I can't think about the numbers anymore. I already feel depressed.
Tonight, I just need to be here with him.
Everything else can wait until morning.
"It's late now, Tim. I think we should head home for the night."
"Aww well, I was having so much fun. If you say so."
I ruffle his hair, smiling affectionately.
"I promise you, I'll find his body. Mark my words."
"It doesn't really matter now, so Des, don't worry anymore. I can see you're trying your hardest. That's what matters to me."
Hearing that, my brows crease.
"Tim, I won't let this slide. Not for either of us."
Looking down, he hides a warm smiles to himself.
"If that's what you want, then I want that too."
"That's the way. Come over here." I lift him onto my shoulders and step out of the room.
Bump.
"Ouch."
"Sorry—mind the ceiling." I warn belatedly.
"Duly noted." He tugs on my hair, causing some pain.
Ouch. I suppose I deserve this much.
Passing by Sevinstine, I call out to her.
"Hey! We're heading home now, that alright?"
"Just ensure you arrive back here by tomorrow morning. Also you must fill out all the forms on your desk next time."
She's so much more heartless than Jan. I miss you already.
"Oh, I thought I did."
"You failed to complete what Reece added to your allotment."
"Ah, that makes sense," I mutter. "Can we take these clothes home too?"
"Impossible. Make sure you take them off before you leave; the clothing basket is located within your specified change room."
"I don't really have a change room though… or really any other sets of clothes."
She glances at me blankly, then responds.
"The administration provided you the change room you utilised upon arrival. Every one of our dedicated personnel has one elected. I'll contact Jiord regarding your clothing and only allow it this once as he said I should cater to your needs as reasonably possible."
"Thanks."
"Make sure you return them as soon as possible and don't go showing them off; usually only high-level people are permitted to exit the church with their in-house attire. These are the rules, make sure you learn them. In the meantime, I'll find some replacements for you by the time you arrive tomorrow."
"Ok, that works for me. Thanks again."
"I'll log your exit at four and a half chimes past midday."
---
"Say… what kinds of things are you interested in, Tim?"
Holding his legs, I walk through this dimly lit rubble path back to our home.
"I don't know… I never really had time to think about stuff like that."
"So you don't like me, then?"
"Oh no, of course I don't. I mean… someone whose teeth are so white, white as your hair. It's very unusual. Strange even. I've never seen a man look like you before."
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"No… it's scary."
"Really? I feel so hurt." I choke dramatically.
"I suppose it makes sense you would feel that way with that long nose and all. Although now I've just gotten used to your face, so don't go making weird faces at me."
I suppose I have gotten used to you too. To think I thought you were just some annoying kid. How endearing.
"So… you got any crushes at school?" He pokes a finger into my right ear.
"Like I'll tell you that." He wiggles it around.
"Well, I just don't want you to make any bad choices you'll regret, that's all." Walking on whilst ignoring the itch in my ear becomes increasingly difficult.
"Okay, well… there is one person."
"Oh yeah? Tell me?"
"Her name is Olfya."
"What a beautiful name. What do you like about her?"
"None Olfya's business."
"..."
My footsteps halt.
FUCK
"You really are a rascal, you know that?"
"I learned from the best."
"Oh yeah… Jimson was like that, huh?"
"No, I meant you. You're way worse, and your face just makes me want to make fun of you."
I step forward.
"Say… does this girl Olfya also have such a face too? Is that why you're so infatuated with her?"
"No, no, stop it. There's no one in my class with that name." He slaps my cheek lightly.
"I bet you bully her too to get her attention. Don't think you can hide the truth from me, boy."
"I would never." his voice goes higher in pitch.
"As if I'd believe that for a second."
We walk in silence for a little while longer, simply taking in the serenity of night.
"Say… What do you want from life, Tim?"
"To stay with you, of course." His response is quick.
"You know, there will come a time when you no longer want to spend time with me. Maybe start your own family one day, go see the world. Tell me… how would that all make you feel?" cuz it makes me feel like shit.
He stays quiet for a second, humming to himself quietly.
"I don't really know."
"No regrets? No ideas?"
"That person is not me yet. Why bother with such useless talk?"
"Just asking."
"I like where I am now. Isn't that good enough?"
"I suppose so." I barely mumble before the yurt slowly comes into our view.
"Oh, here, a present for you."
