
Eury Morrissey
I am not all that I am.
I am a part of a pair within my own mind.
The conscious, the me, and the subconscious, the her.
The voice. That other me. She was the shadow that lived deep within my mind. The pain and anger and bitterness that I couldn’t help but listen to. When I was awake, I was in control. Mostly. At the very least I was in control of my actions. But when I fell asleep, my control slipped away like a boat unmoored from its harbour.
The fall down into the chasm of my subconscious was long, dark, and webbed to choking with fear. I was always afraid that if I slept I would see her face in the darkness. If I closed my eyes, my subconscious would take over and after that moment it would all be over. But that was then. Now, there was no choice. I was spiralling into Wonderland to meet my Dark Queen.
Time remaining - 9.25 Hours
“Open your eyes, Eury.”
The voice I heard was not my own. It was deep, comforting and twanged with the same almost-southern drawl that I had heard my entire life. It was my father’s voice. Excitedly, I opened my eyes to find I was in a nearly dark room, without my dad to be found anywhere.
And I wasn’t at Alaska’s either. Or any of the other places that I took refuge in for the last week.
Instead, after adjusting to the dim light, I found I was in the living room of my parents' house. The world beyond the wall-spanning windows was the same as it had been the first night I had left for Spokane. A moonless, starless, snowy September night. The cloudy sky was tinged slightly orange from Sheridan’s streetlights miles away, but were none-the-less still there.
The window pane vibrated ever so slightly as a whispering howl shook the thick glass.
The Banshee.
Wren Shaw.
She was looking for me.
Time remaining - 9 Hours
Even here, standing was still exhausting but I continued anyway. Ghosts escaped from my lips as the temperature dropped by several degrees.
“Dad?” I called out to the freezing, empty house. As I rubbed my arms they felt like they were covered in a thin layer of ice.
I remembered this night so vividly. It snowed almost two feet over the last two days, and the freak storm covered the skies in thick clouds for a week, when I told my parents what happened on the last day of school. Or at least a portion of the truth. That I was heartbroken. Rejected by the only person I thought of as my friend. The beating heart of my first love callously stamped upon. It was into that same bitterly cold snow that I ran to after I couldn’t find the words to fully explain myself.
I tore my eyes away from the window. I didn’t need those memories souring this moment. I was home. Finally. Exactly what I wanted. I made it somehow.
And yet, I was still alone.
“Home? Of course you would think that." Another voice spoke quietly. Distorted and garbled, it was scraping at the edges of my hearing, yet I could barely parse it from my own thoughts.
“Hello?” I looked toward the kitchen and the familiar silhouettes were all there. All of them except for one. Even in this unfamiliar version of my childhood home, I thought I could at least find my mother in there. I had seen her so many times, so many happy moments, fluttering past the double-wide doors between the living room and the kitchen. But now, the kitchen was dark and empty, just like the rest of this house.
“Eury, please.” I heard my father say, which made me jump as I turned around. I expected the familiar bump from my O2 tank in my bag, or at the very least a pang of exterion from my lungs. But instead, neither happened. I realized that I wasn’t wearing my bag, nor were my lungs hurting.
Time remaining - 8.75 Hours
“Dad? What the hell’s going...” I trailed off when I saw what the voice was coming from. It wasn’t my father. Instead, it was an unfamiliar figure who stood in front of me.
“Please, take a seat.” The figure formally extended its hand. The hand, just like the rest of the figure, was as dark as an oil spill. In the dark, it was nearly impossible for me to make out any details, and the sight left me dumbstruck and still.
Regardless, I suddenly found myself sitting across from the figure.
“I’m certain that you have some questions right about now, yes?” The figure said, using my father’s voice. It slowly began to be illuminated by the brightening glow from the aquarium behind it. I hadn’t even noticed it until, but the moment I had, it was hard for me to keep my eyes off of it. The soft blue light was so mesmerizing. The featureless face of the figure looked to the light, shifting as it did so.
Time remaining - 8.25 Hours
“What the hell are you?” The moment I opened my mouth it was like some sort of hypnosis that I had been under broke. A dam had broken in my brain. And a multitude of thoughts began flowing forward, fighting each other to be realized first. “Where am I? What the hell is happening right now? Where are my parents? Where’s Kelly?”
Its head twisted slightly like liquid shadow trying to stay together before it spoke again.
“I think you already know all that, don’t you?” Its mouth didn’t move when it spoke. Instead, unchanging, unflinching, the ink-black thing sat there, speaking at me without truly speaking.
Time remaining - 8 Hours
“I don’t know anything!”
“I’m glad you are finally admitting it. We’ve been waiting a long time for that, haven’t we?” The figure said while its voice began to slowly change. It became more distorted with every word. “But, how can we blame you for that?” The thing’s voice didn’t even seem to float across the room. Instead, it just appeared in my ears, or in my mind. Second by second, it felt like the ice that had built up on my skin was slowly reaching into my muscles. The window beside me rattled again, the howl of the Banshee even closer than it was before. My teeth began to chatter as my body curled into a fetal position.
“Eury, Eury, Eury, how old are you now? And you’re still acting like this? Still snapping like a little twig under the slightest pressure.” As the voice continued, it became more and more malformed, more and more distorted away from the voice of my father, until it couldn’t even be compared at all. “Letting everyone around us pick up all the pieces the moment we break.”