Stopping for a moment, I pull out a folded sketch of Tim's face from my robe, handing it up to him.
"Hehehe… it's so bad and ugly, this supposed to be me?!"
"I'm not so sure now. (It was) I just wanted it to be a surprise for you, so I did it all from memory. If you don't like it, you can just give it back."
"No… I'm keeping this. I'll never let you forget this failure."
Folding it along the crease carefully, he tucks it into his chest pocket. The one closest to his heart. Above it, that that small whistle dangles above catching the faint light.
Still better. My blood flutters with hearty warmth.
Entering the doorway, pale light from treated moss sprinkles throughout the room.
Entering, I lean over and sit over the edge of my beds frame.
Jumping up from out my shadow, Mute curls up next to me. Unable to resist, I meow in her ear patting at her midnight coat.
Craning her neck, she yawns letting out a faint "Moah" in that strangely familiar deep voice.
Huh?
My face droops and I stare at Tim.
Tim's contagious laugh echos from across the room causing her to retreat back into my shadow.
"Did she just say that with your voice."
She did not? How could you hear it?
"Is that what happened? I didn't hear nothing of the like."
"Yes dumb dumb," he wheezes. "She sounded exactly, just like you." Taking a moment he tries catching his breath but laughs loudly again, slapping his belly.
"Do it again." He points at me, but my stomach rumbles.
Bad habit, skipping meals when I'm working.
"I don't think I can. Besides I need to do my business first."
"What business?" It grumbles louder this time and his face looks at me disgusted.
"Go already. Over there." He tilts his head in a certain direction.
Running over, the curtain closes around me and I find myself in a tiny circle.
Its just a hole dug in the ground with a rough sponge in a wooden case and a crystal bowel balanced on the floor.
No toilet paper. No plumbing. Just... this.
I dip my hands in the crystal bowel, watching the speckled blue light glow cleansing the grime of my hands.
Strange. They can make clean water from nothing but can't make proper toilets.
Priorities in this world are all wrong..
"Hey Tim. You hungry?" I call out.
"Nah, they gave us food at school, but if you're offering dinner, I'm too full. Maybe tomorrow."
Good… at least he's fed.
I'll sort the money situation and other stuff tomorrow too, we'll make this all work.
Opening the curtain back up, the room is revealed to me
There's Tim, lying on my bed, holding open my diary, kicking his feet against the wall while leaning on it like a bean.
"What's this part in Chapter 5 about?"
"I don't know… please give back my diary, Tim. That's private."
"I turned back, pondering. This was no mere battleground. It was a slaughterhouse." He repeats mimicking my words, like before, but this time with added confusion.
"When I have spare time, I write what's on my mind. Now please return it."
I step toward him, but he darts away, loudly narrating my written words.
Shaking my head, I lay down, plumping my head on my pillow listening further.
"After wit-ness-ing the blood-bath firsthand, I could only drink in the scene. Powerless. The living expired, collapsing onto a blood-soaked earth-en bed, tucked beneath the faint vel-vet of blood-stained sheets. Above their restless-ness, the spectacle raged on. A parade of blood-sports spilled into the dark-en-ed sky."
"No it's pronounced as darken-d not dark-en-ed." I interrupt.
"Right, that's not how it's spelt though." He speaks back, resuming my words once more with a physical interpretive dance.
"Each abuse ripped out a blood-curdling screech." He jumps off his bed and opens his mouth revealing his fangs.
"No weakness spared, no mer-cy given. They fought des-perate, bound by law and wrath." He kicks the air with undisciplined ferocity.
"As though their entire species' right to exist was being weighed upon the chopping block of nat-ural selection." He plops to the floor, pretending to be fish.
"Why do you say the word 'blood' so much?" He stops, looking up at me, curious.
"I was trying to keep the metaphor alive y'know… clever word-play, right. Hey, why am I explaining myself to you?"
"Is this what sen-tists meant by survival of the fittest?"
"What's a sen-tis, and what does this part mean?" Asking loudly he open the book in my direction.
"It's pronounced scien-tist but if it helps you think of it like this sci-en-tist, instead. And survival of the fittest is like the parable of the poisoned animals trapped in the vase. Have you ever heard of it?"
He frowns his brows and scrunches his face, shaking a 'no' at me.