Time remaining - 7.5 Hours
“Wait, what do you mean by we?” The words, like the thoughts that formed them, kept pressing at my lips, fumbling as I spoke them.
The figure’s head twisted even further, cranking audibly as it twisted further than any human body would allow. Then, as its words entered my mind, one more time, I felt nothing but familiarity, once more.
It’s time for you to let it in. Isn’t it?
It spoke with my voice now, It was in my head, and it was my own thoughts. I began shaking while I tried with every fiber in my body to pull my gaze away from the figure’s dead stare. For a split second, I was able to wrestle my sight away from whatever control it had over me, landing momentarily on the soft blue glow of the fish tank. Inside, there was the beautifully scarred beta fish—Orpheus—my father had nursed back to health all those years ago; it now floated motionlessly in the water.
Time remaining - 7.25 Hours
I couldn’t look away for long though. A pain worse than any that I ever felt forced my focus back to the figure. Nearly impossible to see in the rapidly fading light, the figure’s ink-black arms sunk into my chest.
Time remaining - 7 Hours
This is much less than what you deserve.
Time remaining - 6.5 Hours
Blood dripped from its obsidian hands as it retracted from my chest.
Time remaining - 6 Hours
I tried to breathe. Nothing. I opened my mouth to scream. Silence.
Time remaining - 5.5 Hours
Why even bother?
Time remaining - 5 Hours
The figure’s hands came up to the hole in its face. It stretched to fit the bloody mashed pink meat that was my lungs in before it disappeared into the nothingness.
Time remaining - 4.5 Hours
Please. Please. Please. Just let me breathe. Just let me—
Time remaining - 4 Hours
Let them all have you. Destroy you and make sure that there’s nothing left of you.
Time remaining - 3.5 Hours
Its words came for me one after another, faster than my own thoughts. There was less than nothing I could do as it encompassed my entire vision.
Time remaining - 3 Hours
“...No...” With my final breath, I was able to eke the word out.
Time remaining - 2.5 Hours
The light disappeared as the ink-black figure swallowed me whole. Suffocating me not only physically, but from the insides as well, into a kernel of absolution. Imploding in like the collapse of a star until I was condensed to the essential core of who I was.
Time remaining - 2 Hours
There was nothing for me anymore. The faint blue light that managed still to burn itself into my mind, was all that I could cling to.
Time remaining - 1.5 Hours
Cling to.
Time remaining - 1 Hours
Depend on.
Time remaining - 0.75 Hours
Let me in. The voice, her voice that was everything and everywhere repeated.
Time remaining - 0.5 Hours
“Please, please, wake up.”
Time remaining - 20 Minutes
It was another. A voice that wasn’t mine spoke. Something beyond the darkness.
Time remaining - 19 Minutes
“I need you. You can’t go. Please Eury, I… I think I love you. Please don’t leave me.”
Time remaining - 17 Minutes
Kelly?
Time remaining - 15 Minutes
The thought was difficult, but I pushed against the pressure, against the ink-black darkness. And remembered. I remembered him.
Time remaining - 13 Minutes
Kelly was there. I know he’s there. I can’t remember a time that he wasn’t now. Maybe… Maybe he can be a reason.
Time remaining - 11 Minutes
Let him rescue you? Save you from what? Demons in your own head? You’re no different than before. Just a little doll waiting to be rescued.
Time remaining - 9 Minutes
“Please, I can’t… I just can’t do this alone. Please.” Kelly’s voice pushed through the garbled static. The pressure was getting worse but the feeling was returning to my legs. Excruciating pain ran wild through my body as the feeling returned everywhere slowly at first, then suddenly all at once.
Time remaining - 7 Minutes
You can’t escape me. You’ll never escape me. There’s no way.
While that may be true, I think… I think I’m okay with that. I can live with it. I just need to be stronger than you.
Time remaining - 5 Minutes
Never. You are weak! You will never, ever be free from me! I will always—
Wrong.
You. Are. Wrong.
Time remaining - 3 Minutes
You are nothing but some weak, insignificant, worthless part of my brain! You are nothing.
You say that. But I can wait. I will wait until you think you have defeated me so assuredly. Until you think that no matter what I do now I cannot bring you back to me. That’s when I will be there again.
But know this.
I will always be here.
I will always be waiting for you.
In the deepest part of you, that is where I will be. Until the day that you are mine.
Time remaining - 1 Minute
The final burst of pain was in my lungs. Firey, sudden convulsions, overcame me as a spastic fist around my chest. Pulling me out of the darkness.
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I forced my eyes to open. The smallest movement, a herculean task. But, as I did so, I was met with a sight that was worth all of it and more.
Kelly’s sleeping face rested on the thin, polka-dotted bedspread that was draped over my bed. He was comfortable enough to even drool a little. Soft golden sunlight filtered in through the drawn blinds, but it was more than enough for me to get a good look at him. But, as the seconds ticked past, my eyes began to close again. Too heavy for me to keep them open.
But it was okay. I knew it was because I am not all that I am.
I am a part of a pair, and I’m stronger because of it.
It’s me, and it’s him.
I am not alone. And I don’t want to be.
And I am not weak.
May 25, 2019 - 2:45 PM