"It goes like this: A homeless man wants to poison an evil prince, but he only has a thousand bugs in his possession that he collected over his various travels. Wanting to check which one had the most dangerous venom, he stole a single vase and claimed it as his property.
His thinking was this: He knows most of the animals at his disposal cannot get the job done, but he also knows that many people had died from poison, in the place he obtained many of them from.
So, to sort them, he designs a test.
Putting them all into his vase, he creates a deadly environment where the last one to survive should theoretically be the most dangerous bug—the one best suited to his task."
"Survive the poison, become the poison." Tim whispers to himself.
He will get it one day.
"However, he uses the surviving bug for the assassination attempt and it ultimately fails. The bug in question was surprisingly, not toxic enough to kill his intended target."
"Really?"
"Yes, and this is why. That last survivor wasn't the most poisonous or the most deadly of the bunch, but what the man didn't find out until later was that the bug was strangely immune to all the poisons.
"What?"
"His test only really measured one thing; not what would be the most toxic creature, but which one would survive with the most probability in the environment. Turns out being unable to get poisoned, hard shell, plus having a minimal food metabolism gave this creature a massive competitive advantage.
As such it outlasted all of its competitors due to its unique traits. Through this the survivor which is the fittest passes on its genetic inheritance."
"What about the others?"
"The rest, well... they die."
"..."
"..."
"Maybe that was too dark, you can continue to practicing your reading comprehension now."
Turning back he sounds out more words.
"How could such loose, undescrip-tive phrases even attempt to en-capsulate this struggle for life? It's a world about power, dom-in-ance, and unchecked in-dulgence. This idea changes people, and protects the pred-at-ors. Complacency breeds immorality, and the resulting trauma should never be for-gott-en; it should be revered as the ultimate les-son of our society. One that is taken far too lightly. To return to our vicious ways."
He stands up from the floor and leans on me.
"This is nothing less than a true extinct-ion event for pragmatic empathy and my previous justifications, these concepts have no force to protect them here."
Looking up at me, I unleash my classic nod I've recently perfected. Slowly. Taking in my gesture, he starts to read quicker.
"Though it may not claim an entire spe-cies, how could the ex-tinc-tion of the self—or even this single group of beings, be any less bar-bar-ic? Though they were called swamp-rats, it was their sacrifice that allowed me and my comrades to journey onward through this world-ly abyss. For that, they earned my undying respect, and they challanged my naive perspective of this new-world."
"Here have it back. I'm tired now." Yawning, he slams my diary shut and lays it down.
"Quick. Tell me three things you liked about today, before you conk-out, sleepy-head."
"Fine…
One, I was just so excited to spend time with you. School was such a drag; But two, I found out you're way cooler as a teacher then a complaining person, and three you really suck at drawing."
"Don't think by complimenting me like that I'll feel any less about you reading my diary."
I toss him my other empty book.
"Here, have this. If you have anything on your mind, I suggest writing in it."
"That just sounds silly though."
"You can draw in it too if you want. Here's a quill and some ink—use it however you want, I don't care, it's yours now."
Taking the utensils out of my pockets and placing them on the bedside table makes my bedside start to look more like my office.
"Thanks… I guess." He rolls over and pulls my blanket over him.
Standing up I cover the cloth over the luminescent moss and make way back over to my bed.
"Aren't you too old for that, boy?"
"I think not." he speaks into his pillow, making some space for me.
"Well… I guess it's fine then."
Finding a comfortable spot to rest, his light snore already fills up the room.
Sleepyhead.
I wriggle over to giving him more space, then something digs into my side making my skin feel irritated..
Shifting over, I reach into my pocket.
The file key. Right, I forgot to return it. First the clothes now the key, I am a mess today.
As I Take it out of my pocket, my fingers brush something else. Dryness now absorbs my fingers moisture.
Slowly I pull it out.
A note.
My heart palpitates.
When did someone—?
I pat down my other pockets. Everything else is where it should be.
Someone must've got close enough to slip this in without me noticing.
Unfolding the scrap, I angle it toward a singular beam of light leaking through the woven cloth.
The handwriting is clean, cursive and noticeably legible:
My hands go numb.
Tim shifts beside me, still sound asleep.
I read it again. Then again.
This can't be true.
I chew up and swallow the finger-sized note and stare into the indented ceiling.
But what if it is?